Read The Line That Binds for Free Online

never came. She was different than the girl I saw four months ago. The roots of her hair were grown out dark, and she seemed younger without the heavy eyeliner dragging her light eyes down. Any skin left exposed appeared as soft as it did that day. It took every ounce of my willpower to keep from imagining how sexy the rest of her body looked under the layers of bubbles. What finally snapped me back to reality was the thought of her owning a majority of Stockton Estate. She, someone who barely knew Janine, who had no clue how this place ran, and who didn’t deserve to live in this house, would be the one who made all of the business decisions soon enough. She didn’t deserve any of it. Pop did. And now, if what Pop believed was true, I’d have to befriend her and possibly protect her? This was a bunch of crap.
    Her eyes hardened, pressing me for an answer, for something.
    I shook my head and clenched my jaw, feeling it explode from the inside for the second time today. I wanted to walk out of the room and go tell Pop to shove it. I wanted to walk away before there was any chance to be chopped down by this person, whose current stare held enough disdain to make that decision a little less complicated.
    I rocked back on my boot, the weight of the “cons” pushing me toward the door.
    Her eyes examined me further, replacing shock and anger with a quizzical squint.
    “LJ?” I said, finally forcing something through my teeth. My confliction made her initials sound neither friendly nor hated. They came out more like a question and I had no idea why.
    Why did I agree to this?

 
     
     
    “What did you say?” I asked, suddenly realizing how naked I was under a slowly diminishing shield of bubbles. I crossed my legs, folded my arms around them, and gathered more fluffy foam to cover the top of my body as stealthily as I could. When I pulled the bubbles close, they were as high as my neck inside the deep tub, though I felt the tiny pops against my skin as more died, leaving me a little more exposed with each passing second. I hope he can’t see anything. I looked back up at him, waiting for him to speak again. Why isn’t he saying anything?
    I watched his full lips repeat the words. “I said your name. LJ.” They pushed far out and wrapped widely around the syllables, revealing specs of silver and several wires behind their exaggerated movements. Is his mouth wired shut? I stared at the soft cleft in his chin while I reprocessed his voice in my head. LJ. That’s what he said. LJ.
    “Why did you call me that?” I snapped, not meaning for it to tumble out so harshly. No one had used that nickname for me in years. Not even Gavin.
    “Um,” he replied. His lips pressed together like he was humming, and his eyes darted around the room. He was wearing brown work boots that were caked with dried mud. Flecks of it dropped onto the bathroom tile─that I’d just swept─as he bounced one boot heel rhythmically, nervously. His jeans looked a size too big and his T-shirt wasn’t much better. Both were ripped in random places and smeared with grease stains and dirt, and there were streaks of something blue across his left shoulder, like he’d used it to wipe his fingers clean. “That’s what Janine called you. Your initials?” he finally answered through his teeth, though he sounded unsure.
    Aunt Janine had called me that when I was little, but I hadn’t seen the woman for several years before she died. I wondered why she would speak about me to anyone. Then I remembered she was crazy enough to bequeath her house to me.
    “And you’re Benjamin, right?” I asked, remembering him from the will reading. We’d both stood in front of Janine’s lawyer four months ago and signed papers that declared us future owners of this property. He’d worn a cheap pair of dress pants that day and a tie that was too short for his long upper body. I could tell he was uncomfortable wearing them, or maybe just uncomfortable being there.