Page 42 of The Rowdy Ones

“Where we came from, it was dangerous. It’s not unwarranted.”

She chuckles. “I hope you don’t think I’m prying or implying something. Just wanting to learn your family dynamics a little better. You’re already like the daughter I never had.”

I relax at her words. “Could you imagine Weston with a sister? He would have to share the attention.”

“He would hate that,” she says with a laugh. “The boy has always wanted to be front and center.”

We discuss Weston some more and the playlist he made me. But, as if she’s steering a large ship through a maze of jagged rocks, she circles back to Rowdy again.

“Not to be out of line, but Rowdy appears a bit possessive to me.”

I sit ramrod straight and frown at her. “How?”

“The way he looks at you, for one.”

That’s not fair because I can’t see how he looks at me. How am I supposed to defend him with that answer?

“Secondly,” she continues, “he puts his hands on you a lot.”

I pluck my hand from hers and scoot over a bit, needing distance from this woman. She’s my friend, but right now it doesn’t feel so friendly. It feels like an attack.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” she says quickly, regret in her tone. “I’m so sorry. It’s just my number one priority to keep my patients safe. As an observer, I’m only telling you what I see. There are red flags for certain types of behavior and I see them in your brother. Did I overstep?”

A knock on the door interrupts our awkward and prying conversation.

“Come in,” Gwen says in a tight voice. The door opens and then she turns overly friendly. “Thatcher and Angelica. I’ve been wanting to introduce you to Destiny.”

Meeting the two patients with similar vision problems like myself would have been exciting twenty minutes ago. Unfortunately, Gwen poked at my family, which has me on edge.

Is she right, though?

Is Rowdy possessive over me?

And why don’t I think that’s a bad thing?

He would do anything to keep his family safe. If that’s seen as possessive, I don’t understand why Gwen is afraid of it.

“Let’s grab something to eat,” Uncle Atticus says, turning in the opposite direction from home. “It’ll give us time to chat just the two of us.”

Here it comes.

A fatherly bitch out session.

My phone buzzes and I snatch it from my pocket in case it’s Destiny. Unfortunately, it’s not.

Wild: The girls just left. Lila didn’t say much. Was the sex bad?

He has no idea.

It takes me entirely too long to respond to Wild with my uncoordinated fingers.

Me: we didnt have sex just cuddled

Of course his response is immediate.

Wild: Do you know how to use punctuation?

An eternity later…