Page 15 of The Ice Queen in the Corner Office

I swallowed back everything I wanted to say and gritted my teeth hard. “You’re being careful, right. You’re meeting up with them in public places and—”

She shook her head. “It hasn’t actually gotten that far, but yeah, I’ll be careful if any guy ever asks me out.”

Internally, I screamed for joy, but she looked so sad my celebration ended early. “You’re beautiful, Willow, inside and out. If those guys on here can’t see that, they’re idiots.”

“That’s not the problem,” she said, her long lashes fluttering as she glanced over at Dad, who was focused on the TV. “Guys message me, but I don’t…I’m not good at flirting and…I almost never get a second message.”

“Then they’re idiots.” And jerks who’d never be good enough for her. “Maybe the right guy isn’t on a dating site. Maybe you should date someone around here, someone you already know.”

Her reaction was immediate, a swift crinkling of her brow and a shake of her head. “Yeah, no. There’s no guys around here I could ever think of that way.”

And that was enough for me.

I’d given the hint toward Lee, but I wasn’t going to push any more than that. I was not going to be involved in my sister’s love life, beyond suggesting a convent if she started dating a real jerk.

I gave her a hug, thanked her for her help, slapped Dad on the shoulder, and left.

I found my brother on the porch, glaring at me. Rick was two years older than me, but he looked like he was in his late forties. He’d lost more weight since the last time I’d seen him, and his face was drawn, wearing his usual scowl.

I stepped onto the front porch and shut the door behind me. “Well, well,” he said. “The pretty boy decided to stop by the ghetto and check on us rats, huh?”

I didn’t bother to tell him I stopped in to see Dad and Willow every week. He’d made up his mind about me a long time ago. “What the hell are you thinking running around with Hunter and his crew?”

His scowl deepened. I studied his face, looking for the brother I’d grown up with, the warm, funny guy who’d wanted to play pro football.

He’d had a football scholarship to a decent school, but when he got injured and told he had to sit the bench for a year, he’d thrown it all away.

“What I do is none of your business.”

“It is when you show up on Dad’s doorstep after he’s told you to leave him and Willow alone.”

Rick took two steps forward and got in my face. He might be skinny, but he was taller than me and I knew for a fact he fought dirty.

“You don’t live around here anymore, Ally. You live in your fancy apartment in the fancy part of downtown. You got no say in what happens here.”

I should have backed down. I should have asked him to leave and let it go. But I couldn’t help hoping I could get through to him.

“Guess all that money I gave you to pick up the pieces every time you’ve fucked up in the last ten years didn’t buy me much—”

I’m not sure what I would have said next, because his fist connected with my face and rattled my brain in my head.

I managed to stay on my feet.

I shook off the searing pain and ducked under his next punch. I crouched and rammed his middle with all my body weight. He fell back into the railing and I had enough sense left to know that rickety railing wouldn’t hold up much longer if we crashed into it again.

I backed up, hands in the air.

The neighbors had stepped onto their own front porches, all staring at the scene my family was creating. Again.

“I don’t want to fight you,” I said.

Rick’s hands were fisted, his face red with anger. So much anger.

In his mind, the world was against him and he’d have been a pro-football player by now, making more money than me, if that guy hadn’t hit him too hard or that institution hadn’t been down on poor kids from the wrong side of the tracks.

He’d never accept that maybe he gave up too soon, that drinking himself into a stupor every weekend might have been a poor choice, or that keeping up his grades might have been all he needed to do to get somewhere in life. No. Everything was always someone else’s fault.

I didn’t have to look far to see where he’d gotten that attitude, my dad talked that way all the time, but understanding how he’d gotten to be the way he was didn’t make me any less tired of dealing with his messes.

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