He runs a hand down his face and lets out a sigh. He’s clearly getting pissy with me. His phone dings, and he looks down at it. “It’s Deke.”
“What did he say?”
“His father wants to talk to him, so he won’t be at the party, but he’ll meet up with us afterward.”
“See, this may not even work.”
He cups my face with both of his warm hands. Brown eyes staring into mine. “It will. I promise you.”
I don’t understand how he thinks my sister will fall for this shit. She’ll see right through him. She won’t risk her secret relationship with Deke. She keeps saying that she and David are on a break right now, but I’m not sure how much I believe that since her phone seems to go off a hundred times a day, and I know it’s David.
His cell rings this time, and I get a quick look to see it readsCole. Eli answers it. “Hey, man. I’m about to leave.” He nods to himself. “Okay, I’ll meet you there. Then we can all ride with you.” He hangs up and gives me his attention once again. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” He kisses my forehead and then walks out of his front door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DEKE
IPULL UPto the house and carry a passed-out Demi inside. It’s quiet, letting me know that Austin and Cole are already asleep. Opening my door, I lie her on my bed and undo her jeans before sliding them down her legs. Then I’m removing her shirt. I leave her in her bra and underwear and make my way back out to my SUV. I open the passenger side door and pick up her phone off the floormat.
Going back inside the house, I grab the pack of cigarettes out of the drawer and make my way out back. Cole is in the pool.
“Thought you’d be asleep,” I say, sitting down.
Standing in the shallow end, he gives me a clear view of his bare chest and all the red scratch marks along his stomach and sides. I bet his back matches. That is why I took the long way home. No telling what Austin looks like at the moment.
“I just got out here,” he tells me.
I lean forward. “So, I found out some interesting stuff tonight.”
“I think that’s an understatement.”
He’s talking about the Demi situation and Evan Scott. I sigh. “Other stuff.”
He arches a brow. “Like what?”
She asked me if I could keep a secret, and I will keep what she said about Austin to myself. But the other stuff I need to talk to Cole about. “Demi filled me in on all kinds of information.”
“Do you believe her?”
I nod. “I do.”
“Does it have to do with anything regarding Seth and Evan Scott?”
My jaw tightens, but I shake my head. “No. But some of it has to do with Eli.”
“What about him?” He frowns.
I sit back in my seat. “She claims he was not sleeping with Becky.”
“Well, I didn’t see him physically fuck her, but I did see them all over each other,” he states. “And he acted like he had been when I confronted him about it.”
I hold up her phone. “She said everything I need to know is on here.”
He gets out of the pool and dries off before sitting down in the seat beside me. I open her Facebook app and search his name. None of us ever deactivated it after he passed. It was like erasing too many good memories when we were a team. When there were eight sharks and not five. And it wasn’t much time after that that his sister was killed. There was no one else to take it down besides her.
I click on his page and go to message him. Their conversation pops up.
“Scroll up,” Cole orders.
