Page 35 of Love Thy Brother
“You’re gonna babysit me?”
“You ain’t giving me a choice.”
“There’s always a choice. You could just fucking leave. Go home and bang some girl from the club like you always do.”
Rubi snorted. “That right? Parading them in and out of my shitty gaff, am I? Railing them in your brother’s bed when he ain’t using it?”
“You say it like you’ve never done it.”
“Yousay it like I still do. Like you’re a fucking virgin. You never banged anyone who ain’t me, Riv?”
Course I had. I fucked a girl two weeks after he walked out on me.Oneweek after he’d rejected me in the hospital. It’d left me sick to my stomach and I hadn’t hooked up since.
He broke me.
But in this moment, it was him who seemed fractured. Frayed at the edges and coming apart.
Too much time had lapsed for me to answer his question. He made of my silence whatever the fuck he wanted. Didn’t matter. We’d been bitching at each other for two days straight and nothing had changed.
A phone buzzed.
Mine.
I pulled it out, expecting the shitty text from Skylar. Counting on it, to remind me which way was up.
It wasn’t Skylar.
Cam:be careful with him.
I typed fast with both thumbs.
River:Send him that message. He just tossed my connect in the motherfucking sea.
Cam:good. my point stands.
River:Your point is too cryptic for me to give a shit. Explain it or fuck off.
Three dots appeared as Cam typed a response that was likely as barbed as mine. We were both hotheads. Quick to snap unless better men stopped us.
Rubi was a better man, but he’d gone eerily still, his gaze distant.
I moved to pocket my phone, but it buzzed again.
Cam:I’m just saying don’t fuck with him too hard. If you want me to elaborate, pick up the phone when I call you tomorrow.
Promises, promises. My brother broke them a lot. Not on purpose, but a sin was a sin.
I tossed my phone between my hands. Dropped it cos it was cold and I hadn’t eaten anything real since...
Fuck, I had no clue.
Rubi scooped up my phone. He eyed the blank screen as if he wanted to climb inside and see who I’d been texting. Like he thought I’d been messaging Pablo Escobar to score.
I held out my hand. “Give it back.”
Rubi shook his head, pocketing it as I rose to reach for it. “You can have it back when you eat something.”
He walked off before I could answer, brushing past me and slipping through the gate.
