Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [87]
He backed away from her and Miranda followed like a puppet on a string.
“You don’t understand,” she said, making her voice slow and clear so she could explain it to Jess. “This man is older than you, honey. By quite a few years, and they’re important years when you’ll do a lot of growing up. And he had no right”—she shifted her attention to Frankie and emphasized that point again—“no right to make you think he cared about you, or to try to talk you into doing anything you weren’t comfortable with.”
“No right, is it?” Frankie finally broke in. His spiky hair and weirdly arched eyebrows made him look like a drawing out of a children’s story illustrating the damn Prince of Darkness or something. “Maybe you’re the one who hasn’t the right, to treat your brother like he’s mentally deficient, or a bloody child.”
Miranda bristled. “I don’t believe I have to answer to you for how my brother and I conduct our private, personal family affairs. And he is a child, you disgusting pervert!”
Frankie tilted his head and smirked that horrible smirk at her. “You wouldn’t think he was such an infant if you’d come out here about ten minutes earlier, pet.”
Jess smacked him on the shoulder, looking mortified, and Adam hopped into the conversation.
“Whoo kay, Frankie, really not helping. And can I say, we all might need to take a breather here? Seriously, Miranda, deep breath.”
“I won’t be able to breathe freely again until my brother and I are safely at home, nowhere in the vicinity of this, this, this . . .” She sputtered, unable to come up with anything scathing enough.
“Vile seducer?” Frankie supplied, sneering. “Shameless debaucher of innocents?”
“Okay, enough,” Jess said loudly.
Miranda opened her mouth, only to shut it with a snap when Jess continued, “And that goes for you, too. God. This is so not how I wanted this conversation to go.”
Forcing a calm she didn’t feel, Miranda held up her hands in surrender.
“You’re right. We shouldn’t be talking about this here. Let’s go home, and I promise we can sort it all out.”
She’d have to find out what the age of consent was in New York State. Probably eighteen, which was patently ridiculous, but with any luck it would be twenty-one and she could press full charges against Frankie Boyd.
Lost in fantasies of court dates and Frankie in an orange jumpsuit, Miranda didn’t immediately notice that Jess wasn’t agreeing. In fact, he’d moved closer to Frankie’s side, shrinking away from Miranda as if she were the one who’d victimized him.
The sight brought that panic that had been roiling beneath the surface bubbling up into her chest and throat. Her throat closed up, making her voice sound tight and terrified when she said, “Jess?”
“I don’t want to go home and sort anything out,” he said with a tremor that stabbed at Miranda’s heart. “Because there isn’t anything to sort out. I’m gay. You aren’t going to change that with a conversation. And I’m sorry”—his voice broke a little—“that this is so hard for you. But it’s been hard for me, too.”
Miranda’s eyes welled with tears, but she blinked them back furiously. “Jess, it’s okay. But please. You have to come home with me.”
“He doesn’t,” Frankie said. Try as she might, Miranda couldn’t detect an ounce of smugness in him now, and he seemed to be carefully avoiding touching Jess in any way. Jess looked up at him questioningly. Miranda didn’t want to be aware of the way his entire heart was in his eyes. Her stomach clenched.
Frankie cleared his throat. “He can stay with me for the night.”
Jess’s smile was beatific, and for a moment Miranda could only stare. But when her baby brother moved to twine his fingers with Frankie’s, a loud “No” exploded out of her.
Jess looked at her, his smile turning bittersweet. “This is what I want, Miranda. I know it’s not what you had planned for me, but it’s who I am. Come on, Frankie, let’s go.”
With that, he turned to leave, tugging Frankie along behind him.
Miranda couldn’t believe this was happening.