Page 55 of Unspoken Words
“No, I don’t think.” I grimaced at a pair of fluffy dice dangling from his rearview mirror. “But what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means. You’ve been absent, he’s been there.”
I snapped my head in his direction as he took a sharp turn. “What do you mean he’s beenthere?”
“Exactly what I said. He’s been there, a lot. Helping her out with homework, helping her out with netball practice, helping her out with boredom.”
My fingers gripped his sheepskin seat covers. “So he’s been making a move?”
“Looks that way.”
“Why wouldn’t Ellie, or even Lilah, have told me?”
“Depends whether you’ve been helping twin number two out with ‘boredom’ as well?”
“Of course I fucking haven’t. Ellie is my girl. Always has, always will be.”
“Not sure she knows that right now.”
“Of course she does. I’ve never given her reason not to know that.”
We drove in silence for a bit until I noticed he pulled into his street—the opposite direction of my house.
“Thought you were takin’ me home.”
“I am. Tomyhome. You need to pull your head in and talk to my sister.”
“Yeah? Well, she’s got some explainin’ to do as well.” I counted down the house numbers in my head as we neared number six.
“She cries every night, man. I’m sick of hearing her cry.”
“What?” My stomach twisted. “Then why hasn’t she just bloody talked to me? She started this.”
Hearing that Ellie had been as distraught as I had, pissed me off. If she wasn’t so bloody stubborn and had just come to me or writtenmea note for once, spending a month without one another wouldn’t have happened. All she’d had to do was talk to me. Fuck, she was the one good with words, not me.
My heart ached for missing her like crazy, and I could almost smell, taste and feel her as we pulled into their driveway, my yearning and remorse lodging in my throat when I spotted her with Tristan.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Keep calm, Bourke. They’re just shooting hoops.”
The dickhead was standing behind her, guiding her arm to hold the ball, ready to take a shot. His technique was shit; he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing … or maybe he did.
“Does that look like ‘just shooting hoops’ to you?”
Chris cricked his neck and twitched his eye.
“Exactly. Stop the car!”
Before he could pull on the handbrake and cut the engine, I wrenched the door open and climbed out, my eyes glazed with red. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER,” I shouted.
Ellie spun around and stepped back, the ball dropping from her grip. “Connor, what are—”
“What am I doing here? I’ve come to be the bigger person and talk shit out withmy girlfriend. Seems that may have been a waste of time.”
She stepped forward. “Oh, sonowyou want to talk? That’s new.”
“Cut the bullshit, Ellie.”
