Page 164 of Embriagado

“Don’t speak with your mouth full.”

Ready to answer him, my phone buzzed, and I took it out of my pocket to check it. It was Nacio, finally responding to my many texts asking where he was.

Nacio

Crashing at Tess’s.

The little shit. I’d expected this much; still, it didn’t stop me from clenching my jaw and clicking my tongue. In seconds, my good mood was gone, and I placed the phone on the desk. I thought of reaching for my burger, but that kid made me lose my fucking appetite. Slumping back in my chair, I stretched my legs forward and tilted my head back with a deep grunt.

“What’s wrong?” Ariyan asked.

“My brother.”

“What happened?”

“We fought.”

“Why?”

I closed my eyes. “’Cause the idiot’s ruining his life, and he’s too stupid to know it.”

Ariyan snorted a laugh, and the sound made me jerk up, a frown on my face.

“The fuck?”

“I’m laughing at the irony,” he said, a small smile on his lips. “I mean, aren’t you doing the same thing by fighting for me?”

“Oh, fuck off.” I straightened in the chair and crossed my arms. “I’m fully aware that what I’m doing is dangerous, okay? While he—” I gritted my teeth. “—he’s tossing his life away for some dumb whore.”

Ariyan’s smile dropped, his expression turning colder as his lips set in a hard line. Picking up his fork, he went back to his salad.

“I don’t appreciate it when people use the word ‘whore’ as a slur,” he said as he stuck his fork into the lettuce.

I scratched my chin. “Well, she’s an actual prostitute.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, ‘and’?” I glared at him. “Isn’t that bad enough?”

He cleaned his lips with a napkin before finally looking up from the salad bowl.

“Just because someone is a sex worker doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It’s an unfair stigma that paints the victims of this horrible industry as deviants, while completely disregarding the root cause of the issue.”

I shifted in my chair, feeling shit for being disrespectful, apparently.

“And the root cause is?”

“Men.”

The conversation took a completely different turn, and unsure of what to say, I grabbed my half-eaten burger.

“Well, I respect what you’re saying, but that whor—I mean, Tess, she’s a bad apple through and through.” I took a big bite. “It’d be one thing if she loved him, but she doesn’t give a flying fuck about him.” Just thinking about it made me furious, and I tossed the burger back on the plate. “And him? He’s a good fucking kid, okay? He has some real potential, and seeing him tossing it all away for that bitch…”

With a sigh, I buried my face in my palms.

“I know I’m the furthest thing from being a role model or a responsible adult… Like, fuck. Just now, I insulted a whole industry without even knowing it.” I huffed and lifted my head to meet his golden stare. “I just want to be there for him, you know? To stop him from making mistakes.”

Still not saying anything, Ariyan continued to hold my stare, and the look in his eyes was fucking cold.