Reality crashes into me all too soon and I suddenly feel vulnerable and exposed and I hate it.
How can you simultaneously love and hate how a person makes you feel?
Without a single word, Thayer captures the key in his fist before yanking it from my neck. I gasp, not expecting it, and then he’s pocketing the string and pulling away from me to stand.
“Don’t lie to me again.”
Thayer
Fuck. Goddammit. I slam the front door, bypassing Holden and Christian groping some chicks on the couch in the family room, and head straight to my room upstairs. An image of Shayne lying shell-shocked and half-naked plays in my mind. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be alone with her. I underestimated the effect she still has on me. She’s been fucking with my head since the moment she came back. She’s the only thing that gives me a distraction from this past year, but I can’t let myself forget that she played a part. Maybe. Fuck, I don’t know anymore. When she was gone, everything was so clear, and now? Now I don’t know which way is up. I don’t know what’s real. All I know is that I can’t let it happen again.
A knock on my door pulls me from my thoughts, followed by Holden’s voice. “You good, man?”
“Fine,” I snap, not wanting any company when my dick is still half-hard, but he opens the door anyway, letting himself in. Christian trails in behind him, sitting in the chair at my desk while Holden opts for the edge of my bed.
“What’s good?” Holden asks.
“Not shit. Go back to your party.”
“We got rid of them,” Christian supplies, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
I nod, then lace my fingers together behind my head and blow out a breath. “It’s almost been a year.”
Holden shakes his head, staring off blankly, while Christian’s eyes are fixed on his shoes.
“A whole fucking year, and we still don’t have answers.”
“Maybe there aren’t any,” Holden says, still not looking at me. “Maybe he really just fucking fell.”
“You said he was acting cagey the day before,” I remind him. “So was Dad.” I wouldn’t know. I was too wrapped up in a pretty blonde distraction with the face of an angel to notice anything else.
Holden scratches the back of his neck. “I don’t know, man. When isn’t Dad being weird as fuck?”
I look over at my cousin. “What about you? You think I’m trippin’, too?”
“I didn’t say that,” Christian answers.
“Our family has connections. Your dad is a fucking judge, for fuck’s sake, and we were denied a police report because the investigation is ongoing, but no one’s investigating. Why is that?”
“They didn’t find shit, T,” Christian says. “That’s why.”
“Or they’re covering something up.” The question is why.
“I agree that it’s fishy as fuck,” Holden chimes in.
“And if we find out someone did it?” I ask, just to be sure we’re on the same page.
Holden looks up at me without a trace of humor in his expression. “Then we get our payback.”
“Even if it’s Grey?”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter who it is. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think Shayne knows anything.”
Holden’s always had a soft spot for Shayne, but I’m starting to suspect the same thing. She seemed clueless when we questioned her, and it could be an act, but my gut tells me that it isn’t.
It doesn’t change the fact that there’s a good chance her brother killed mine.
Shayne