Ensnared (Brutes of Bristlebrook, #1)(90)

My grip on the screwdriver tightens, and I imagine it plunging into his neck. It’s long enough—could probably get him right through the voice box.

“And on and on . . .”

“Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”

“Not really. Drying shed’s stocked. Eden’s hanging out with Jasper today.” He grimaces and looks at the ground. “She wanted to smooth things over with him, I guess.”

Of course she’s with Jasper.

What would those two have to argue about? Whether caviar tastes better with crackers, or just on the tiny little silver spoons they were born with?

My mood sours further as I stare at the coils of wires I’ve been looking at for weeks. His highness is exactly who a princess like her would get all wet over, with his fancy books and fancy hair and degrees. The kind of guy who said things like “existential” and “grandiloquent.”

I catch sight of my greasy fingers and scowl. Pulling out of the machine, I slam the door shut again, not bothering to re-secure the panel. What’s the point? The damn thing’s broken beyond fixing. Better to just get it out of here.

Lucky stares at me from where he’s still sprawled where I shoved him.

“Why don’t you go run off and play with them?”

They’d probably love that. Most annoying shit on the planet but everyone just loves Lucky. Ryan was like that. Probably the only reason I haven’t actually beaten his head in yet.

Lucky’s mouth twists in a way I’m used to seeing in the mirror. “Nah, I’m good.”

My scowl deepens as I stare at him. I don’t do the touchy-feely shit.

“She told me she was spending the day with you,” I tell him, not really sure why.

She’d come in all pretty and pink-cheeked from the morning frost. Some idiotic thing in my head thought she was coming back to work in here with me. But that really was stupid. That day was a one off. She was hiding from Dom and needed the big bad monster to protect her.

If she really wanted to hang out, she wouldn’t come to me.

This morning, she dropped off some breakfast and said she was spending the day out in the sunshine with the circus rat.

And that just made sense. She doesn’t fit in this grubby, dark place. Matter of fact, I’m starting to think I don’t much fit in this place either.

“She did?” Lucky sits up and wraps his arms around his knees, an odd expression on his face. “Guess she changed her mind.”

“Yeah, well, at least you made the shortlist,” I mutter, resentment clogging my throat.

Lucky blinks, and his brows shoot up. I bite my tongue with another scowl and turn around, packing away my tools again.

My mouth is running on stupid today, apparently.

“Whatever. We can have just as much fun!” Lucky insists with mind-numbing brightness.

“Fuck off.”

He jumps up so he’s sitting on the workbench beside me. His ass is on my favorite rag. “Come on, you’ve got to be sick of being in here all day. Come spar with me. I’m rusty.”

I tug at the rag. “I’ll kill you.”

“You try to kill me, I try to kill you—what are friends for, anyway?”

He lifts one cheek off the rag and does some wide, pleading thing with his eyes. I yank the rag out from under him with a grunt. “We’re not friends.”

Lucky presses one hand to his chest. “Well, now you’re just being mean.”

“Move.”

“No.”

I glare at him. “Get. Out.”

He examines his nails. “Nah.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I explode. “We are not friends.”

Shoving away from the work bench, I stare around the barn, not sure what to do next. The uncomfortable ache I’ve had in my chest the past few weeks turns hot. I’ll raid the doc’s supplies later.

It’s probably heartburn.

I pull Ryan’s old pocketknife out of my side pocket, then start flipping it between my fingers—but I’ve never been able to nail the tricks the way he used to do. “You think I don’t know I’m just some guy in the same regiment that just happened to be around when it all went to shit?” I scoff. “I don’t care. You’re all slumber buddies who like to braid each other’s hair or whatever, that’s fine. Whatever gets you hard. But leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.”

The outburst feels good. They always do. But underneath that is a sick, gnawing feeling in my gut. There’ve been a lot of different run-ins with the guys over the years. It’s always been pretty clear I’m the ugly duck of the heroic little swan crew.

Heather was the first one who made me seriously think about leaving, but it didn’t get much better after she left. The shit the other day, realizing just what kind of person they really think I am . . . that’s got to be the end of it. I don’t belong here—and they don’t want me here. Not really.

And as for her . . . well, whatever. She’s just the latest girl around. She’ll choose one of them, and there ain’t a speck of doubt in my mind that I’m not making that shortlist either.

I realize I’m towering over Lucky. Wide eyed, he stares at me. “For the record, I braid my own hair. Beau’s the only one with any skill at all, and he pretty much always refuses to help me.”