She: Part 2 (42 page)

Piping up, I say the first defensive thing that comes into my head, “Jerry deserved it,” but I instantly regret it. Taylor turns to scowl at me like I’m the most insensitive person that he’s ever laid eyes on. That’s the last thing that a victim wants to hear, I realise too late. I buckle with guilt under his gaze.
I really shouldn
’
t have said that
.

“No one deserves to be physically assaulted,” he leers at me.

“
Easy
, Taylor,” Logan says with a hint of condescension. “Don’t take everything so damn personally.”

“Why was Jerry apologising to
you
, Logan?” Mary-Gene asks.

“That’s just the kind of warped power-play Logan is into, mom,” Taylor tells her.

My mom narrows her eyes at Taylor. It’s starting to dawn on her that he’s not as gentlemanly as his big brother.

“I was just about to explain that,” Logan says evenly, his levelheadedness impressing me. Perturbed though my mother’s unintentional outburst may have made him, he remains his cool, calm self. I realise that his not wanting Taylor to find was not about protecting himself, but rather saving everyone the drama of another Taylor Tantrum. “You can listen to my explanation, or you can fuck off,” he tells Taylor clearly, “I really don’t care which.”

“I think I’ll stay right here,” Taylor says, reminding me of a stroppy teenager.

“Whatever,” Logan shakes his head at his brother and turns his back on him. He reengages his mother, father, and my mom with his story about Jerry once more while walking a few more steps away from Taylor’s seething rage.

To my right, Buddy, Abigail, and Karen are laughing about something unknown to me, either unaware or purposefully ignoring the animosity that’s risen over the last few minutes, leaving Taylor and I standing together in the middle of everyone, a terse silence between us.

“So…” Taylor says, striking up an unwanted conversation, “what do you do for work?”

“I’m an interior designer,” I tell him curtly.

“Oh…” he nods, clearly holding something back, and I know he wants me to ask him what, but I don’t give him the satisfaction. He’s fired up and looking to pick a fight, I know he is. Eventually, he continues anyway, saying, “I thought maybe Logan
kept
you, you know?”

I instantly feel like I’ve been slapped around the face. There’s an insult I’ve never been dealt before, I think.
Gemima Samuels
:
Gold Digger
. “Like a harem of one?” I ask.

“Exactly,” he laughs callously. “I saw the pair of you sneaking off earlier. Does he often summon you like that?”

I ignore the second slap in the face, and instead I say, “Your brother doesn’t need to buy love, Taylor.”

“Doesn’t he?” he laughs again, indicating the room around us.

“Logan didn’t organise this event, it was the PBA,” I say, as if I know them personally. Then repeating Logan’s earlier sentiment, and selling it well, I tell him, “You’re not worth knowing if you’re not a part of the PBA.”

“I don’t know what that stands for, Gemma.”

Gemma
? OK, now he’s really starting to shit me! “Hmm,” I grin sourly, “it’s
Gemima
, not Gemma.” He knows that already.

“It’s Gemima this month,” he says, quite openly considering our close proximity to the rest of his family.

He’s goading me, I know he is, it couldn’t be anymore obvious and yet I can’t rise above it. My resolve has crumbled. “Pardon me?”

“It’s Gemima
this
month. Next month, who knows who he’ll have,” he says cruelly.

Urgh
! He has no idea how awkward his current words will make every family function in the future. He has no idea that he’s talking to his future sister-in-law. My heart is pounding in my chest and heat prickles underneath my skin. Staring at him I think I might actually have found someone that I like
less
than Jerry! I didn’t think that was ever going to be possible, and yet… “You really know fuck all about your brother, don’t you?” I say quietly.

“
Excuse
me?” he asks, as though
I
’
ve
insulted
him
.

Anger rises within me. I loosen the reins on my American Mouth. “I said you know
fuck
all
about your brother.”

“You’ve got quite a mouth on you, Gemma. That’s probably why he likes you,” he says euphemistically.

Slap number three, I count, feeling dumbstruck. I stand, gaping at him, entirely speechless. I fail to register that the family members around us have all gone utterly quiet.

