The Broken Sister (Sister #6) (35 page)
Read The Broken Sister (Sister #6) Online
Authors: Leanne Davis
“Finally finished, sunshine?”
Ally opened the door when the disembodied voice touched her ears. Startled, she glanced around to find Nate Stratton sitting on the bed. What the hell was he doing in there? She shut her eyes in frustration before turning back to flick off the bathroom light and enter the guest bedroom of her aunt’s house. She was sure she’d shut and locked the bedroom door. What the hell? How had Nate, the annoying prick, gotten in? And what was he doing in there? Fear stabbed through her heart. He couldn’t… no way, never could he have heard her? Her body turned hot as sweat broke out on her chest and the back of her neck. It would be so embarrassing; it would literally make her want to sink into the floor if he’d heard her. But no. No, no way. The bathroom fan had been on and she’d been quick and quiet. Just a little problem she’d quickly taken care of.
He was intently scrolling through something on his phone. He hadn’t glanced up as she entered the bedroom. His fingers flicked and moved with the speed of a peregrine falcon when diving for prey. His feet were planted flat on the floor and he didn’t even grace her presence with a glance.
“Didn’t I lock that door?”
“All you have to do is pick it. Not hard.”
“Didn’t it occur to you maybe I wanted privacy?”
“You had privacy. I didn’t touch the bathroom door. It’s a fact of life we all face, sunshine. You don’t have to be so bashful about it.”
She bristled. He often called her “sunshine” in that mocking voice. It wasn’t a sweet, affectionate nickname. It was actually his insult towards her because he found her too serious and intense and... what was his word? Sour. Yes, he found her too sour to be all that enjoyable to be around. So he’d started calling her “sunshine” of late. “I was just peeing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What are you doing that was so important you had to follow me into here?’
“I am trying to nail down this hot little number I met last weekend for a date.” He still hadn’t bothered to glance up. He grunted and then smiled, pleased by whatever was on the screen of his phone. Ally glared at him, but the narrowed eyes and scowl were wasted because he was totally focused on his phone. He finally clicked his phone off and stood while he slid it into his pocket.
“Done. Next Friday night.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. Her white cashmere sweater slid to outline her breasts. “Do you think I would possibly care what you’re doing next Friday night or with who?”
“Well, you should. You know you wish it was you.”
“Over my dead body.”
His smile was quick. “Dead body? A five-year-old could have said that back to me. Oh, sunshine, that retort was way beneath you. Come on, don’t you have anything better? Or are you sick? Off your game?”
She shifted the weight on her feet, and kept her arms firmly planted across her chest. He’d heard. He heard her throw up. It had been a stupid, reckless, and impulsive move. It was Christmas Day dinner at her Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Tony’s house. Everyone was here. Her aunt and uncles, grandparents and cousins. There was Aunt Vickie and her husband, who was Nate’s dad, and the reason why Nate Stratton had been invited to
her
family’s dinner for the holiday. It pissed her off beyond comprehension that he got to just show up. The dinner had been good, and she’d eaten way too much. Doing so in front of anyone, even her family, was way out of character for her. She’d snuck into here to simply alleviate some of the calories. Expel some of it. She’d locked the outer door. No one should have heard. Damn Nate and his bold, annoying antics. He thought he was so funny. So charming.
“If you must know, I have a slight bug and I didn’t want to miss Christmas with my family, so I came anyway. It makes things not settle well.”
He stepped back. “Is this perfect-Ally speak for you were coughing up chunks?”
She rolled her eyes. He made
everything
sound so undignified and gross. “Why do you persist in coming to our family get-togethers?”
“My family too, Ally-cat.”
He flipped between “Ally-cat” and “sunshine” and every time, each name set her teeth on edge, which was no doubt why he did it. She had known Nate for almost four years unfortunately. He’d come to some family dinner, one of their family member’s birthdays, on the arm of their Aunt Vickie. She was in her late thirties at the time and Nate was eighteen. He’d been sleeping with their aunt and was seemingly proud to be. That was all during Ally’s freshman year in college and the dynamics of that had completely freaked her out. It was so gross! But then, even stranger, was when they quit being together and Vickie started up with Nate’s father and was married to him by Ally’s sophomore year. Then, Nate started coming to their family get-togethers on a regular basis with his dad and new “stepmom.” It was the sickest dynamic Ally had ever witnessed. Both a father and son with one woman? And the way they were all amiable with each other was incomprehensible. Nate’s dad, Dane Stratton, acted completely at ease as he witnessed his wife and son interact. Nate and Vickie’s interactions were usually tinged with a mild but still obvious flirting and Dane didn’t seem to care in the least.
All of which set Ally’s teeth on edge. But then Nate had started showing up in a large number of her classes until she figured out they were majoring in the same subject and hence he was taking the same precursor classes. He was constantly in the periphery of her life now. She detested it and him. There was no sugarcoating it and he knew it. How was she supposed to like or be respectful to a guy who slept with his stepmother? Okay, so she hadn’t been his stepmother at the time, but he still was way too forward with Vickie.
And he’d made it his special mission to obviously and overtly bug Ally. He went to great lengths to irritate and bother her. She wasn’t imagining that. He actually tried to be in her sphere and then irritate her. She detested most interactions they shared.
