Page 36 of Sinful Memory

“Yeah?”

“Come get Cato.” I step off the final stair and blow past Steve, then I shove through the glass front door and stop on the sidewalk to wait for Fletch. “Come and get him, Felix, because I’m putting him on the street.”

He chuckles, infuriatingly casual as he sits back in a chair—I hear the squeak of its hardware—and lights up a smoke. He inhales a long breath, then releases it again so I can almost taste the nicotine on my tongue. “What’s wrong, Arch? He fuck your girl?”

“No! But he’s fucking anything with legs, and now he’s bringing them home tomy girl’scouch.”

“Like a cat bringing home a mouse,” he sniggers. “That was a gift for you, Arch. Where’s your gratitude?”

I scrub my hand over my face in frustration. “That was disrespectful. And she looks too fucking much like my wife for me to not see red. So come and get your brother before I strangle him.”

“You’re not gonna strangle me.” Cato saunters to a stop beside me and smirks. “Hey, Felix.”

“I raised him,” Felix gloats. “I was the one feeding that little prick in the middle of the night, while you were gallivanting all over the country and living your best life. I didn’t ask for a kid, and I won’t lie, I considered killing him a few times. Now it’s your turn.”

“You raised a feral! He’s broken, Lix. He can’t be rehabilitated.”

“That’s hurtful,” Cato interjects with a frown. “I’m just a kid, remember?”

“Dude.” Fletch grabs Cato’s arm and drags him away before I explode. “Now’d be a good time to shut the fuck up.”

“Lix…” I growl.

“You’re mad because he was banging someone?” He laughs. “Really? That’s it? That’s your big issue? Pretty sure you were fucking at his age, too.”

“Yeah, but I was fucking women my own age!” Though, memories of my tutor ping across my consciousness.An adult and a child. Grooming.“If he wants to get himself a regular girlfriend, the same age as he is, then I’ll work on being okay with it. But he’s finding a new, adult woman on the daily, Lix. This isn’t healthy.”

“Self-righteousness looks ugly on you,” he snorts. “Hypocrisy is gross. Sure, you’re marriednow. You’re committed to one womannow. But don’t act like you were any different to him this time last year.”

“I was a grown man this time last year!”

“Yeah, but you enjoyed new women daily, from the time you were younger than he is now. Rewriting history doesn’t make you a better person, bro. It just makes you a liar. Now…” he draws a long puff from his cigarette. “She looked like Mayet, huh? Did you get her number?”

“Fuck you.” I tear the phone from my ear and kill our call, sincefuck youis the best comeback I have.

Which is pitiful, really. Shameful.

Then shoving the device in my pocket, I turn away and press my palms to my face.

I block out the spring sun and ignore how it warms my skin. How sweat beads on my back, and my heart thumps in my chest.

“You… okay?” Fletch questions quietly. “Do we need a Malone intervention, or…?”

Lowering my hands to my lips, I spin back to my best friend and my kid brother, and wonder what I’m supposed to do with this. He’s a kid, but he’s not. He wants these women, instead of aiming for one his own age.

“Okay, I see the error in my ways.” Like this is all a joke to him, Cato laughingly raises his palms in surrender. “Bringing someone back to your place maybe wasn’t cool.”

“Ya think? I moved in there with Minka, Cato. That’s her place. Her things. That’s her fucking couch, not mine.”

“So I won’t do that again,” he smirks, dropping his hands to fold his arms across his chest. “I’ll take my guests back to your vacant apartment.”

“I would rather you call Dr. Mathers,” I grit out. “Talk this shit out. The rest of us are already messed up, it’s too late for us. But you’re still young, so we have a chance to save you.”

He only chuckles. “I’ll take your advice under consideration.” Then he lifts his brows. “Why’d you come home in the middle of the day? Why’d you wanna see me?”

“I shouldn’t even tell you.” I turn on my heels and start toward the station to get a car. “You don’t deserve to know. You don’t deserve shit after disrespecting my home the way you did.”

“Oh please.” He jogs to catch up and walks on my right so our shoulders brush. “You missed me?”

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