Wow! Just…
wow
! The gold digger jab I can let slide, but that? That’s offensive and demeaning and I won’t be spoken to like that! He may have used a mild alternative, but there is no mistaking his vulgar meaning. “You think
Logan
has a problem with indecency? Yet you utter
that
to me? That crude, disgusting comment?” I shake his words off instantly. I will not be made to feel worthless by the likes of him. “You’re a hypocrite as well as an asshole, Taylor,” I tell him, my hands practically shaking from the amount of adrenalin coursing through me.

I’d like nothing better than to take that adrenalin and slap him stupid. This evening was supposed to be about appreciating Logan, not defending him, and certainly not about defending myself. How did everything go so terribly wrong? Logan
told
me that he wasn’t going to let Taylor dampen the mood, and yet
I
’
ve
fallen head first into Taylor’s ploy to do just that.
Shit
,
Gem
! I remind myself on the spot that I’m not entirely to blame though. Sure, I let Taylor goad me, but he’s the cruel one, he’s the delusional one and his next words prove it beyond all doubt.

“My brother has the personality of an addict. You’re just his latest fix,” he says to me, and it’s clear that he truly believes that his words are the truth.

The silence in our immediate vicinity quickly becomes deafening. Everyone — Logan, Karen, Buddy, Mary-Gene, Rupert, my mom, and even Abigail — is staring at Taylor and I.

“What the fuck did you say to her?” Logan demands to know from his brother. His eyes are dark and dangerous and his voice is cold as ice.

“
Taylor
…” Karen breathes, her face pale and horrified, “why on earth would you say that?”

“I said you have the personality of an addict,” Taylor says, ignoring his wife, and instead looking Logan straight in the eye, goading him as well, unfazed my Logan’s threatening demeanour.

Logan shakes his head. “What did you say
before
that, Taylor?” he wants to know. He’s pissed,
really
pissed!
Shit
, I think again. If anything is going to cement their acrimonious relationship for Logan, it’ll be Taylor insinuating that I’m a slut.

My mother, who by the look of fury on her face might be more of a threat to Taylor’s personal safety than Logan is, also picked up on the insult. “I believe the fucker as good as called my daughter a tramp,” she says, seething.

“Yes, I believe he did,” Logan agrees, never taking his eyes off of his younger brother. There are many emotions clear to me in Logan’s eyes. He’s angry, of course, but he’s also disappointed and irrevocably decided about the fate of their relationship.

Dammit
! This was
not
supposed to happen! I
know
Taylor’s a supersonic, cataclysmic asshole, but I can’t help feeling angry with
me
.
I
know better than to let someone like him get under my skin, I
should
’
ve
walked away, I should’ve let him implode on his own rage rather than putting up my own target.

The nine of us are immersed in this tense standoff in the very centre of the otherwise lively and happy partygoers.

“I, uh, I’m going to take Abigail to the dance floor,” Buddy says, holding her hand and walking away, removing her from the boiling tension that’s about to explode.

“Apologise to Gemima
right
now,” Logan orders.

“No,” Taylor shakes his head. Then looking at me once more, he says, “I’m trying to help you, before you get hurt.”

“Bullshit,” I snarl, losing my patience. “
You
are the hurtful one, Taylor,
not
Logan. You are the one who holds your entire family locked in the past.”

“Now I think it’s you who knows fuck all,” Taylor says. He couldn’t look at me with more contempt even if he tried.

“Watch. Your. Mouth,” Logan hisses at him.

I take a defiant step closer to Taylor. “I know
everything
,” I tell him with immense satisfaction. Was he hoping to alarm me by telling me about his past with Logan? Was he hoping that I would be shocked and disgusted and break Logan’s heart by ending our relationship right here in this room?

“Apologise, Taylor,” Logan tells him again.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Taylor shakes his head. He steps up to Logan, looking him straight in the eye. “Are
you
going to make me?” he taunts him, daring him to make a scene in the middle of this important night.

“Have you lost your ever-loving mind?” Mary-Gene shouts at Taylor, making all of us jump.

“I will deal with him,” Logan says to our parents. “Get the fuck outside,” Logan tells him, pushing him hard on the back towards the double doors of the ballroom.