“They are not your family. They are mine. You are simply some add-on tag-along who likes to flirt with your own stepmother. It’s gross. And I, for one, don’t need to witness it.”
Nate rubbed his hands together and stepped closer to Ally. She held her ground, teeth grinding, as that knowing little half smile of his moved closer. He often invaded her personal space. “You sound a little jealous, Ally-cat. I swear you spend time trying to sharpen your claws to get to me.”
She pushed his shoulder so he had to step back and rolled her eyes in exaggerated annoyance. “As if I give you a thought when I don’t absolutely have to.”
She was halfway to the door when he asked, “So how did the geology test go for you?”
She stopped dead as her hand was in mid-air to grab the door handle. She dropped her hand to her side.
That class
. It was that class she’d gotten the B+ in. How did he know? She was sure in that moment he knew she’d bombed it and now was gloating to rub it in. For he never inquired how her classes went. He didn’t care how her classes went.
“Fine.” She kept her voice even and kept her back to him.
“I thought it was a killer. But I’m sure you aced it, right? You always do.”
Yes, she always did. Always. Her brain felt like it was going to short-circuit at his mockery. He knew. There was no other reason. If she lied he’d obviously call her out, as that was most likely was what he hoped she’d do. “I didn’t. I didn’t ace it.” She kept her voice low and casual like it was a mild disappointment to her. It was just one of those things that sucked but didn’t send a girl off wanting to hurt herself.
“Are you for real? You didn’t?”
She held her back erect, her neck a degree higher so her chin was raised up. He could not know how it had affected her. He just wanted to rib her about it like he did every other area of her life. But she wasn’t sure right now she could handle it.
“Whatever, Nate, as if you didn’t know. It’s just a grade. You don’t need to be such an ass about it. Why don’t you go talk to someone who remotely wants to see you?”
“Hey, Ally, I didn’t know. Honest. I know a few other people complained it was hard too. I never dreamed it was so for you. Nothing seems to be hard for you. I’m sorry. Really.”
She didn’t turn around. “Whatever. Next time a door is locked, why don’t you respect it?”
The house was crawling with her entire family, from her grandparents to cousins. Her sister was there with her boyfriend Tristan. The shocking knowledge that her sister had a boyfriend hadn’t totally registered with Ally. She usually ignored any guy her sister was with because if her sister had picked them, they were a terrible loser, a player or a drug addict. That was just how her sister’s taste had run for years. Until one day she’d shown up with Tristan Aderly. It was a shock when she met the man. He’d just turned thirty, seemed to have a well-paying corporate job, and was actually even decent to her sister. She had watched for two years as Kylie had made out with guys, sometimes several guys… all while she was drunk or high or both at some college party or another. Ally had been at the parties mostly to keep an eye on her wild, often destructive sister. Ally had gone to parties and drank. She’d had boyfriends on and off throughout all of high school and college, but she couldn’t quite understand Kylie’s needs to sleep around so much or with such crazy wild abandon. Ally lived in fear her sister would end up pregnant or fighting some nasty venereal disease. She listened to the comments about her sister and it made her want to stick her fingers into her mouth. She could not stand to hear Kylie be diminished by gossip and terrible slurs. They merely beat down her sister’s already fragile personality.
Ally wasn’t fragile. She wasn’t soft-spoken or shy. She was balls to the walls with anyone she caught saying the hate-speech about her sister, or any girl really. It was all so hypocritical to Ally.
But things had been so much better since Tristan had entered Kylie’s life just two months ago. He was so anti-Kylie’s type that Ally had been secretly totally sure it wasn’t even worth meeting him. Not for two days did Ally think this would stick. But then she’d met him and saw the oddest damn thing: he was crazy about Kylie, and she him. It was obvious in the way they interacted, looked at each other, the little touches they both did without much thought that they were doing it. It was not how Ally had ever pictured Kylie’s life developing. It shamed Ally but when she’d met Tristan her immediate first and impulsive thought was that he belonged with her, not Kylie. There was nothing about Tristan that, at first glance, fit with Kylie. He was put together, well-presented and well-spoken, stable, and seemed so normal. Kylie was none of those things. Even their looks didn’t match. Tristan looked like he’d be Ally’s boyfriend. Ally had always pictured she’d end up with an older guy just because she found guys her own age, like Nate, for instance, immature and stupid. They were a waste of time and space for anything real in her opinion. They were good for college memories but for her real life, once it started, she truly pictured someone older, established, successful… Someone like Tristan Aderly.
But Tristan was into her sister. It didn’t totally compute.
Still, witnessing Kylie like now, smiling and chatting at a Christmas party while her hand rested in Tristan’s and she leaned her head back to rest casually on his shoulder and he just leaned down and absently kissed her forehead as he chatted with their uncle Tony. So far, the entire family loved Tristan. He was good at small talk. He was polite, well-informed, and capable of handling most types of personalities. It was just so odd it was Kylie who brought home the normal, successful guy and it was Cousin Olivia who’d found the screwed-up drug dealer last year, and Ally who had never found anyone worth even bringing to the family.
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The Sister Series is about the emotional scars and battles that are often hidden in people.
Rape. Drugs. Abuse. Violence. Pain. Betrayal.
And how they can be overcome.
Love. Joy. Family. Forgiveness. Faith. Hope. Redemption.
