Page 25 of Fight For Me

“I’m not saying that,” he says quickly, but I’m sure we can all read the defensiveness in his voice.

Uncle Daltrey folds his hands on the table and leans forward. I have to stifle a laugh. He looks like he’s imitating a business executive or something, but the tattoos, eyebrow piercing, and ancient AC-DC shirt kind of ruin the facade.

“We have a proposition for you,” he says. “As you know, Wyatt is in town for his surgery. He’s looking for a place to stay.”

“Apparently my house isn’t good enough,” Cash grumbles, collapsing into a chair at the end of the table.

Daltrey rolls his eyes. “That bedroom still has soccer themed wallpaper and bunkbeds in it.”

“So?” Cash shoots back. “Bunkbeds are dope.”

“Dad, don’t say dope,” Silas calls from the kitchen. “You’re old. Stop trying to sound cool.”

“Kid, Iinventedcool—”

“Can we get back on topic?” Reed snaps.

Daltrey turns to face us. “We thought a good solution would be Wyatt moving in here with the three of you while you’re filming.”

There’s a long beat of silence as my chest seizes. They want Wyatt to live here? In this condo? With me?

It’s warm in here all of a sudden and I can feel my face flush. I can’t live with Wyatt Warner. Not when I make him so uncomfortable. Not when he can barely look at me.

Not when I still feel the sting of his rejection like an old wound that just won’t heal.

“Hang on,” Fox finally says, holding up a hand. “Let me see if I have this straight. You found us a babysitter?”

“No one is saying anything about a babysitter,” his dad argues.

Fox smacks his hand against the table, clearly pissed. “A spy then? Are you expecting him to come home and report everything we’re doing here?”

“Fox,” Wyatt says in that familiar deep rumble I think about way too much. “I wouldn’t do that. I’m not going to spy on you guys. You know me, man.”

Fox glares at him. “What’d they pay you to do this? Or was it a present? New car?”

Wyatt holds his gaze, face expressionless. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Then why in the hell did you agree to do this?”

For just the briefest moment, so quickly that I could almost tell myself I imagined it, his gaze slides down the table to me, before darting back to Fox. “Because I don’t have a place to stay,” he says easily. “No grand conspiracy.”

Fox narrows his eyes at Reed. “You said this would help all of us out,” he says. “If Wyatt really isn’t babysitting us or spying on us, what in the hell do you get out of it?”

“It will make us feel better,” Daltrey answers. “Wyatt is older and—”

“And you don’t trust me.” Fox looks both pissed and hurt. “Cool, Dad. Nice to know.”

“I didn’t say that.” Daltrey reaches across the table for his son’s arm but Fox jerks it back.

“Listen,” my dad begins, using that calm, no-problems-here voice I’ve heard him use a million times before when he has to put out fights between the Ransome boys. The four of them have terrible tempers and my dad seems to be the only one who can really calm them when they’re all riled up and ready to throw down. “We’re not talking about spying or babysitting or trust. But we have been in your position before. We understand what it’s like to have this kind of drive.” He gestures around at the three of us. “We know what it’s like to be willing to do just about anything to get where you want to be.”

“And now you’re saying that’s bad?” I ask.

“No, Allie, not bad. But it does put you in a vulnerable position. It can make it more difficult to be level-headed, to make decisions without emotion.”

“So you want Wyatt making those decisions for us.”

“No.” Uncle Daltrey sounds frustrated now. “We just want you to have some back-up. Someone on your side. So if the producers are putting pressure on you or asking you to film things that you aren’t comfortable with, you’ll have a neutral person in your camp.”