Page 13 of Chaos

Resting my forehead against hers, I close my eyes as I run my fingers through her mane. “Sorry I’ve been gone so long. Next time, I’ll take you with me, yeah?”

“Don’t think horses do too well in the city.”

Straightening with a surprised jerk, my head whips towards the man sauntering into the barn. I don’t scowl, exactly, but I’m not sure the look on my face is particularly friendly either.

Finn, on the other hand, is still fucking smiling. Hewinksat me as he lets himself into the stall housing an impatiently whinnying Palomino—the aforementionedhot blonde, I realize with a snort.

I don’t make the conscious decision to watch him, but that’s what I do. My eyes have a mind of their own—my eyes have always been partial to a hot guy handling a horse, murmuring that she’s a good girl.

It’s right then, as Finn gazes at hisdate, that I clock the difference between the expression he wears now and the one he wears whenever he looks at me. Abruptly, I realize that he hasn’t actually been smiling at me.

Hepretendsto smile. He forces it. He… well, I come to that conclusion aloud. “You don’t like me.”

Finn doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t even look up. He just says, “I like your family.”

“Ah. Andtheydon’t like me.”

That, he doesn’t deny either. But he does do me thehonorof gracing me with his dark gaze, briefly pinning me in place with it as he says, “They love you.”

Right. But they don’t like me. And that’s always been the problem.

“You should go easy on them.”

My eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”

“Go easy on them,” Finn repeats quietly. “It’s been a rough month around here.”

My month, on the other hand, was just fuckingpeachy.

And exactly what I needed, the cherry on top, was some random man I don’t even know, who sure as fuck doesn’t know me, spouting orders like he has any kind of a say in what I do. “Who even are you?”

“Someone who cares a lot about your family,” he says, and I wonder if he means it to sound quite so cutting when he adds, “Someone who’s been here for the past two years.”

I flinch, but he doesn’t see it. He’s back to loving on the mare, completely oblivious to the blow he just dealt—or just completely uncaring. Whatever the case, I snap, “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I think I know enough.”

A lump lodges in my throat as I imagine what he might know. What he’s been told. Who might’ve told him, and in what circumstances. Fuck, he just picked me up fromrehab. Of course, he knows all the dirty details. Was he invited ‘round for dinner and regaled with tales of my shitty behavior? Is there a manual on whatnotto do, filled with each of my mistakes? Is there a poster of my face marked with a big red X and signed with a list of grievances? All of the fucking above?

I always imagined they didn’t talk about me at all. That they just pretended I didn’t exist, like we pretend Mom didn’t, our dad doesn’t, our grandparents don’t. But I guess I was wrong.

Suddenly, the warm embrace of the barn becomes a cold throttle.

As I slip out of Daphne’s stall, I’m not sure where I’m going—I just knowsomewhere elseis the goal. My mind works as I stomp towards the exit, trying to come up with something creatively scathing to toss at Finn. Glancing over my shoulder, I hope something suitable will fall on out of my mouth of its own accord, but it doesn’t.

Instead, a surprised huff escapes me when I smack into something.

Someone.

The worst possible someone.

Well, the second worst.

I’m unprepared. I’m in a mood. So when I right myself and realize it’s not just my brother that I ran into, but my brother and the dozing toddler he’s lovingly cradling, I come to a pretty quick, pretty gutting conclusion. And I make another bad decision. I do the wrong thing, like I always do.

I open my mouth, and a bitter laugh comes out. “Wow. You really wasted no time trapping Luna here, huh?”

Jackson kisses his teeth, his every feature harshening at the mention of his girlfriend—the mother of his fucking child, he confirms with a handful of words. “My son isn’t a trap.”

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