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He glares at me like I’ve asked him to count grains of sand, but he cleans up his mess. I’ll have to wash the floors again later, anyway.
“Sell the diner,” Billy says, his tone taking on a quality I don’t like. Rough and demanding. “It’s not fair that Dad left it to you.”
“We’ve had this discussion before, and I’ve made my stance clear. Dad left the diner to me. I am not going to sell it,” I say. “Especially not to pay off the debt you took out to buy a stolen car that you’ve been charged for. When’s your court date? You haven’t even told me?—”
“Because you don’t care, Marce,” he says. “You care about your new husband more than you care about your real family.”
“That’s not true,” I snap. “I care about you, and that’s exactly why I’m trying to help you, but I’m not going to sell our father’s diner to enable you.”
“You’ve changed,” he says.
“Yeah, well, it was about time.”
Billy rises from the floor, steadying himself on the back of a chair.
“I thought you were my sister.”
“I am your sister, and that’s exactly why I’m not going to sell our family diner so that you can?—”
“Bullshit. Don’t call it that. Don’t call itour family dinerwhen you don’t treat me like family anymore. It’s your diner. It’s always been yours,” he says, and then he limps off toward the door.
“Billy.”
He turns back and looks at me.
“Go to the hospital.”
“Don’t pretend you care about what happens to me, sissy,” he says.
I huff out a breath, biting back tears.
“Billy.” It takes everything in me to say it. “Billy, the next time you call me, it better be with an apology. For the way you’ve acted. And for the things you’ve done. I’ve never expected much of you, but now, I need more. I need you to be more than this so that you can be safe, and I won’t have to worry about you anymore.”
“It’s easy for you to say that when you have everything.”
And then he slams the door shut and crosses the street, pulling the hoodie back up.
I lower myself into one of the chairs, a new addition to the diner thanks to Jesse’s funding and help, and squeeze my eyes shut.
The bell tinkles again.
“Angel.”
My eyelashes flutter open.
Jesse has unbuttoned his shirt and gotten rid of his tie, his suit jacket is over his arm, and those eyes consume me with how much emotion they carry. Concern, warmth.
“What happened?”
“I saw Billy.”
And then I tell him about the conversation.
By the end of it, Jesse’s fixed me a fresh cup of coffee, hugged me, and is already on the phone to Savage to figure this out. He paces back and forth in the diner, eyebrows drawn into slashes above his eyes.
“Yeah? That it? Fuck it. Right, yeah. Thanks, Savage. I’ll be in contact. Just keep doing what you’re doing, man. I appreciate this. Owe you one, big time.”
And then he hangs up.
