Page 3 of With a Broken Wing
“You heard me.”
Andy rested her hands on her hips, gripping hard enough that her knuckles turned white. “If these plates don’t get wrapped, they’ll break. I’ve moved enough times to know that.”
“If they break, they will buy new ones.”
Before Andy could respond, footsteps clicked along the tile behind us. “Are you breaking something?” Jules crossed her arms, and next to her, my brother rolled his eyes. He tried to look annoyed, but instead, he looked at her like a lost puppy. Any hard exterior he had completely dissipated when his wife was around.
“Your friend here already did.”
Andy gasped, her jaw dropping. “Youscared me! It was an accident! Jules, I’m so sorry. I’ll buy you a new one.” Her hands shook, and she set the plate she held onto the counter. When she looked between Jules and my brother, her widened eyes showed her fear.
“Girl, don’t even worry about it. We probably won’t even use these!” Jules hugged Andy, and I smirked at her.
I mouthedI told youat her when she looked over her friend’s shoulder. She stiffened. I winked and turned to face my brother with a scowl. “You had me drive all the way from Chicago to help you move, only to walk in and find your house empty and you off somewhere fucking your new wife.”
“The house isn’t empty. There are still several things that need to be packed before the movers arrive this afternoon, so stop bitching.”
William walked past me and into the next room, and as he did, I pulled my cigarettes from my pocket and rested one between my lips. Andy and Jules wrapped the rest of the plates from the cabinet and tucked them in the open box on the counter, giggling to each other about some night out in college. I leaned back against the counter and flicked my lighter before inhaling the smoke.
The women looked at each other when the smell drifted over to them, and they quickly spun around to face me. “Are you smoking in here?” Jules asked with a raised eyebrow.
I shrugged and let out a lungful of smoke as William turned the corner with a handful of flattened boxes. He narrowed his eyes and stomped over, ripping the cigarette from my mouth and putting it out in a glass of water on the counter.
“Don’t be a dick. You can pack the office.” William walked over to Jules’s side and pulled her to him. I rolled my eyes, but glad to get away from the newlyweds, I moved up the stairs. “If you smoke up there, I’ll kick your ass. Don’t test me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” It was bold of my younger brother to think he’d be the one kicking my ass and not vice versa.
I was only on the third stair when Jules said, “Andy, maybe you can help him. I think William can probably help me finish in the kitchen… if you know what I mean.”
“I can handle it alone,” I said, continuing up to the den.
“Are there any other rooms that need to be packed? Maybe I can just do that.” The disappointment in her voice was thick with the rejection she was clearly feeling. She had looked so content dancing and packing in her own little world when I walked in, and that woman wasn’t the same one leaving the kitchen.
Jules giggled, the same giggle that meant she and my brother would be disappearing again soon. “Just the office!”
Andy’s exasperated sigh could be heard from where I’d stepped into the den. “Fuckme.” She had said it to herself, and by the time she made it up the stairs, her sickeningly sweet smile was plastered to her face. When she stepped into the office, she cleared her throat. “I guess I’m helping you in here.”
“I guess you are.”
She grabbed one of the boxes and folded it, moving to the shelf on the opposite side of the room from me to pack up the books William had probably never opened. As she packed, the only sound came from the thudding of the books into the box. Emptying the third shelf, she finished filling her first box and turned around for the tape.
She crossed the room and grabbed it from the oak desk, and when the box was taped, she bent over with a marker to label it. Her ass pressed against her tight leggings and my pulse raced slightly in my chest. A low grunt slipped out when she tried to lift the box and failed, and I couldn’t resist a smirk.
“Do you need some help?”
“No, I don’t need your help.” She huffed and tried again to lift the box. With a determined stubbornness on her face, she squatted down, using her arms and legs to shove the box. The sweet sounds that left her didn’t make her stronger, though, and the heavy box hardly budged. “Damn it!”
I walked over, lifting the large box and carrying it out of the room and into the hallway, where I stacked it against the wall before returning to the office. Her arms were crossed, and she was glaring at me. I cocked my head, hoping the amusement on my face wasn’t too obvious.
“You’re not going to say thank you?”
She started to throw books a lot less carefully into a second box. “I told you I didn’t need your help.”
“Don’t be so stubborn.”
Like a defiant teenager, she popped her hip to the side and tilted her head. “Make. Me.”
I growled and closed in on her, enjoying her startled gasp when her back met the now bare bookshelf behind her. Her chest heaved with quick, deep breaths, and she ran her tongue across her bottom lip before rolling her lips together. “I believe we’ve been over this, sunshine. You wouldn’t survive me.”
