Take Me Home (The Heartbreak Brothers 1)

“Yeah. But that’s not important right now.” Marco talked fast, in an effort to stop Gray from interrupting him again. “I just got a message. There’s a link to a video on Twitter. It’s going viral.”

“What video?”

“A video of Maddie from when she was at Ansell. A sex video. Do you know about this?”

It was like somebody had punched him in the face. Gray physically recoiled. “Where Brad is having sex with another woman next to her?” he asked, his stomach turning over.

“It looks like it. Christ, this isn’t good. Why the hell didn’t you tell me about it when you told me about Brad?”

“Because Maddie didn’t want anybody to know. It was supposed to be old history.” Gray raked his fingers through his hair. “Can you suppress it? Get Twitter to take it down?”

“Yeah, I can try. But it will take time. And somebody else will just post it again. These things are like flies. Every time you think you’ve got rid of one another appears.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll need to make some calls. But keep your phone close and I’ll let you know what happens.”

“I need to find Maddie,” Gray said, his stomach churning. The thought of that video being out there would cut her up. Everybody would see it, and it would feel like she was being violated all over again. “Do what you can to make it go away.”

“I’ll try.”

Gray didn’t like the way Marco didn’t sound very sure. He pressed his lips together and slid his phone into his pocket, as his sister walked down the stairs

“Becca!” he called out, thanking God it was her day off. “Can you give me a ride into town?”

She scrambled down the stairs. “Sure,” she said, tying her hair into a knot. “What’s up, getting Maddie withdrawal symptoms?”

“Nope.” He turned his phone over so she could see the screen. Becca skimmed t

he tweets, her eyes widening as she saw the contents.

“Oh shit,” she whispered. “Poor, Maddie.”

“These are going to kill her. I want to be there when she finds out.”

“Okay,” Becca said, pulling her keys from the hook on the wall. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Maddie cleared the table a group had recently vacated, piling the plates on top of her arm before grabbing the mugs and glasses, balancing them carefully. She carried them over to the kitchen, using her behind to push the metal doors open, then deposited them in front of the dishwasher.

“They didn’t touch their grits,” Murphy grumbled, scraping the remnants into the trashcan. “Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.

“What’s eating you?” she asked him. “You’ve been in a bad mood all day.”

“And you’ve been unreasonably happy for weeks. What happened to all those sarcastic remarks and the wise cracks?” Murphy asked her. “I hate happy people.”

“No you don’t.”

He looked up at her with raised eyebrows. “I really do. So can you tone it down with that smile?”

She hadn’t even realized she was smiling. That seemed to be happening a lot. Since her heart-to-heart with Gray on the beach, and their coming out to their families as a couple, she’d felt light as a feather. Her cheeks were beginning to ache.

“Happy waitresses are good for business,” she pointed out. “I’m doing you a favor.”

“Hmmph.” Murphy slid the plates into the dishwasher. “In my experience, happy waitresses put in their notice. There’s a definite correlation.”

On a whim, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. She wasn’t sure who was more surprised, Murphy or her. “I’m not leaving,” she told him. “I’m just happy. Try to be happy for me, too.”

Grabbing the cleaning spray and a cloth, she walked back into the diner to wipe the table down. A group of girls were staring at their phones and giggling at something. She patted her jeans to find her own phone, and realized she’d left it in her jacket pocket, hanging in the kitchen.

The door opened, the bell ringing out, and Jessica Martin walked in with two other made up women.