Page 135 of I Shouldn't Feel This Way

“That’s because I was adopted.”

“Your adoption has nothing to do with why I’ve cut you out of my life,” Noah stated.

Wow, they’re not related,I thought in wonderment. The eyes were a dead giveaway, but he had the same masculine frame as Noah, so I’d assumed he was my biological uncle.

“Jeez, stop being a jerk and let him in,” Vienna said, squeezing between Noah and my stepmom. She formally introduced herself and dragged Evan inside. She probably just wanted to flirt with him and punchhernumber into his cellphone, and why wouldn’t she? My uncle was definitely easy on the eyes.

We were all about to gather in the living room, when Noah pulled Evan aside and told us that they would return shortly.

How come he’s so hostile toward him? And why didn’t he ever tell me about Evan?The questions were killing me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

noah

I paced around my study and glared at my brother. The last time I’d seen him, he was nineteen. Now the guy was almost twenty-six.

“What do you want, Evan?” I said. “Why are you here?”

“You need to relax, man. Married life has clearly made you crankier than I remember.”

“You were flirting with my daughter, for fuck’s sake!”

“I didn’t know she was Aria. I thought she was your wife.”

“That’s just as bad! What kind of man are you to put the moves on another man’s wife?”

“Take it easy.” He chuckled. “I was kidding around. Your lady’s not much of a head turner anyway, what with all that plastic in her face.”

“Okay, that’s it.” I stormed over, grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him against the wall. “I’m not going to allow you to come in here like some punk and disrespect my family to my face!”

“Well, technically, I was only referring to your wife.”

“My wifeismy family, you moron!” He was making me so fucking angry. Nothing had changed.

“Calm down, bro.”

“Do not call me that. I amnotyour brother.” I stared him down threateningly before releasing him. Giving Evan a shiner was far too tempting, so I kept a safe distance and resisted the urge to swing my fist.

“When are you ever going to forgive me?” he asked.

“Never.”

“It was an accident, Noah. You know that it was! Why can’t you believe me?”

“Because you had every motive to kill our father.” I wasn’t yelling, there was just no emotion in my voice. “Do you even remember that weekend? Or have drugs and alcohol screwed up your brain?”

“I experimented when I was sixteen. I’m not the addict in the family.”

Indirect low blows. Now Ireallywanted to knock his teeth out.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” I started, “but since you’re so curious as to why I doubt you, let’s go through the tragic chain of events, shall we?” I slowly paced around him like a district attorney cross-examining a defendant. “Dad sits us all down one evening and reveals his will. Dad drops a bomb on us, declaring you his rightful successor when he dies. Dad dies four weeks later.” Was I accusing him of murder? A definite yes. “You were going to take over the company. Isaac and I fought him on his decision because—let’s be honest—you were never going to buckle down and get serious about life. To this very day I can’t understand why he had so much faith in you to even consider you first. It’s mind-boggling. You were flunking school, getting yourself in trouble almost every weekend, and you chose partying as a full-time job instead of establishing a career for yourself.”

“That was eight years ago! You make it sound like you forget what it’s like to be eighteen and in college.”

“That’s not the point. My point is, you killed Dad on purpose that day in the woods because you were afraid he would change his will since Isaac kept badgering him to come to his senses. You never got along with Dad. He loved you enough to believe in your ability to run his company one day. And what did you do? You shot him point blank. You murdered our father for money.”

“How can you even accuse me of that? You were there, Noah! It was foggy as fuck! I didn’t see him! Don’t you remember how we all separated at one point?”

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