Chapter Twenty-Eight - Paxton
Both Oliver and I watch Cindy retreat through the door. I catch a glimpse of Nolan, Mac, Five, and West lingering just outside the door before she closes it behind her. And then we turn and face each other.
“Fuck you,” Oliver says. “Just fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.” He pokes me in the chest with his finger each time he says it, but the last time he pushes with his whole palm and I have to take a step back.
“Look—”
“No, you fucking look.” Oliver snarls the words out. “You fucking look, asshole. My sister?” He pauses like he’s still unable to come to terms with it. “My baby fucking sister, Pax? Just what the fuck? Why don’t you just rat me out to the police while you’re at it? Huh? Or chop me up and feed me to the poor? Hey, I got an idea, why don’t I just fucking punch your lights out?”
The blow comes hard, smacking against my jaw. I’m not expecting it, so my head snaps to the side and my ear starts to ring.
The second blow clips my lip and blood sprays out onto Oliver’s white thermal shirt.
I see red. I duck my head and bull-charge him, straight into the desk. He goes flying over it backwards in some kind of circus somersault and actually lands on his feet on the opposite side.
I lean over.
He meets me in the middle.
Eye to eye.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks.
“What the fuck do you want me to say, Oliver? I like her, OK? She came to me. I didn’t… like… seek her out or anything. She came on to me, man. At my fucking house in Malibu. I didn’t know!”
“That’s funny,” Oliver says, his rage about to spill over. “Because I distinctly remember you spitting out your drink at Corporate’s house two weeks ago when I mentioned I had a sister named Cinderella.” Oliver starts walking around the desk as he talks. “You didn’t think it was relevant then? Instead you decide to keep it a secret, tell fucking Perfect before me, and then proceed to bang her in Nolan ‘sick fuck’ Delaney’s office while everyone else is downstairs!”
He’s standing in front of me again. Fists clenching.
“If you swing,” I warn him. “I’ll swing back.”
He’s in motion before I finish and he connects with my cheek before I can block.
But OK. I get it now.
It’s a fight.
I swing back, clip him in the jaw just before he ducks, and then he rams me, head first, pushing me into the wall. Pictures fall off, and the door flies open. Nolan is standing there pointing at us as he roars, “Knock it the fuck off!”
But I barely hear it because Oliver’s next swing also connects, this time with the side of my head. My ear absorbs the second shot in less than two minutes and rings even louder.
Then Mac and West have me by the arms and Five and Nolan are pushing Oliver back to the other side of the room.
“That’s enough,” Five says, when Oliver continues to shout at me. “That’s enough.”
Oliver turns on Five then. “How long have you known about this?”
“Me?” Five laughs. “I found out last night. I came to you today. And now you know too. So don’t go mixing me up with the rest of this bullshit, Oliver Shrike. Remember who the fuck you are.”
“I know who I am,” Oliver says, swiping the back of his hand across his bleeding lip. “But”—he points to the rest of us—“I don’t know who the fuck these guys are anymore. I’ll tell you that right now. I have no fucking clue who you guys are. I think I’m done here. I think I’m out. Fuck you,” he says, pointing to me. Then Nolan. “And you and your sick shit. And you too, asshole”—to Perfect—“you and your do-gooder bullshit can just all go to hell.”
“What about me?” West says.
“You’re the worst of all of them, Corporate.” Oliver sneers his name. “You lie like a motherfucker. I hate liars.”
“Just calm the fuck down,” I say, shrugging West and Mac off me. “It’s not the end of the world. And you’re one to talk, dickhead. None of us are innocent, OK? Not even you.”
“Not even me?” Oliver says, spitting blood onto the floor of Nolan’s office.
“Nice,” Nolan says, taking a swipe at Oliver’s shoulder. “Nice fucking manners, Shrike.”
But Oliver doesn’t even notice. He’s glaring at me. His blue eyes are tiny slits of anger and he peers at me from under his messed-up blond hair. He’s a big guy. Not as tall as me, but a damn big guy. He looked like a linebacker even as a freshman in college. He looked rough. But now—with his biceps bulging against the tight fabric of his long-sleeved Shrike Bikes thermal, tattoos peeking out from underneath the collar, sweat pouring down the side of his jaw as he tries to contain his anger—he just looks… dangerous.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Oliver says, repeating my words. “To you. But I had one sister, Paxton Vance. One sister who was smaller than me all growing up. One baby sister who looked up to me as her protector instead of down on me like an annoyance. And you just stole her away.”
“Oliver,” Mac says. “Come on, man. It’s not like that and you know it.”
But Oliver shrugs him off when he tries to clap him on the shoulder. “How the fuck would you know?” And then he looks at all of us. “How the fuck would any of you know?” He points at Mac. “Do you have a little sister? Or you, Nolan? Who the fuck knows with West, he’s such a goddamned liar.”
“Hey,” West protests.
“I do,” Five says.
“I know you do, asshole.” Oliver doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“So I get it. Which is why I told you right away. But look, you’re best friends with Pax for a reason, right?”
Oliver just shakes his head.
“You know he’ll take good care of her.”
Oliver breaks his death stare at me to look at Five. “Take good care of her? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Oliver—” I say.
“No.” He cuts me off. “No. You can’t take good care of her. You just fucked her, Vance. You just fucked her.”
“Look,” I say. “I get it. The office wasn’t appropriate—”
“No, shit, asshole,” Nolan says. “We are a fucking hotel, you know.”
“I can’t believe you guys,” Oliver says. “You think this is funny?” He stares at us. All of us, one at a time. And then his gaze lands back on me. “I’m not talking about fucking her, Pax. I’m talking about fucking her over.”
For a second I think he’s talking about me cheating or something. I’m about to protest when it finally hits me.
“You ask everyone if I’m normal,” Oliver says, pointing at West. “‘Why doesn’t he date anyone? Why doesn’t he have a girlfriend? How can a guy run a dating site and not have a girlfriend?’ Well, I’ll tell you assholes why,” he says, snarling the last word like a wild animal. “Because you don’t pack other people into your fucked-up baggage and take them on the trip. If there’s one thing my dad made me understand when all that shit went down ten years ago, that was it. You travel to your destination alone. You don’t bring anyone along for the ride.”
He looks back at me and everything becomes clear.
“You just got her involved, Pax,” he says, poking me in the chest so hard I have to take half a step back. “You just packed her bags and put her on a runaway train to nowhere. Whoever is doing all this, they’re gonna come after her too. So congratulations, Mr. Mysterious. You’re probably gonna get my little sister killed.”