Page 52 of Malaise
“Nope.” I try to sidestep Jasper, but the arsehole blocks me again with an outstretched arm as though I need protection. “Um, excuse me.”
“Why is he picking you up?” Jasper snaps.
“Why the fuck do you care?” I bite back. Until a week ago, I wasn’t even on his radar, so why the interest now? “And why are you even here?”
“Step away, kid.” Carver jerks his head to the side, arms folded over his chest, which only serves to make his muscles appear twice as big.
“Fuck off, old man. How about you let Meg make up her own mind without bullying her into anything, yeah?”
“Like you are?” I ask. “I’ve made up my mind, Jasper. I want you to move, and I want to go home with Carver.”
“Home?” He snorts. “Well that went quick.”
“Again, I don’t know what it is to you, but if you’ve got nothing else constructive to say, go find Malibu Barbie and Cindy to work out your pent-up frustrations on.”
Carver chuckles, drawing Jasper’s attention away from me.
“Seriously, you paedo, leave her alone.” Jasper makes a shooing motion toward the Falcon. “Go on and find yourself some bitch your own age, yeah?”
I give Carver “this shit’s getting ridiculous” eyes, and take two steps back to have another go at getting around Jasper. It works a treat, given he’s so distracted by the hand heading for his throat.
Carver lifts Jasper to his toes as I hustle a safe distance to the hood of the Falcon and watch the showdown of testosterone unfold.
“Listen, you little fucker,” Carver sneers in Jasper’s face. “You’re the one making her uncomfortable, not me. She’s made her intentions clear, so respect the woman and back the fuck off.”
Woman. He called me a woman, not a girl.
“She know what Den was doing uptown yet?”
I push off the hood of the car and take a step forward, asking “What?” as Carver shakes the shit out Jasper.
“Shut up, arsehole,” he hisses in Jasper’s face. “She doesn’t need you breaking her heart about her brother before he’s even in the ground.”
“No.” I hold my hand out, walking up to stand beside the two of them. “Put him down.” I turn my attention to Jasper as he stands clutching his throat once Carver lets go. “What are you on about?”
“I came here to talk to you, but this dickhead turned up and got in the way.”
“Talk to me about what?” I blurt out. Just get to the point, already.
Jasper eyes Carver cautiously before he continues. “You remember my big brother, Nyall, right?”
I nod, brow furrowed while I try to work out where he’s going with this. His big brother left high school a couple of years before we started and promptly went off the rails.
“He returned from his OE a few months back, and not long after Den would show up at our place.”
“So?” I never bothered to ask who it was that Den associated with when he wasn’t around me; maybe it was legit?
“Dad sent Nyall off overseas to get him away from the crowd he was hanging with. But when Nyall came back, he fell right back into the same old shit.”
“Selling weed?”
“Yeah.” He glances at Carver warily before returning his focus to me. “Den and Nyall had no other reason to hang out, Meg. Nyall is ten years older than me. He wasn’t even at school when Den started.”
The news isn’t exactly shocking; I knew that Den smoked on occasion. Shit, he was the reason I had my first hit. I busted him getting high down the back of our property when the smell drifted in my open bedroom window. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat that day, but it sure as hell got it wasted.
“What’s this got to do with the accident?” I ask. My head pounds, and my eyes ache from the pressure.
Jasper moves a little closer, dipping his head to level our eyes. “You know who supplies in Whitecaps, right?”