Page 31 of Getting It Twisted
The other guests have stopped their conversations to stare at us. Even April seems at a loss for words. Not good. I need to put an end to this, but what my drunken mind summons creates a whole different problem.
“Hey, Nate,” I say, jerking my head toward the stairs. “You wanna see my room?”
“Thought you’d never ask.” With a smug smile sent George’s way, Nathan rounds us both and walks upstairs.
Before following him, I give George a half-apologetic shrug. He remains seething where he stands, hands balled into fists.
So much for an uneventful reunion. If this is how Nathan and George act when they’re around other people, I dread seeing how they’ll act alone.
Nathan closes the door behind us and locks it, then saunters into my room as if he owns the place. I, on the other hand, remain by the door, arms crossed.
“Living in luxury, I see,” Nathan says, nodding to my modest furniture that consists of little more than a bed, a desk strewn with sketching supplies, and a messy clothing rack. “This is a far cry from that mansion you grew up in. What would Daddy Dearest say about his son living in squalor?”
Calling my suburban childhood home a mansion is laying it on thick, but I suppose our four bedrooms, two baths, and well-maintained lawn might have seemed mansion-esque to someone like Nathan, who’d have been lucky to get three meals a day and clean clothes on his back as a kid.
“Shut up. It’s miles better thanyourcrib, anyway.”
Nathan snorts. “Anything’s better than that place.”
“So why do you insist on living there?”
He bites the inside of his cheek and tilts back and forth on his heels as if he’s mulling the question over. But then he just shrugs, eliciting a frustrated groan out of me.
I still haven’t stopped thinking about him on the kitchen floor. His impassive, broody expression. The darkness that seemed to hover over his very being, pulsing with the faint draws of his breath and the slump of his shoulders.
What’s truly happening inside him, he’ll never tell. Not to me. Not to anyone. I should forget about it, move it aside for now, and instead bring up the very real, very recent clash with George.
“What did I say the other day?” I ask. “About behaving?”
Nathan pouts. “You say it as if it’s my fault.”
“You started it. You always start it.” Not entirely true, but it’s true enough.
“Oh, come on,” he says with a smirk. “You love it when we fight over you.”
“That’s what you think?”
“That’s what Iknow.”
Fine. Let him live in his delusional little world where I’m still as obsessed with him as I used to be, and where I would walk through fire to keep him safe, even from George.
Those times are long gone. Sooner or later, he needs to learn that.
“You interrupted us, didn’t you?” he points out.
Yeah, and why did I do that? Bad habits die hard, I suppose. Nathan inspires a unique blend of violence, fiery attraction, and protectiveness in me, and damn it if that blend doesn’t taste good. It’s sweet on my tongue but bitter going down my throat, especially now with the buzz of alcohol in my veins.
“At least I didn’t break his nose this time, right?” Nathan says with a smirk. “And he didn’t break mine, though he sure looked like he wanted to. You wouldn’t have let him, though, would you?”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“I bet you can take him down, easy.”
“Well, I do usually win when we’re sparring . . .” Why did I even tell him that? Fucking tequila.
He gives me a slow once-over. His gaze feels like a tangible thing, licking me from head to toe. “I bet.”
“Stop looking at me like that.”