Better Hate than Never (The Wilmot Sisters, #2)(5)
Catching him off guard, I wrench the pies out of Christopher’s hands. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have a walk as well as a couple pies to enjoy by myself.”
Breezing by him, I round the corner and stomp the remaining five long blocks leading to the apartment. I don’t once look back, but I feel his eyes on me the whole way.
As the foyer door of the building drops shut behind me, I scowl down at the pastry boxes in my hands. “You had better be the best damn pumpkin pies of my life.” Wrenching open the inside door, I traipse up the stairs, anger a white-hot inferno burning through me. “Nothing less would make what I just suffered worth it.”
? TWO ?
Christopher
Thunder rumbles as the sky darkens to an ominous steely gray. Dashing across the lawn to the Wilmots’, I scowl up at the clouds. Thanks to the rapidly changing barometric pressure and the habit my brain has of viewing my rare days off as great times for a migraine, I’m staving one off only by the grace of a strong abortive medication that I downed the second I felt pain sink its claws into my temples and scrape down my skull.
Up until thirty minutes ago, I wasn’t sure if the meds would work in time—whether I was spending Thanksgiving buried under the blankets with the curtains drawn, or next door with the Wilmots.
Though, with Kate being home, I’m not sure attending Thanksgiving is going to be any less painful than a migraine.
Taking their porch stairs two at a time, I grit my teeth and mentally prepare myself.
I spend all the holidays with the Wilmots, but I’m not used to sharing them with Kate. The Wilmots’ youngest daughter, the always-traveling globe-trotter, she’s so rarely home, I can’t remember the last holiday she spent here since she graduated from college. Which has been a mercy, because since I’ve known her—and that would be since she was placed as a newborn in my six-year-old arms, then promptly blew out her diaper and drenched my clothes in shit—she’s been a menace to my existence. A sentiment that came naturally when we were kids and that I clung to when we became adults.
Kate despises me, which I’ve told myself I welcome. Despising means distance. And distance means safety. If you’d watched the people who were your world slip into a car and never come back, if one small choice meant their death and your life irrevocably altered, you’d value safety, too.
As I step up to the front door of the Wilmots’, I catch my reflection in its window glass and grimace.
I look as rough as I did an hour ago in the bathroom mirror. It’s not just the narrowly avoided migraine that’s to blame—I slept like shit last night. I never sleep well, but last night was unsurprisingly worse, after running into Kate.
Angling my face up and to the side, I examine my reflection, the purple-green bruise that’s bloomed on my jaw where Kate’s hard head knocked into it. I debated shaving the dark stubble that hides it well. If I didn’t shave, there would be no questions, no concern that I covet as much as I recoil from.
But if I did shave and the bruise was evident, Maureen—Kate, Jules, and Bea’s mom, a mother to me, too—would not only see it and fuss over me, but also demand an explanation.
And then I’d just have to tell her Kate was wandering the city at night, all alone, with her headphones on, like a stubborn sitting duck, when she plowed right into me.
Obviously, I decided to shave.
Gripping the handle, I ease open the front door. Like it or not, I have to face Kate again. At least this time I won’t be caught off guard.
“Boo!”
“Goddammit.” I spin, heart pounding, and face Kate. Glaring at her, I start to shut the door, but the wind takes over, dragging it out of my grip before it closes with an echoing thud.
Kate stands with Puck, the ancient family cat, propped on one shoulder, stroking his long white fur like a conniving villainess. Mahogany hair piled messily on her head, like always. Devious, sparkling blue-gray eyes flecked with sage. She bats her lashes innocently. “Oops.”
“Oops, my ass.” I hike the bag containing my food and wine contributions higher on my shoulder. “Like that was any less intentional than any of your other jump scares.”
“Poor Christopher. Did I scare you?”
My jaw clenches so hard it creaks. “You didn’t scare me.”
Too much.
Suddenly, she steps closer. I take a step back. Keeping distance between us is second nature.
Kate frowns. “Would you stop? I just need to say something and then we can part miserable ways.”
“Say it already, then.” My jaw clenches again. I can’t take being close to her, seeing the freckles dusting her nose, the fiery flash in her eyes. My gaze drags down her face, disobeying my commands, taking stock of her. The long line of her neck. The stretch of her collarbones—
That’s when I realize her right arm is tucked in a sling.
The same arm she was holding tight to her side last night.
I frown, an unwelcome sensation tugging at my chest. We bumped into each other pretty roughly last night—I have the bruised jaw to prove it—but it shouldn’t have been bad enough to put her shoulder in a sling. I could tell she was hurting from our collision, but she swung her arm around, showed me it was fine . . .
Then again, I know the games she can play. I came prepared with my bruised jaw. Kate’s got her sling. Maybe she’s not hurt but instead planning on faking it in front of her mom, casting me as the bad guy.