Page 71 of Save Me

“Really, Shi? Do you not know how that made you sound?” Logan asked, his tone angry.

Finally,I thought. I wanted him pissed off. “I don’t care how it made me sound,” I snapped. “If you don’t like it, then knock it off. You’re using people I care about to get a rise out of me. Why? Because you want to know who I’m in a relationship with? I will tell you when I’m ready and not a minute before.” I yanked my keys from my gym bag and forced them into his hand. “Take yourself home. I don’t want you here.” I was so mad at him. Probably more than this incident called for, and I had to get away from him before I exploded.

I walked away, going around the front desk, and dashed down the hall. I took a seat behind Keelan’s desk in his office and tried to cool down. With my elbows propped up on the desk, I covered my face with my hands.

A hand smoothed over my thigh. “Hey.”

I dropped my hands and looked to my right.

Keelan was kneeling on the ground next to me. He spun the chair I was in so that I was facing him. “You want to tell me what that was about?”

“I’m so angry with him. I was so happy and relieved he was here, but whenever he does something in the slightest to piss me off, I get so mad and I don’t know why.” Then it hit me. I knew exactly why I was so short-fused with him. “It doesn’t matter right now because we have a class to teach.”

“Fuck the class. You’re more important.”

“If I skipped out on things every time something upset me, I’d never get to do anything.” I shook my head. “No. I enjoy teaching the class with you and I don’t want to miss it.”

He rubbed his finger back and forth on my inner thigh. “If you’re sure.”

I leaned forward and kissed him. “I am.” I stood and we walked to the class, holding hands.

* * *

Knox and my uncle walked in toward the end of class and stood along the back wall. I had Keelan in a guillotine choke hold. Keelan didn’t even pause as he finished up his explanation about the hold. Then he tapped my hip, his signal for me to release him, and I unlocked my arms from around his neck.

“Alright, that’s it for today. We’ll see you on Wednesday,” Keelan said, dismissing the class.

Logan waited until the last student left before he reached into his gym bag and pulled out hand wraps. As he walked toward me, he tossed a set at me. “Wrap your hands,” he ordered.

I caught them. “I’m not doing this with you. Not here.”

“If you break your hand, I don’t want to hear it,” he said in a cold voice I hadn’t heard since we’d lived in Alaska.

Angry, I unraveled the wraps. I looked from Keelan to Knox. They were watching us, looking a little worried.

“You really want to do this in front of them?” I asked as I began wrapping one of my hands. Logan could be brutal when it came to sparring and to go toe-to-toe with him, I had to be just as brutal.

Logan didn’t look up as he wrapped his own hands. “Scared of what they’ll see when you get violent?”

The door opened then and Creed walked in. Today was his last day suspended from the swim team, which was why he was here and not at practice with Colt. He saw me and Logan, then looked at his brothers with a questioning expression. Knox flicked his fingers, gesturing for him to come stand by him.

I looked from them to Keelan, who stood on the opposite side of the room. “Don’t interfere.”

He frowned.

“Just stay out of it, please,” I asked as I wrapped my other hand.

“Worried I might hurt your boyfriends?” Logan asked.

I glared at him.

“Now that’s a pretty look,” he taunted. “I don’t know why you’re so scared to tell me which one you’re dating.”

“I’m not scared. It’s none of your business.”

He moved toward me when he was done wrapping his hands and I moved away. “You grew an attitude while I was away,” he said. “You sounded just like your sister there for a minute.”

That was a low blow.