Page 69 of A Hurt So Good

We make it home after hours of walking or stumbling since we’ve been drinking so much. We both laugh as we make our way up the stairs and into the house. She’s sitting there as soon as we come in, in the middle of the goddamn floor.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask. She looks up, anger in her gaze as she looks between us.

“Oh, shit,” War mumbles.

“You have no fucking right to put a tracker on my phone. Who the hell do you think you are?” she yells as she climbs to her feet. I’m too drunk for this.

“We have every right. And it seems it’s a good thing we did,” I tell her.

“A good thing? A good fucking thing? Are you serious? Denz told me if he went to jail one more time, he could lose the chance to have Sasha if something happened to his mom. What if they would have caught him? Huh?” Damn, her anger is sexy as hell, and I wish I had seen more of it. I stumble toward her, taking another pull from my drink before offering it to her. She slaps my hand away and rests her hands on her hips.

“Don’t be so mad, Arya. We had it covered,” I tell her. She reaches up and grabs my chin in her fingers, tilting my face to look at the bruise I’m sure Dean left there.

“What happened to your face?”

“Cops. Cops happened to my face,” I slur.

“You’re fucking drunk. You get arrested, you get released, and you think it’s smart to get drunk on the walk home?”

“Yeah, mom. That’s exactly how it happened.” She is fire-red right now. I’ve never seen her this angry before. War walks over, throwing his arm around her and pulling her into his side even though she doesn’t want to be there.

“Listen, little bird. It’s been a trying night for everyone. Let’s just have a drink and calm down.”

“I don’t want a fucking drink! I want to know why the hell you’d put Denz in that situation!”

“He’s fine, Arya! You know what? He’s my fucking brother. And if you think for one goddamn second I would put either one of them in danger, then you don’t know shit about me,” War growls at her. She blinks rapidly as he pulls away from her and storms off toward the steps.

“He’s right, you know? We wouldn’t put each other in danger, Arya. That’s not what we do. We already knew if the cops got called, he was out, and we were in. I thought you knew us better than that?” I keep my voice calm as she blinks rapidly. I know she’s trying not to cry right now, but she needed to hear it. We’d never have let Denz take the fall for that shit.

I walk past her and down the steps where War is sitting on the couch and Denz is passed out asleep. I drop down next to War and sigh, taking another long pull from my bottle.

“You good?” I ask.

“I’m fine. Just a little pissed,” he says. I nod my head because I understand that.

“She was just worried about Denz,” I remind him trying to calm the anger in him.

“Yeah, I get that, but come the fuck on. Is that what she thinks of us? That we would let our own brother fall?”

“No. That isn’t what I thought at all.” I hear her voice, and I turn my head to see her at the bottom of the steps. I motion for her to come over, and she does, sitting right in between the two of us.

“I’m sorry. Both of you. I don’t have a family. I don’t have brothers or sisters, so this is all new to me. I’ve never had someone have my back the way you guys have each other,” shereaches up and swipes a tear from her cheek. “I wasn’t just worried about Denz either. I was worried about all of you.”

“Why didn’t you just tell us about him?”

“He’s the reason I’m here. The reason I failed at life,” she says.

“You didn’t fail at life, Arya,” I tell her.

“I let myself fall for him. I let myself believe he loved me and wanted more out of life with me when all he actually wanted was to steal everything I had. I was stupid, and yeah, I failed at that part of my life.”

“You learned a lesson. There’s a big difference between failing and learning a lesson,” War tells her.

“I’m really sorry,” she says, looking up at me now. I lean down and kiss her, letting her know I’m okay. Then she turns to War, and he smirks at her.

“Open your mouth, little bird,” he says. Arya opens her mouth as he takes a long pull from his bottle, tips her head back, and slowly lets the alcohol trickle from his mouth into hers. Then he leans in and devours her mouth with his.

“Now that’s all settled. You drinking?” I ask her. She nods her head and reaches for my bottle, but War doesn’t let her.

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