“You’re just mad it was him and not Amelia texting you. He’s working himself to the fucking bone marrow. Help him out already and quit whining.”
“Where the hell is Levi, anyway? I haven’t seen him since he got back.”
Cash shrugs. “I assume he’s finally convinced Gentry to be his girlfriend, and he’s been living at her house. I don’t exactly track his comings and goings.”
I drag myself off my bed, phone tight in my hand, and jog down the hallway to Levi’s room. He’s been known to vanish if he gets wind of one of us looking for him and I’m not taking any chances.
“Levi,” I shout as I throw his door open and step inside.
He’s sitting at his small desk in his master bedroom that he gets all to himself. He startles and slams his laptop shut. He is definitely hiding something.
This is exactly the kind of distraction I need. A mystery. “What were you doing?” I ask. “You know I won’t judge. I’ve been looking for something new and spicy to watch.” I waggle my eyebrows for effect. “If you know what I mean.”
“Unfortunately, I do. What do you want? I’m in the middle of something.”
I press a hand to my chest in mock hurt. “Is that the way you greet your favorite brother after not seeing him for nearly a week?”
“You’re not my favorite brother, and I was only out of town four days.”
My phone vibrates, and I immediately swipe it open, Levi forgotten. Finally, it’s a message from DogPerson. She and her little girl had the stomach bug, she missed a couple of days at work, and now she’s slammed trying to keep up. I frown and shake my head. “Poor thing,” I say softly, wishing I could have been there for her.
“Got a new girlfriend?” Levi asks.
Damn it. I didn’t mean to say anything out loud. “What? No.” I stuff my phone in my back pocket before he grabs it to snoop. “It’s Sebastian’s match on the dating site. I have to respond every time she messages so she doesn’t lose interest in Sebastian.”
“Uh-huh,” Levi says, clearly disbelieving. “No chance of her running into Sebastian around town and asking him an awkward question, is there?”
“His picture on the site is just his giant beard and his abs,” I say. I’m proud of my foresight in not posting a full frontal of our brother. “Unless he decides to walk around town with his shirt off, there’s no way DogPerson will recognize him.”
“DogPerson? You don’t know her real name?”
I shake my head and shrug like I don’t care. “She doesn’t want to share personal information.”
“A local?”
“Yeah. She works with animals and has a four-year-old little girl. She won’t say more than that because she doesn’t want me, I mean, Sebastian, to figure out who she is.”
“Dude.” Levi’s eyes widen, and a dark sense of foreboding rolls through me. Could he be the guy DogPerson went out with?
I stare at him, trying to do the math and figure out if he’s been home long enough. I’m not entirely sure of when he got home, and he’s never been one to share his dating news.
He scrolls through his phone, brow crinkled in thought. I want to knock the phone out of his hand and check for romantic texts.
“That’s got to be Asher’s sister, Amelia,” he says. “She’s an animal control officer.” He holds up his phone to show me an email sent from this Amelia, with the address DogPerson158@.
My heart stops pumping, and my blood goes cold. It can’t be.
DogPerson can’t be the same Amelia I met in the hardware store. There’s no way my Amelia has a daughter, and she doesn’t work with animals… Except she does. Why didn’t I put that together before?
I feel faint. “Asher’s sister? He’s never mentioned a sister. What’s his last name?”
Levi rolls his eyes. “Aldridge, man. Which you’d know if you had a conversation with him. All you ever do is challenge him to a race or an arm-wrestling competition when you see him.”
I relax. “So his sister’s name is Amelia Aldridge. That’s weird, but at least they aren’t the same person.”
Levi stares at me, and I realize I said that last part out loud. Oops.
“Her last name is Burns,” he says. “She’s divorced.”
