She hung up before he could get another word in, the anger so thick inside her, she could barely breathe. It took her a moment to pull herself together enough to turn—and when she did, it was to find Jake standing behind her.
“I need a whiskey, stat.”Kayden dropped to the barstool opposite his brother.
Cody raised a brow. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” Lie. Huge. Damn. Lie.
Cody pulled out a shot glass and set it in front of Kayden. As his brother poured the whiskey, Kayden’s eyes went to the hall. He couldn’t see Tilly, but he knew she was there.
“Tell me what happened.”
Kayden lifted the glass and shot the liquor back, welcoming the burn to his throat before finally looking at Cody. “Tilly asked what we were doing.”
Cody raised a brow. “And?”
“And I told her I didn’t know.”
The expression his brother pulled was something between a wince and a “what the fuck?” Both were fair. “Why exactly don’t you know?”
Kayden dropped his elbow to the bar and ran his fingers through his hair. “If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be sitting here shooting whiskey.”
Cody leaned over the bar. “Want my two cents?”
“I’m sure I’ll get it anyway.”
“All six of us experienced losing our parents, but it shaped us all differently. Jace became an adrenaline junkie. Lock joined one of the most dangerous ghost ops teams in the world. And you’ve never been able to trust people. Not really, and not completely.”
“Mom died of cancer.” It was devastating, but he failed to see how that affected how he trusted people.
“Yeah, and you stopped trusting people and letting them in, in case you lost them. Then everything that happened with Dad just cemented it.”
Fuck, his brother was right. It all came back to trust, and honestly, he wasn’t sure if he was capable of it. Not the complete, make-himself-vulnerable kind that was required to have a real fucking relationship. “So what do I do?”
Cody lifted a shoulder. “That’s a question only you can answer. How much do you care about her, and how would you feel at the prospect of losing her?”
A band wrapped around his chest at the thought, and his gaze once again shifted to the hallway. Fuck, where was she? She’d been in there for too damn long.
“I’m gonna go find her.” He rose, no damn idea what he’d say to her, but he needed to be close. He’d just stepped into the hall when he heard a male voice…
Jake’svoice.
“It’s just that…since I saw you and Kayden together, I’ve been concerned.”
“About me?” Tilly asked.
“Yeah. This is none of my business, so feel free to tell me to go away, but I’d hate myself if I didn’t say anything. You and Kayden are just so different. You’re light, and he’s…I don’t know. He was great to me while I was in the hospital, but a lot of the time it feels like he has a chip on his shoulder. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
Thefuck?
Kayden stepped forward. “What the hell are you doing, Jake?”
The man spun around, shock widening his eyes “Kayden…”
“Are you telling her to leave me?”
He shook his head. “I’m just telling her to be careful.”
“You think I’ll hurt her?”
