Page 21 of Stripping Keys
Weird.
I don’t know what’s up with the two of them, but a part of me wants to know. The bitch in me really wants to come out and demand to know, but at the same time, I couldn’t and would never hurt West in the process.
He’s one of the only people I couldn’t do that to. I can be bitchy toward him, but not in a way that would see him hurt.
Instead, I level a look toward my brother. “What I do with my life isn’t any of your business or anyone else’s. That is, unless I decide to make that knowledge available to you all.”
Marshall opens his mouth, but it’s Marley who speaks up. “You know what,” she snaps, “You need to knock it off with being a bitch. We just want to know what the hell you’re hiding because for two months,” she emphasizes, “you’ve been MIA. No one could reach you on the phone. I couldn’t track you down. Neither could Dad nor Keys, for that matter. We’ve had to worry about whether or not you were dead in a ditch. Mom cried more than I’ve seen her cry . . .”
“You can stop right there with your high and mighty guilt trip,” I snap, getting to my feet, hands planting on the table as I glare down at my sister. “You want to sit there and talk, let me remind you that not three months ago you had been keeping our parents out of your business.”
“They knew what I did for a living,” she protests.
“They might have known some, but you didn’t share it all with them. Did you? No, you didn’t. You kept what you wanted to keep to yourself. Now, you’re sitting there trying to lay out a guilt trip for me. Oh, please, don’t even think about it. It won’t work.”
Okay, so that was a lie, but she didn’t need to know it. Mom could be used as a weakness for me. I wasn’t going to let them in on that tiny fact.
“Marla,” Keys says, his hands coming to rest on either side of my waist. His body presses into my back, and he whispers in my ear. “Calm down.”
“Fuck calm,” I snap and continue on. “You can’t sit there, Marley, and try to bullshit me like this and think it will work. As you would say, I’m all about me. Selfish, so what the fuck do I care? Well, you’re right. I don’t give a damn about the fact you all worry.”
Stepping away from Keys’s grip and the rest of my family, I stalk away from them all. I didn’t care. I really didn’t. They could think what they wanted. They always will. Didn’t matter that they don’t know me. Not the real me. And the fact that I did care. More than any of them knew.
I don’t bother going outside the clubhouse. I didn’t even think about it. Instead, I stalked back the way I came and went right to Keys’s room. I’d rather be locked in there than hearing and feeling my family’s judgment for not giving in to their demands.
CHAPTER TEN
WEST
Oh fuck, this was not good. Not good at all. Marla’s family doesn’t realize just how much they’ve hurt her. Mostly Marshall and Marley. They couldn’t just stay out of it. They butted in. That’s the last thing they should’ve ever done.
Every time one of them had called, not that Marley called much. She’d text. Marshall, however, he’d call at least once a week minimum.
“What is her problem?” Marley huffs, sitting back in her seat, Griz’s hands going to her shoulders, squeezing them.
The two of them are cute together. I can see what Marley sees in him, though he’s definitely not the type I’d go for. Too much gruffness to him for my liking.
“She’s acting like nothing we say or do matters to her,” Marley continues.
“That’s because you don’t know her,” I tell her and glance in Keys’s direction only to find he was on the move, going after Marla.
Good.
Maybe he could do something to help her. I could hope so. During my report to Calyx, I shared about how Keys locked her up in his room, and he laughed his ass off over it. I didn’t expect that, and he shared his plan with me, saying the two of them needed to get their heads out of their asses, and he was taking advantage of the situation to make it happen.
My thoughts on it were that I hoped she didn’t get hurt in the process.
“What do you mean, we don’t know her? She’s our sister. We’ve known her since she was born.” Marshall growls.
That growl sends a chill down my spine. Not a bad chill. A good one. A very good one that I fight to keep from becoming visible. There’s no way I was allowing him to know just how much he affects me.
It’s not like he doesn’t already know.
More than once, the two of us have gotten together, hooked up. For him, it was nothing more than just that. For me, it was more. I knew what I was. Who I was, but I wasn’t telling anyone about it. Not because I was ashamed, but because I wanted someone who didn’t know what they wanted, let alone who.
And that hurt.
No one ever measured up to him, so I’ve been nothing more than his dirty little secret, and I hated it. Yet I couldn’t move on. I was stuck and didn’t know how to become unstuck.
