Page 49 of Bring You Back

Tommy scoffs at my lack of response. “This is gonna blow up in your face. And I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing it.”

There’s conviction in the words, but the fact that he’s trying to be quiet again tells me otherwise. He believes I deserve for Reyna to hate me, but he doesn’t really want to witness it.

Either way, my anger is simmering again, and I need somewhere to put it. Someone to give it to. Someone I should’ve given it to when I first laid eyes on her again. The person it belongs to.

Reyna lets out a groan that draws our attention back to her. She’s pushing herself up with a twisted look on her face and Tommy jumps into action. He runs for the trash can next to her drawing table and hurls it under her face just in time for her to hurl inside of it. His other hand holds back her hair as he says words to her that are too soft for me to make out. Even if I could, they wouldn’t register right now.

“Where is she?”

Tommy glances over at me, brows dipped as he takes in my question, then looks back down at Reyna. “She was headed back to the house.”

I head back to the house—fired up and ready for some release.

Thisis blowing off steam.

12

A Different Fight

Julian

I slam the door behind me so my arrival will be heard. If my mom is still awake, the sound will ease her mind, and the force of it will keep her in her bedroom, away from me and my mood. I expect Banks to be out most of the night, so there’s really no turning back from hashing out my feelings with Camille.

My head falls against the door and I bask in the quiet—save for my breathing and the hum of the fridge—and will myself not to change my mind. If she doesn’t come to me within the next few seconds. . .

A door from the hall clicks open.

I turn my head in that direction, to the pattering oftwosets of footsteps. Camille stops in the entryway, her eyes locking with mine, her arms folded over her chest, already on the defensive. She’s not as hard to offend as she wants everyone to believe. Hence the shield.

My stare drops to the cat at her feet and it drops to its ass, sticking its leg in the air, going to town on a cleaning, and fuck me if I laugh.

“Her name’s Grumbles.”

I can’t stop laughing becauseof coursethe cat is named Grumbles. What else would you call a cat who belongs to a girl who’s grumbly?

“Tommy with Reyna?”

My laughter turns bitter before it dies off and I turn my head away, my eyes trained on the wall clock above the kitchen cabinets. “And I’m with you.”

It could be my imagination, my head tapping into what it wants to hear, but I swear she mutters, “Not yet.”

Don’t look at her. Don’t smile.

Those are confident words. I’m struck with the thought that Camille might actually try to fight this. The girl who has never had to fight for anyone in her life might actually fight for what we had, because she’s so sure that my friendship and my feelings aren’t completely lost.

Because she knows the guy beneath the asshole.

But I know the girl beneath the bitch. And right now, I’m here for a different fight.

She doesn’t get to distract me with a cat, with questions about our friends, or by using assertive words that show me exactly what she wants or at least what she thinks she’ll get from me.

“I don’t have feelings for you anymore.”

Camille’s intake of breath at my rebuff isn’t tinged with any amount of the pain I’ve been feeling all year. She sounds disappointed. “I don’t believe you.”

I fling my keys to the side and they land on the table with a pointed, satisfyingclangthat causes her cat to twist around mid-bath and run back down the hall. She chuckles, and I have to keep from laughing at the damn cat myself, because this willnotbe a moment.

I keep my stare straight, my eyes watching the minute hand on the clock shift downward, letting me know that I’m wasting more time. I try with every effort I have to keep my next words steady.

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