He goes readily. I hand the drinks that I’m still holding to my mom, before Karen and I follow them out into the corridor, leaving Logan’s parents and my mom in our wake. As we leave them, neither Mary-Gene nor Rupert protests against Logan dealing with his younger brother, which tells me instantly that they trust him implicitly. They know that Logan won’t do to Taylor what he did nineteen years ago, they know the kind of man he is today, even if Taylor does not.

As soon as the four of us are alone in the long corridor, Taylor starts laughing. “Are you going to hit me, Logan?”

Tension fills my body. I study Logan carefully. The same energy that was running through him before he punched Jerry is evident to me once more, though now it’s tenfold. He’s tempted, I know he is, but right now he’s still in command of himself.

“I’d love to, Tay,” he admits, “but I won’t give you the satisfaction of thinking you’re right about me.”

“Oh, but I
am
right about you.” He just
keeps
pushing.

“I’d expect you to saying nothing less about me,” Logan allows. “But what I didn’t expect, and what is wholly unacceptable, is how you spoke to my fiancé.”

Predictably, Taylor’s eyes widen.

“That’s right, my
latest fix
as you called her, and I are getting married. Not that
you
’
ll
be there,” he adds coldly.
That
’
s one less guest to think about
. Shaking his head, Logan then speaks out loud the decision I knew he’d come to, “Now you and I — we are done, Taylor. You are
not
my brother, you are not my family. I disown you completely, but if I ever,
ever
hear you speak to a woman like that again, and not just her,” he says, referring to me, “but
any
woman, then I will make what happened nineteen years ago look like child’s play, and I won’t waste one minute feeling guilty about it,” Logan spells it out very clearly. “I truly believe that beating the
shit
out of you would be kinder than the words that you just said.” He stares at his younger brother in a mixture of anger and disbelief. “You think she’s my whore, Taylor,
really
?” he says, his voice getting louder and angrier with each syllable. “You think it’s acceptable to speak to a woman like that? For fuck’s sake you have a
daughter
,” Logan shouts, smacking him squarely on the chest. “I don’t ever have to see you again, but Abigail? That poor girl is stuck with you!”

It’s clear from the expression on Taylor’s face that Logan’s hit a nerve. “Leave my daughter out of this, Logan.”

“No, I don’t think so. She deserves
so
much more than a man like you to be her role model—”

Abruptly, Taylor lunges at Logan, throwing a wild punch. My breath catches in my chest, my heart beating over time. Logan
just
manages to avoid it, bending low and tackling Taylor around the stomach, pushing him forcefully into the wall of the corridor.
Please
,
don
’
t hit him
, I beg Logan in my mind. I know, despite his own words, that he
will
feel guilty, not for hurting Taylor, but for letting himself down; he doesn’t want to be that kind of man anymore, and this, right now, is his ultimate test. They struggle against each other for a brief moment, before Logan pins him securely, and I at last breathe a sigh of relief.

He shouts at Taylor, “You had better get the fuck over yourself and lose your pathetic attempt at anger—”

“Attempt at anger?” Taylor shouts back. “You don’t think that I’m really angry?” He tries to push Logan off of him, but Logan’s too strong. Mentally, physically, and emotionally, Taylor is the weaker of the two.

“You don’t have the
balls
to be angry, you’re too much of a coward,” Logan yells at him, his hands tightly gripping Taylor’s wrists so that he can’t throw them again. “
I
was angry,
I
went to war with myself, but you?” he shakes his head. “No, you’re not angry, Taylor, what you are is much,
much
worse than what I
ever
was.”

“I’m the coward?” Taylor exclaims, with so much disbelief that he almost laughs. “You were twice my size when you beat me to a bloody mess!”

“Yes, I
know
! We
all
know! So if your intention was to shock Gemima with your sad little story, then it’s not going to work,” he informs him.

“How can you be so callous? So lacking in compassion about what you did to me?”

“Because it was nineteen
fucking
years ago!” Logan bellows, getting out any last deep-seated frustrations. His noise level is starting to get alarming. I turn to close the doors to the ballroom, blocking the view for those few who are standing around, conversing near the entrance; they don’t need to see the man of the night like this. As I do so, Logan continues, “I did a cruel thing. Once. You’ve been doing cruel things for years.”