“I wasn’t offended,” I told him. His hands dropped and his eyes cut to me.

“Well, babe, that’s good but I am.”

“Brock—”

“That it?”

“Uh…”

“Tess,” he growled.

“He knows what happened to me,” I whispered.

Brock scowled at me in a very scary way then he snarled, “Fucking, fucking, fucking.” He stood, swiping his father’s beer bottle off the table and sidearm throwing it across the room so it exploded against the wall, beer splattering everywhere as he finished, “Hell!”

At these actions, I crawled back into the corner of the sofa and curled my legs tight against my chest, wrapping my arms around them. I watched him standing there, shaking his head and tearing his fingers through his hair all the way to the back of his neck where he left them curved around still shaking his head.

Then he dropped his hand and turned to me.

“Which one?” he demanded to know.

“Which one what?” I asked quietly.

“Which sister? Jill or Laura?”

“Brock, I don’t really mind,” I told him cautiously.

“Bullshit,” he fired back and I had to admit he was right. It was. “That man has no business knowin’ that happened to you.”

“Your family knows,” I pointed out.

“Precisely,” he clipped. “And that man isn’t family.”

“Brock,” I whispered, “he’s your Dad.”

“He is?” he asked sarcastically and I decided that was a good time to quit talking.

Even furious, Brock didn’t miss much. He saw me close down, decided to aim at a new target, and thus yanked his phone out of back pocket, hit some buttons, and put it to his ear.

He started pacing.

Then he said, “Yeah, Jill, it’s me and, heads up, I’m fuckin’ pissed.”

Oh man.

He guessed.

He kept going. “Why? I’ll tell you why. Because Tess didn’t tell her fuckin’ best friend she’d been raped, not for six fuckin’ years. Martha found out a month ago. Her own goddamned mother and sister don’t know but you know who does? Dad.”

He paused, maybe to listen, but not for long before he continued.

“Do not pretend you know by association what that shit feels like. Laura knows. That’s why Laura didn’t fuckin’ share. You had no fuckin’ business spewing that shit to Dad. I left the house to take my boys home, left her with Dad, and he fuckin’ talked to her about it. She’s alone here with a man she barely fuckin’ knows, and bein’ Dad, he thinks it’s his place to have a conversation with my fuckin’ woman about her bein’ violated.”

Another pause that didn’t last long.