Page 84 of Revenge Puck

“That’s not the point.”

“Calm down. I am not trying to become a WAG,” I insist. “I am trying to not get fired.”

“And you won’t,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “You slept with one guy. You didn’t embezzle money. Good lord, stop being so dramatic.”

“I fraternized.”

“You had adult consensual fun, and you can’t take it back, you got good and fucked. Now, you have to live with it.”

“With a player.”

She leans closer, lowering her voice. “You say that like you committed treason.”

“It feels like treason.”

“To who? HR?”

“Yes! And my brother. What would he say?”

“Oh my god, your brother. Who cares what he thinks?”

“I do.”Icare.

“Jules, name one time that douche has ever been there for you.”

She’s being harsh, and I press my lips together, staring down into my wine. “I think you’re forgetting the time I dated Bruno Rusthaven. Our sophomore year in college?”

How could she forget? Bruno was on the hockey team and a junior; and when he’d asked me to a hockey party during hell week, I couldn’t freaking believe it. He was a popular enforcer I’d had a crush on, with scars on his face and a few missing teeth, not that it mattered.

I was used to guys with gaps where teeth should be.

Blaire had done my make-up and my hair, and we’d gone together. But when we’d arrived at the party, not only did Bruno have his arm around someone else, he asked me to join them in an upstairs bedroom. I’d beensoembarrassed because I had genuinely thought…

Well.

Never mind what I thought.

Somehow Declan found out—and when his university played ours, my brother had leveled Bruno during the game, knocking him on his ass, and told him never to text me again.

He has always had my back in his own way.

“Bruno Rusthaven was a dick,” Blaire declares, tipping her head back against the couch cushion. “And you are a grown woman. You do not need your brother’s permission—or his savior complex—to have a relationship.”

“It’s not a relationship.”

She shakes her head. “Whatever—semantics, you get my point. Declan does not get a say. I mean, have you seen some of the women he dates? Not a single one he can take home to your mother. Not a single one you’ve met!”

I can’t help it. I laugh.

But Blaire wouldn’t understand, because Blaire is an only child—and, she doesn’t trust him, doesn’t respect his opinion, and has called him shady on more than one occasion. She’s also been calling my brother a slimeball since college, and she has never once softened on that stance.

“Don’t you dare defend him. He doesn’t get to decide who you sleep with—Declan doesn’t own you. Your job doesn’t own you. You are allowed to have a life.”

“I know that, Blaire,” I insist quickly. “I don’t want this to turn into athing.”

“Too late. It already is a ‘thing’.” She uses air quotes around the word.

I give my head a shake. “It’s not.”