Page 69 of Ringer's Freedom

Boots crunching against gravel pull my attention away from where I’m tightening a bolt, and when I look up, I come face to face with the object of my frustrations.

I cast a glance sideways as Ghost kicks a shop stool out and drops his big frame down onto it. We stare at each other for a beat before he lets out a loud sigh. I refuse to be the one to break the silence. He fucking pissed me off, and I won’t give him the satisfaction of speaking first. He may be my big brother, but I don’t fucking care.

Getting sick of waiting for him to say something, I turn my attention back to my bike.

After another sigh of frustration, Ghost breaks the silence. “You know I’m just trying to look out for you, yeah?”

“And?” I ask without looking his way.

“You just got out of fucking prison, Em.”

“I’m well fucking aware, Kelan. As you and every other fucking person keep fucking reminding me.” I shake my head, irritated. “You aren’t the one that was locked in that fucking joint for eight years.Iwas.”

“What I’m trying to get at is think of the reason you were there in the first place.”

“Again, I am well aware of why I was there. Thought about it every day for 2,864 days.”

“You know I love Lilah like she was blood, but why the fuck would you want to go and marry the reason you were arrested?”

“Did Lilah arrest me?” I ask, looking my brother directly in the eye.

He shakes his head.

“Did Lilah force me to beat the shit out of that kid? Did she hold me at gunpoint? Did she call the cops on me? Did she come behind me and kill the kid when I wasn’t looking?”

Ghost continues to stare at me, his eyebrows scrunching in with my rhetorical questioning.

“Let’s pretend for a minute that it wasn’t Lilah I was protecting that night. Let’s pretend it was some other girl at that party that I saw getting taken advantage of, and it had the same outcome. Would you be so pressed to give me shit about marrying Lilah?”

“But itwasher, Em.”

“I don’t give a fuck, Kelan.” I toss the wrench down with a clang and push myself off the floor before glaring at Ghost. “Are you telling me that you’ve blamed Lilah all these years for me going away?”

His slight hesitation is all the answer I need. My brother, the guy who is always so sure of himself, who I’ve always looked up to until right now, stumbles over his words. “No.”

At my glare, he pushes out another sigh, dropping his head back.

“Not on fucking purpose. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t blame her in the back of my mind. I never treated her any differently, Emmett. It’s fucking Lilah. I could never. But yes, I do blame her.” Kicking the chair out from under himself, he pushes to his feet also. “How the fuck could I not? What the fuck was she even doing at that party in the first place, Em? She was fifteen, for fucks sake.”

“Which is exactly why we followed her there.”

“Exactly my fucking point, Emmett! If you never would’ve followed her there, you never would’ve fucked up your life.”

I shake my head at my brother in exasperation. “My life isn’t over, Kel.”

“I’m not going to apologize for being worried about this.”

“That’s fine. But you are going to respect it. And you aren’t going to treat her like shit for it,” I growl.

“You know I'd never mistreat her.”

“That’s absolutely fucking right. You’re going to treat her like your brother’s ol’ lady.”

His eyes widen at the term, and he looks like he’s going to say something. He must think better of it because he snaps his mouth closed and gives me a curt nod.

His ringtone blaring from his pocket breaks up the tension in the garage as he excuses himself to answer.

I turn back to my bike, cleaning up the small mess I made as the events of the weekend flow through my mind again.

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