“Get out of my way, Sloane,” I snarled in her face.
Then there was a hand on my chest, and I was being shoved back hard.
“Wrong target, friend.” Lucian, looking more casual in jeans and a fleece than I’d seen him in a decade, fisted his hands in my coat.
The rage in his eyes clued me in that I was skating on thin ice. I could take my brother, especially when he was one-armed. But I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could take on Nash and Lucian and live to tell the tale.
“I don’t need your protection, you big, rich idiot,” Sloane snapped at Lucian.
He ignored her in favor of backing me away from the fire. Away from my family. From my stupid dog who had his snout in what looked like a casserole dish of hot dogs.
“Let me go, Luce,” I warned him.
“I will when you’re not determined to go down and take innocent bystanders with you.”
Interesting. He was pissed not because I’d come at Nash and Naomi but because I’d gotten in Sloane’s face.
“Thought you couldn’t stand her,” I taunted.
Lucian gave me another shove, and I stumbled backwards.
“Christ, Knox. You don’t have to be such an asshole all the time.”
“Born that way,” I shot back.
“Bullshit. What you show to the world is a choice. And right now, you’re making the stupid choice.”
“I did the right thing, man.”
Lucian produced a cigarette and a lighter. “Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.”
“I told her not to get attached. I warned her.” I looked over Lucian’s shoulder and saw Naomi standing next to the fire, her back to me. Nash’s arm around her.
My chest tightened again, and that pang was a goddamn knife wound now.
Maybe I’d told her not to get attached, but I hadn’t done myself the same courtesy. I never thought it was something I had to worry about.
But Naomi Witt, runaway bride and compulsive cleaner, had her hooks in me.
“I did the right thing,” I said again as if repeating it would make it true.
With his eyes on me, Lucian lit his cigarette. “It never occurred to you that the right thing would have been to be the man your father couldn’t be?”
Fuck. That one landed like a bell ringer.
“Go fuck yourself, Lucy.”
“Try to unfuck yourself, Knox.” And with that, he wandered back to the fire, leaving me alone in the dark.
I saw a flash of pink out of the corner of my eye and found Waylay standing a few feet away from me. Waylon sat at her feet.
“Hey, Way,” I said, suddenly feeling like the biggest, stupidest asshole on the planet.
“Hey, Knox.”
“How’s it going?”
She shrugged, those blue eyes fixed on me, her face blank.
“How did soccer practice go? I meant to swing by but—”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend. Aunt Naomi ’n me are used to people not wanting us.”
“Way, that’s not fucking fair. That’s not why things didn’t work out between your aunt and me.”
“Whatever. You probably shouldn’t swear in front of kids. They might learn something from you.”
Ouch.
“I’m serious, kid. You two are too good for me. Sooner or later, you both would have figured it out. You deserve better.”
She looked down at the toes of her boots. Her little heart charm glimmered against her laces, and I realized she wasn’t wearing the sneakers I gave her. That hurt too. “If you really thought that, you’d be working hard to be good enough. Not dumping us like we’re trash.”
“I never said you were trash.”
“You never said much of anything, did you?” she said. “Now, leave Aunt Naomi alone. You’re right. She deserves better than some guy who isn’t smart enough to see how awesome she is.”
“I know how awesome she is. I know how awesome you are,” I argued.
“Not awesome enough to stay though,” she said. The glare she sent me was years beyond eleven in maturity. I hated myself for giving her one more reason to doubt that she was anything but the smart, beautiful, badass she was.
“Waylay! Come on,” Nina called, holding a giant bag of marshmallows aloft.
“You should go,” Waylay told me. “You make Aunt Naomi sad, and I don’t like that.”
“You gonna put field mice in my house?” I asked, hoping a joke would repair some of the damage.
“Why bother? There’s no point in getting revenge on someone too dumb to care.”