Jordan choked out, “A phone call. One call.” He looked at Cross. “What could it hurt?”
As he spoke, Cross’ tension just doubled.
I moved forward, my hand lifting, and I laid my hand on his chest. With my palm against his shirt, I held it in place, speaking to Jordan. “One call to Channing. We’ll see what he thinks.”
Zellman spoke up, “Tabatha has to be there.”
“Z…” From Jordan, a whisper.
Zellman shook his head, his jaw firm. “She has to be there. She has to know. This is going to affect her and her family. She has to know.” He focused only on Jordan. “You’re going to have to apologize for all that pussy you ran through, thinking she cheated on you willingly.” His mouth twitched. “That’s going to suuuuck. But on the bright side, at least you didn’t get to her sorority girls yet.”
Jordan expelled some air, shaking his head and massaging his jaw. “You’re a dick.”
“Nah.” Zellman pounded him in the shoulder before stepping back quickly. “Just family.” He began backing toward the house, his hands in the air. “My two cents, we should do this as soon as possible.” His eyes fell to the couch. “And that thing should go in the garage. We can drink beer out here on it.”
Jordan frowned, but he was also trying not to grin at the same time. “We need a couch inside.”
“Yeah,” Zellman called out from inside the garage, opening the door to the house. “We can con Blaise into buying one. He’s rich and bad at cards. He’ll cough up two grand easily.”
That had merit. I asked Cross, “Does your brother play cards?”
Cross shrugged. “Who the fuck knows. He’ll give you the money. Just tell him he can hit Harper first.”
“No!” Jordan barked out, his eyes heated again. “Harper’s mine.”
Cross got quiet. “Harper did something to Aspen.”
The heated look only got worse. “Then he can think he’s getting first crack, but the reality is that I’ll get first crack.”
Cross was quiet, then nodded. “I’m good with that.”
Zellman yelled from the house, “Can we get back to our crew meeting? We didn’t finish it from last night, and I have curse words to say about Sunday having Bren’s ex’s baby. It’s my turn in the chair.”
I grimaced. “When he says it like that, it just sounds God-awful.”
Jordan chuckled. “Good thing that documentary is already done, huh? Can you imagine if they got this shit on there?”
No. I didn’t want to imagine that.
We went inside and Zellman got his turn to spew.
FROM: Tazsters
TO: Brenners
SUBJECT: holy fuckers fucking around
I just got off the phone with Tab. I’m coming there. I’m packing my bags now. We’re going to bust him open. Wide open. I’m heated, Bren. Seriously fucking heated. Please tell me you guys are going all-crew on him? Or maybe not.
That’d be evidence, wouldn’t it?
Never mind.
Code words now.
When I want you to beat someone up, I’ll use the word ‘hug.’ I really really really want you to fucking hug the fuck out of the Zach guy.
Wait.
Zeke, right?
I’m still confused on who we’re hating, but I need to know because I’m seriously hating. I’m looking him up. I can cyber stalk his ass. I’ll find everything there is to know about him, so you can, you know—hug him. For me. Extra hard.
Race is in too.
—Still The Best Twin
BREN
Two days later and we had everyone in our living room, my phone sitting in the middle of the coffee table.
“This is a nice couch.”
No one groaned hearing Blaise’s smug comment, but I knew everyone wanted to. He’d been rubbing it in since he showed up, and Zellman hadn’t been able to talk him into losing a game of cards. Turns out that Cross’ brother wasn’t a big gambler when it came to cards. He mentioned something about ‘reforming himself’ so he couldn’t do cards, but when Blaise pushed for the reason behind the invitation, Cross told him. Grudgingly.
This morning, a new couch was delivered to our front door, no cards were ever dealt.
“Shut up,” Jordan sniped at him, throwing Tabatha a glare, too. “No one fucking asked for your charity.”
Blaise snorted, leaning back on the couch, throwing his arm up on the back. “Right. Instead, you were hoping to con it out of me.” Leaning forward, elbows to his knees, he gave Jordan a hard look. The smugness was gone. “And it’s not charity. I now own something in your house. Do you not get how much pleasure that brings me? I can rub it in your faces anytime I want.”
Jordan’s eyes narrowed. He was standing against the back wall and he readjusted, crossing his arms over his chest. “We can take a knife to it, throw it out. Problem solved.”
“Good thing I took insurance out on it. I’ll just send another one.”
Jordan’s head looked ready to explode. His problem wasn’t really Cross’ brother being here. It was Tabatha, who hadn’t said a word since she entered the house. She was standing in a corner by herself, with a similar posture as Jordan, her arms hugging herself.