“No, it’s not!” Her voice rises. “You’re hurting people, ruining lives.”
“Is your life ruined?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“Yeah!” she shouts. “It is!”
“Your brother is cut off. Is it a little less ruined now?”
She glares up at me, defiant as ever.
“He hates me,” she says quietly.
“Can’t change who he is, Lexi.” I lean against the trailer, arms crossed again. “Either accept him and his new fate or continue to have a horrible relationship.”
“Oh, like you would know?” she scoffs. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. I have no respect for you.”
“Because of the—”
“The drugs, yes! Zero fucking respect.” She lays out her hands flat in front of her to physically show me what she means.
I straighten up, take a step toward her. “Fine. I’ll give your brother an endless supply.”
She turns to me, venom in her eyes.
“I expect some respect from you,” I say, voice dropping lower. “If you don’t care about my job, fine. But zero respect? After what I just did for you?”
“For me?”
I hook my finger through her jeans belt loop and pull her toward me. Close. So close I can feel the heat radiating off her body.
“For you,” I repeat.
“That was your own choice.”
“Still no kiss?” I ask, testing her.
She shakes her head at me.
Damn.
What’s it going to take? I solve her biggest problem, and it didn’t make her like me even a fraction more.
She shivers. The night air is cold, biting through her thin shirt.
I open the trailer door and gesture inside. “Come on.”
She hesitates, then steps in. I follow, close the door behind us.
I grab a water from the fridge—an ancient thing that hums too loud—and hand it to her. She takes it, unscrews the cap, drinks.
“Whose place is this?” she asks, looking around.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She laughs. “It’s not exactly five-stars.”
“It gets the job done.”
We sit on the couch. She’s on one end, I’m on the other. The springs creak under our weight.
