“You’d go to a formal function with me, where we know my ex will be, who will likely stalk you after, all because you know she makes me uncomfortable?”
I looked sideways at him, then returned my gaze back to the road. “Easton, you gave me a place to live when my dad chose my crazy sister over me. And, just FYI, I know crazy. I’ve lived with crazy half my life. Mirabel. O’Ryan.”
He looked over at me sharply. “O’Ryan?”
I opened my mouth to tell him about O’Ryan… and couldn’t.
At least not fully.
“O’Ryan was my brother,” I explained as if my words put him into the ground where he always should’ve been. Dead and gone, never to be worried about again. “Feel free to look into him, but if it’s all the same for you, don’t ever mention him to me. I’ve decided that hearing his name is best left in the past.” I hurriedly changed the subject. “Do you have any more siblings besides Trouper?”
His eyes were searching for a few seconds before he returned to driving, and I wondered if he was going to allow this to pass. Allow whatever it was that was going through his head when it came to my brother to go.
And he did.
But I had a feeling, he wouldn’t be letting it go forever.
He’d be doing research.
And I didn’t have the desire to tell him it was useless. The best in the business erased O’Ryan from the planet.
Not even all the research in the world could find him.
At least, that’s what I hoped.
I also hoped, wherever he was at, he wasn’t living a cushy second life.
I hoped he was suffering like he’d made everyone else suffer.
CHAPTER 9
The fucking flag couldn’t have been any more red.
-Banger to Easton
EASTON
The smell of baking bread had me groaning as I all but crawled out of bed.
Getting older meant that I didn’t heal as fast from the ass kickings I took.
And my well-over-thirty-year-old body was letting me know, very quickly, that I couldn’t be doing stuff like I’d done in the last few days anymore, or my body would revolt.
Needless to say, when I finally got to the bottom of the stairs, my heart was already hammering.
What I saw when I got to the bottom landing made my heart all but explode out of my chest.
Because Banger was in a pair of black short shorts, a black oversized tee that said ‘Black Sabbath’ on the back with holes sporadically placed, allowing me to see pieces of skin.
And white long socks that definitely weren’t hers, but mine.
I licked my lips and studied her fantastic ass, all the while trying to get my brain to pick up where it’d left off when I’d entered the main room of my house.
“You have four dollars and eighteen cents in checking account ending in 3212,” the robotic voice said through the speaker of Banger’s phone. “Please choose…”
Banger hung up and cursed, tossing her phone down overly hard onto the counter before muttering, “Pay me already, motherfucker.”
And it had.
I’d thought the ball was next week. That’s why I hadn’t mentioned it.
But the days sneak up on me when I don’t have a secretary.
Speaking of secretaries…
“You don’t happen to want to take over secretarial duties for a short time, do you?” I asked. “I don’t necessarily even need you at my office. Not if you don’t want to come in.”