Lib Novel Page 42
“Olivia?”
I jump, realizing the little bell over the door rang, and now Linnea is standing in front of our table. She’s looking between the two of us with wide eyes, and I can tell from her expression that she’s trying to get a read on Zane’s scent.
“Hey, Linnea—”
“Zane,” Zane says, holding his hand out. “Zane Cox.”
“Zane…Cox,” Linnea repeats, her brow furrowed as she allows him to shake her hand.
“Byron’s brother,” he says, smiling at her.
“Byron’s brother,” she says, her voice still flat and almost sleepy. Then, a moment later, her face lights up with recognition, and she glances at me, as though needing confirmation that he’s not an illusion.
“I didn’t know Byron had a brother!” she says, clasping her hands together. “That’s so wonderful! Are you visiting for the holidays?”
When Zane looks down at the silver dollar in his hand, I realize we never did get around to why he’s visiting. He clears his throat, then gives Linnea another winning smile.
“Something like that.”
“Well, you have to come to the Christmas party we’re throwing,” Linnea says, “there will be food and presents, and it’s a great time, every year. We would love to have you. Any family of Byron’s is family of ours.”
“You know what?” Zane asks, his eyes bouncing between Linnea and me. From the tone of his voice, I know he’s thinking about how much this will piss Byron off. “That sounds delightful.”
Chapter 17 – Byron
Numbly, I flip through the Rosecreek surveillance cameras, watching Zane and Olivia as they leave the bakery with Linnea. She’s talking the whole time, bubbly and over-the-top, as usual, and leads them to the pack center. I watch as they give Zane a full tour, acting like he’s going to be sticking around.
I know for a fact that he won’t. It’s not exactly one of his strong suits.
Which should be evident to Olivia and Linnea. I’m not sure why they’re wasting their time on him—it’s not exactly easy to shake your pack’s scent and take on a rogue scent like Zane has done. It required a very careful strategy, including him leaving when he turned eighteen and never staying in one place for too long.
Our family hadn’t been particularly wealthy. Our dad worked for the town Alpha, and our mom was a part-time dental hygienist. We may not have had all the newest video games or clothes, but we were happy.
I swallow down a lump in my throat when I think of climbing trees with Zane, swimming in the creek together, whooping and hollering as we took our bikes down the biggest hill in the neighborhood. He was always betting on things—that he could go faster, higher, quicker than someone else.
Two years older than me, Zane had every opportunity to be an asshole to his little brother, but he wasn’t. He always watched out for me, scared off the bullies. Everyone knew that you’d have Zane to deal with if you messed with me.
He was an asshole to everyone else, including our parents. Doing dumb shit on the weekends, like knocking down mailboxes, lighting dumpsters on fire, and scaring the local humans by shifting and chasing them through the woods.
My parents were at their wits ends with him, just before they died. I thought that the grief of losing them might have made him clean up his act, and realize that he’d been putting a lot of stress on our dad before he died, but, if anything, their deaths only made him worse.
He’d go missing for days at a time, come home smelling of weed. He was supposed to be working at a factory that took sixteen-year-olds under the table, but I never saw one of those paychecks. I had to adapt, and fast. And that’s why I learned how to code.
Through the screen, I watch as Zane puts his hand on the small of Olivia’s back, and I want to reach through the camera to rip his arm off. As they go throughout town, the little touches continue—his fingers around her wrist, a little tap on the top of her head, telling her to hold still so he can rescue an imaginary bug.
The worst part is that Olivia giggles through all of it. Like this is some random flirtation, and not my brother.
The longer I watch, the angrier I get. At one point, I even swear to the Gods that the motherfucker winks at one of the cameras, like he knows I’m watching.
I try to tell myself that it shouldn’t matter—that I have no claim over Olivia, but logic doesn’t help to soothe the rage coursing me.
What right does Zane have to show up here after all these years, breaking into my apartment, touching my—touching Olivia.
My mind flashes back to the day he left, like it always does, the anger and bitterness rising in my chest.
It was the day after my sixteenth birthday. When our parents died, I led Zane through the process of emancipation, then used my income from coding online to support us. From the time I was fourteen years old, I did everything—from paying the bills to buying the groceries to scheduling an appointment for Zane to get his fucking braces off.
I hadn’t planned on celebrating my birthday until Zane showed up with a cake from the grocery store and a single can of beer. Honestly, I was shocked that he remembered. Shocked that he could take time away from smoking and hanging out with his shitty friends to care about something like my birthday.