Page 31 of Roan

“I am not.” I punch her arm. “Take that back.”

“Nope.” More honking follows in the wake of Scarlet’s absolute shitty driving. I swear River could drive better than her.

“You drive for shit.”

Nowshe’soffended. “Take that back!”

“No.” I flip my hand toward the street. “Stop at In-N-Out. I’m starving.”

She does without question. We order and then eat in the car because she cannot be trusted to eat and drive at the same time. “When was the last time you talked to her?”

I stop eating midbite. “Jesus Christ. You don’t quit, do you?”

“Nope. I’m relentless. So?”

“I called her on her birthday.” Fearing delving into a conversation I don’t want to have, I stare at my phone.

No such luck. Scarlet presses her lips together, dipping french fries in an obscene amount of ketchup. “And?”

And? I hooked up with Ophelia a handful of occasions over the last two years. Most of the time when I was on layovers or appearances in NYU. Nothing became of any of the encounters and they were what I feared. Booty calls, really. But there’s no fucking way I’m telling Scarlet any of that.

I rip her strawberry milkshake from her and take a drink. “She said thanks.”

“You’re like trying to break into Fort Knox.”

Fighting off the stirring phlegm in my chest, I take another drink. “Yet you keep trying.”

With a heavy, conflicted sigh, she stares at her milkshake in my hand and attempts to get it back. “Give me that.”

I take another drink, winking at her. “No.”

“I asked if you wanted one and you said no. Now I’m going to get sick.”

“I’ve literally coughed all over you the last two days. You’re bound to get it anyways,” I reason with her.

Scarlet narrows her eyes at her milkshake, cleverness surfacing. “You know.” She pauses midsentence to release a fit of giggles before continuing with “I sucked your brother’s dick this morning.”

Smiling, I take the lid off the milkshake, roll down the window and dump the milkshake out in the parking lot. The warm Californian air rushes inside the coolness of the car and I welcome the heat. Feeling Scarlet’s scowl on mine, I hand her empty cup back to her. “You were saying?”

“You’re no longer my favorite brother. Tiller is.”

I grab my chest, coughing through my laughter. “I’m crushed.”

Because I’ve pissed her off, Scarlet starts the car. I think maybe she’s going to leave me alone and let me cough to my early death, but nope. Not Scarlet Rose. She’s about as relentless as her curls that refuse to be tamed. “You two had something going?”

Turning up the music, I groan. “Just stop.”

“I won’t.” She slaps my hand away from the stereo. “I saw the way you looked at her. You love her.”

I’m not denying it. “So?”

“So you slept with someone else and hurt her?” she asks, continuing to make sense of the train-wreck relationship I’ve had with Ophelia. Truth is, even I can’t make sense of it, so why should anyone else try?

“You got it backwards,” I mumble, trying to breathe without coughing.

“Holy shit. You mean Tiller?” she deduces, shaking her head, curls flying around with the blast of air conditioning as she turns all the vents toward her. “I knew that.”

I push her hands away from the air vents. “Keep your damn hands on the wheel and let it go.”

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