Page 66 of Sinful Like Us
“Leaving out some facts isn’t lying,” O’Malley repeats with a dry laugh. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
With our height difference, I stare down at him. Hating how he keeps bumping up against me. My flexed arms stay woven over my chest, biceps bulged.
“I bet your new friends don’t even really know you.” He glances past my shoulder and zeroes in on Farrow, Oscar, Quinn, and Donnelly. “Did he ever tell you we both went to Saint Joseph’s High School?”
Strain stretches the air. Omega doesn’t give O’Malley the satisfaction of wearing surprise.
“Why would that come up?” I ask him. “You were in a grade below me. I barely knew you.” We had different social circles. I was a football player who worked church functions to get tuition.
He was well-off and voted student body president.
“I don’t know, Thatcher,” O’Malley snaps. “Maybe I thought my lead cared about other things than finding roundabout ways to fuck Jane.”
Hearing her name causes my muscles to tense. Like my body is triggered into defense-mode.
SFO starts launching insults at him, either on my behalf or Jane’s—I can’t tell.
“Let him talk,” I say loudly, silencing Omega, and then I nod O’Malley onward. “You have shit on your chest. Get it off.”
He cranes his neck more to look up at me. “Admit what you did was wrong.”
“I can’t do that.” Flat-out.
I can’t.
Being with Jane is the most right thing I’ve ever done.
“Great.” He’d be in my face if he could reach it. “So you’re saying that if I find myself in a room alone with Luna Hale, and she comes ontome, I’m in the clear to fuck her. Right there. Down and dirty on the floor.”
I almost snap.
I almost yell,she’s nineteen!
But Jane is only twenty-three. SFO rustles behind me, fuming. I take a short glance backwards. Oscar looks murderous.
Farrow straightens up more than usual. He places a hand on Donnelly’s chest. “Ignore the fucker.”
“He’s been asking for a fight.” Donnelly boils. “He’s gonna get hit—”
“Come here then,” O’Malley goads, but his attention veers to Luna’s bodyguard.
“You can’t talk about my client like that,” Quinn growls.
He raises his hands. “I’m just using the precedent Omega has set. If they’re of age and willing, then it’s fair game, right?”
“No,” I say harshly.Deescalate this shit.I try to take a breath.“You were Luna’s bodyguard when she was sixteen,” I remind O’Malley. “Jane was twenty-two, an adult, when I was on her detail. Maximoff was twenty-two when Farrow went to his. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s fucking different.”
His jaw drops, like he can’t believe I’m rationalizing this. “Who the fuck are you?”
“The same person who spoke to you your first day.”
“No, that guy is dead. You chose pussy over your own integrity,” he sneers. “Hope it tastes worth it.”
I see red.
It’s a switch, but all I want is distance. I want him out of my perimeter. I want him to stop bumping against my fucking chest.
Like a reflex, I uncross my arms and shove him back. He careens into a punching bag. It sways, but he barely loses balance on his feet. He charges at me.
