Page 426 of Face Off
Briggs removes the sweatshirt and pulls it over his T-shirt. “Look at that. I’m already benefiting from my investment.”
His phone lights on the table before he can continue. TEMPLE appears across the screen with the beginning of a message beneath her name.
Briggs turns the phone facedown so quickly that the movement becomes its own confession.
I slowly lift one eyebrow.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“What did my face say?”
“That you’re about to become intolerable.”
“Interesting.” I take another chip. “Is Temple part of Milwaukee’s premium social package?”
“She lives in Detroit.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“She is a friend.”
“So am I, and you haven’t flipped your phone over once since I arrived.”
“You came to reunite with Ryan. Please focus on your own romantic catastrophe.”
“Touchy.”
“Possessive.”
My mouth falls open. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Are we psychoanalyzing again?”
“That wasn’t psychology. You threatened to pull another woman’s tongue through her asshole. Possessive qualifies as observable behavior.”
“Temple told you about that?”
“Ryan told me. Temple supplied a dramatic reenactment during the wedding.”
“I was experiencing several complicated emotions.”
“You were experiencing homicide.”
“I apologized.”
“You also said you would do it again.”
“I apologized for my feelings, not my commitment to follow through.”
Briggs stares at me for one beat before his laughter fills the apartment. “Fuck, I like you now.”
“You liked me before.”
