Page 25 of Never His Girl
Nothing.
When I lean forward and grip my head, my brothers are silent. They have no idea how it feels to question whether I could’ve fucked this all up because of another of our father’s mind games.
“Don’t spiral.” Dane’s words are stern, spoken at the precise moment I need to hear them.
“Let’s backtrack to the video,” Sterling cuts in. “Is there a connection? Did you leak it to get revenge because of what Vin told you?”
My stomach’s in knots now.
“No,” I sigh. “It wasn’t me. Parker’s the only bitch twisted enough to do shit like that.”
I’m not looking up at either of their faces, but I imagine the looks they’re giving me right now.
“Fucking knew it,” Sterling seethes.
“And why haven’t we ratted this bitch out already?” Dane wants to know.
“Because it’s not that simple.”
I feel those judgmental stares on me again after I speak.
“Why the fuck not? She screwed you over, now we rain down hell on her head. Sounds pretty fucking simple to me,” Dane reasons. He’s worked up like it’shisname on the line. Not mine.
“I can’t snitch because she knows,” I respond, already sounding defeated.
“Knows what?”
I peer up just as Sterling asks. And with what I say next, he shoots me a knowing stare.
“About Casey.FromCasey,” I clarify before they can ask who the hell would tell Parker Holidayany-fucking-thing.
Their immediate response? Silence. Then, both take a seat to think—one in the armchair near the window, the other on the floor with his back to the wall.
“Damn,” Sterling sighs, finally getting it.
“If I tell what she did with the video, she’s telling everyone what she knows about me and Casey. Starting with Casey’s father.”
Both understand why that, in particular, would suck for me.
“Damn,” Sterling repeats.
We sit there for a while, not saying a word as they take in the full scope of the whole fucked up situation.
Dane shifts in the chair and he has me and Sterling’s full attention.
“You weren’t the only one who found out early who and what Vin really is. I was ten,” he admits. “It was when he hired that babysitter to look after us while Mom went home to The Bayou for a week.”
He flashes a humorless smirk
I remember that week,andthe “babysitter” our piece-of-shit father hired to keep us out of his hair while he dicked around, doing absolutely nothing.
“I couldn’t sleep one night, so I got up for water. On the way to the kitchen, I heard weird sounds coming from one of the bathrooms,” Dane continues. “Not thinking, I walked in and caught them. He had her bent over the sink, pants around his ankles.”
I shouldn’t be surprised Dane has a story of his own, but I am. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thought it best to protect the others from what I knew.
“He bribe you with ice cream, too?” I ask, half-joking, half-not.
“Nah, fifty bucks and mention of Mom having threatened to overdose on pills the week before. He said that, if I snitched on him, she might make good on her promise.”