Living Out Loud (Austen, #3)(44)

It was one thing to watch her walk in with him and another thing entirely to watch her walk away on his arm. I’d spent the entire day consumed by what it meant, trying so hard to make sense of it. But I only succeeded in making myself angry, so angry that when Will came in to pick her up, I lost my ability to keep cool.

I had always hated that motherfucker. The first time his punk ass had walked into my house, I knew he was going to be a problem, and he was.

And I’d thought I was largely over it, but I was not. Not by a long shot.

I’d never trusted the smooth-talking teenager with the prep-school jacket and lying smile. As the leader of the douche pack, he was Sarah’s gateway into the cool crowd, and she trusted that smile to be truth, trusted his words as if they were gospel.

Until she didn’t.

It seemed to happen slowly, a seed of doubt in his intentions that sprouted and took root. They started fighting. And then she was ready to walk away, only she was afraid of the consequences. She didn’t want to lose the thin foothold in the group of friends she’d found in that fancy school on the Upper East.

When she finally left him, he made it his mission to ruin her.

The rumors were fierce, her ejection from their social group brutal and final. It wasn’t until she graduated and started college at Columbia that she finally moved on. Two years of hell by his hand, all because she’d had the audacity to break up with him.

And now…now, he had ahold of Annie who, in so many ways, was far more inexperienced than Sarah had ever been.

I hopped the curb in front of our building and came to a stop, heading upstairs and out of the cold, though the ice in my bones wasn’t likely to thaw anytime soon.

The apartment was serene. Dad was sitting on the couch, working on a puzzle with his reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose and gnarled fingers holding a tiny piece in front of him for inspection. Sarah and our brother, Tim, sat at the table—Sarah studying and Tim on his laptop, probably working, considering he was still in his suit and it was tax season. He was barely up the first rung of the ladder at his accounting firm, which landed him the worst hours known to man.

They turned to me with smiles I didn’t return.

“Bad day, son?” Dad asked with one gray brow on the rise.

“Coulda been better.” I propped my board in its spot next to the door and kicked off my shoes before carrying my bag to the table. I tossed it in a chair and headed to the fridge for a beer.

Once the cool glass was against my lips, I felt better. For a second at least. I imagined Will with his arm around Annie, and my fist clenched around the bottle hard enough for my skin to creak against the glass from the pressure.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sarah teased.

I didn’t laugh. “I saw Will Bailey today at work.”

She paled and stilled in one breath. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” I took a long pull of my beer.

“That motherfucker,” Tim sneered, which was almost comical with him in a tie and button-down.

Sarah watched me for a second. “What did you do?”

My jaw clenched. “I didn’t do anything. But he…he…” I shook my head. “He showed up at work with a girl on his arm—my girl on his arm.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “Annie? The girl you were with yesterday?”

“The very one.” Another nod and another swig, almost finishing it.

“That motherfucker,” Tim repeated, seemingly beyond his ability to compose complete sentences.

“I can’t believe this. Him. I lost my chance to him,” I said, just as dumbfounded and pissed as Tim, I guessed.

“What does that Bailey boy want with your girl?” Dad asked from the living room.

“Give you one guess.”

Sarah sat there, looking stunned. “Are they…dating?”

“I don’t know what they are. Annie fainted in the park today, and he was there. He even carried her to his hired car. Can you believe that asshole?”

“That motherfucker,” Tim said again as invisible smoke pumped out of his ears like twin tailpipes.

Dad snickered. “Yeah, a real jerk, helping a poor girl out like that. Somebody oughta call the authorities.”

I turned to glare at him. “I can’t believe you’d even joke about him after what he did.” I shook my head and met Sarah’s worried eyes. “It was already hard for you at that school with all those rich kids. There you were, stuck in the middle of a pond of piranhas with nothing but a boat full of holes and a busted oar to protect you. And that son of a bitch was the piranha king. He made up those rumors, ruined your reputation. And for what? Because he got dumped? All because his pride was bruised? Man, fuck that guy. Fuck him. And now he’s got Annie.”

My stomach turned at the thought, and I tipped my beer back to drain it before getting another from the fridge. I twisted the top off with a hiss but held on to the bottle cap, squeezing it until the tin bit into my palm.

“He hurt you, and now he’s going to hurt her too. She still believes in everyday magic, still sees the world as a safe place. Annie is completely untouched by the world and its cruelties, and if he hurts her, so help me God…” I couldn’t finish, not as angry as I was, but I was sure we were all imagining exactly what I’d do. I knew I was.