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“Not that specific situation,” I tell him, feeling my heart begin to ease. “But as a whole. Yes. All the time. Just today my communications professor accused me of being a freeloader who thinks she can get a pass through college because I’m Axel Stone’s little sister simply for asking for an extra credit assignment. This is just my life, Ax. I don’t get to be normal.”
“Fuck, Rae. I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “Do you want me to put in a call with the dean and see if I can help?”
An unladylike scoff tears out of me. “Hell no,” I tell him. “Are you trying to make everything worse?”
“No, I just—”
“It’s fine, Axel. I know you mean well, and I swear, I didn’t mean to worry you. It’s just been a rough week, and you just happened to call right at the worst time. I just need the night to feel sorry for myself, and I’ll be good as new tomorrow.”
There’s a slight pause before a slow “Mm-hmm” comes through the speakers.
“You’re on your way home, right?” I ask, trying to act as though everything is right in the world. “You get two weeks off to relax.”
“Yeah, we’re on the jet now,” he says with a slight hesitation in his tone.
I force a ridiculous smile across my face. “After partying it up in Australia with hookers and coke?” I ask, trying to be supportive of his night, despite how the idea of Ezra being involved seems to eat me alive.
“Fuck,” he mutters, and I can all but hear the cringe ripping across his face. “You saw that, huh?”
“More like who didn’t see it? It was splashed across every news page in the country. You and Devil Spawn practically broke the internet.”
“Devil Spawn?”
“He Who Shall Not Be Named.”
“Right.”
“Yeah . . .”
An awkward silence seems to settle between us and, not being able to handle it, I quickly wrap up this nightmare. “Listen, it’s starting to rain, and it looks like it’ll be a nasty storm, so I better go before I get stuck driving in it.”
“Okay, sure. I’ll ummm . . . drive safe, alright? Text me when you get home so I know you’re okay.”
“Sure thing, Ax. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Turd.”
My thumb sweeps over the hang-up button on my steering wheel and as the car falls into a heavy silence, I feel another piece of my soul crumble. Then after looking up at the crystal clear sky, I finally dry my face and get my ass back home where I can spend the rest of my night wishing that my life could have been different.
Wishing that Axel never left.
Wishing that Ezra never broke me to pieces.
And wishing that he never even looked my way.
4
Ezra
The flight from Australia to the U.S. has never been my favorite, even in our private jet. But add the torture of being scolded by management for two straight hours while nursing the worst fucking hangover, and it’s practically hell. Not to mention Rock’s inability to quit drumming against the table, but after so many years, it’s a noise one must become accustomed to.
It’s almost a fourteen-hour flight, and we’re barely past the halfway mark. If it weren’t for the knowledge that Axel is currently on the phone with Raleigh while sitting directly opposite me, I probably would have crashed by now.
Something is wrong.
The moment she accepted his call and he started twisting his ring around his finger, I knew it.
His whole tone changed, and he was on high alert, but the questions spewing out of his mouth were the worst. “What the fuck did you just say, Raleigh? What are you talking about? Did someone touch you?”
