But the thing is that’s all I can do.
I can take things from her like I did that night, use her, but I don’t have anything to give. She calls me toxic, doesn’t she? She’s right. I have poison in my veins. A never-ending bitterness, sourness, this growing restlessness that makes me want to stay away from my own twin brother. That makes me unhappy and angry with my own family,isolatedin my own family. Allbecause I fell in goddamn love once and don’t know how to get back up.
I don’t know how to get back up without her.
But I wouldn’t care about any of that, what I can or can’t give her, what she deserves. I’d just use her and use her and fucking use her until I’m done. Until all my pain is gone and I’m numb. Like the drug she is.
They call me the Wrecking Thorn because I’m a wrecking ball on the field, never stopping, never letting anyone stand in the way of my goal. But that’s not true anymore. I’m not the Wrecking Thorn because of my game. I’m the Wrecking Thorn because I’ll destroy everything in my path to get to her.
And that’s not a good thing for her.
Chapter Seventeen
I’m movinginto the Thorne house.
I can’t even believe I’m saying this, because it doesn’t seem real. It feels like a dream I had when I was twelve. When I found out about them for the first time and would see them around town. I wanted to move into their house back then and be a part of their family, me and Snow. But of course, that was crazy.
As crazy as this is. As crazy as the past couple of weeks have been.
First and foremost, my sister is fine. Thanks to the people I went to for help. I knew it was a lot to ask for. Not only because they hardly knew me, and whatever they knew, they knew through Callie. But also, because they all mostly have families now, plus the season was—is—coming up and they all needed to be in top form for that.
But they never asked any questions or raised any objections. They all got tested and Conrad turned out to be the only match. Since Snow’s condition was dire, they wanted to do the surgery as soon as possible. But the hospital in Bardstown was already at capacity, so they couldn’t find an opening as quickly as they had wanted. So Conrad took charge, and at his insistence, theytransferred Snow to a hospital in New York City that was able to fit her in right away. And now my sister is recovering and getting better every day. Conrad too, by the way. He’s already back at work and prepping to go on the road.
I guess I should’ve known or at least guessed that they wouldn’t raise concerns over helping Snow after how they defended me against my mother. How all the brotherscollectivelyformed a wall between her and me, and all my friends and my stepsister held onto me to keep me standing. Like they said, I was their family, their own.
It has to be the most surreal feeling in the world. To be someone’s family. To belong somewhere. To have people you candependon. To not sleep with your bedroom door locked to keep your stepdad out, or with the baseball bat hidden under your bed.
Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to wrap my head around the other stuff that happened aside from Snow’s surgery. Namely that Conrad, while lying in the hospital bed, declared that we’d move out of our apartment and into their house. Even though he made a very compelling case about my neighborhood being shitty and me needing help with Snow and whatnot, all I could do was stare at him with my mouth open and eyes wide.
Wyn was right by Conrad’s side, holding his hand, and she threw me a serene smile. “He usually gets what he wants. You should probably listen to him.”
Callie scoffed from behind me where she sat in one of the chairs. “Yeah, right. No, you should listen toWyn. She’s the boss of the boss.”
“I don’t have a boss,” Reed chimed in from where he was sitting beside Callie.
It was Ledger’s turn to scoff then, who was seated in one of the chairs also but on the opposite side of Reed and Callie. “Says the man swimming in poopy diapers. All because he doesn’twant his wife to have to wake up in the middle of the night. That’s whipped behavior.”
“Hey, stop giving my brother a hard time,” Tempest said from beside him. “You changed the twins last week because you didn’t want me to ruin my new manicure.”
“Which is very gentlemanly, Ledge,” Wyn said.
“Exactly,” Callie confirmed. “It doesn’t mean whipped, it means you love your wife so much, you’d do anything for her.”
“You fucking started it,” Ledge grumbled.
“Watch your fucking language, yeah? That’s my wife you’re talking to,” Reed argued.
“I can talk to my sister however I want,” Ledger argued back.
“Don’t talk to my husband that way,” Tempest chimed in, before turning to Ledger and blowing him a kiss.
“Then tell your husband to not mess with me,” Reed grumbled in much the same tone as Ledger had.
“Oi, take your own advice and watch how you speak to my wife,” Ledger said.
“You—”
“All right, enough,” Conrad barked, putting a stop to their perpetual ribbing of each other. “No more arguing. And just to make it clear”—he turned to Wyn, his blue eyes intense and his lips twitching—“sheisthe boss, and if it means I’m whipped then I fucking am.”
