“Welcome,” Gray murmured as he returned his gaze to me. “Jett, we know how to move without anyone seeing us. If you didn’t want to be seen, no one would have seen you.”
“Except the girl,” Ash mumbled around his food.
“Which confirms that you didn’t meet heratthe party, but on the way home.” Gray was now looking at his phone. “Between the other end of campus and here, there is a whole lot of ground, but more importantly, the woods to the east. Would you have taken a shortcut?” He looked up at me, his light blue eyes calculating. “It would make no sense, but if you weren’t thinking straight . . .”
“What a fuckup.” I started to pace as I racked my brain about Friday night. We had no classes on Friday afternoons as we all had practice. Practice had been fucking merciless, and Coach had been worse than normal. His wife had recently passed away, and he was channeling his grief through avenues of torture on his players. When the center started throwing up from the intensity of the workout, Coach had eased off. But it had been brutal.
After practice, I went to the gym to use the pool and then the spa. My body had been stretched too tight. When I got home, I spoke to Quinn for an hour on the phone. Ash had gone home straight after practice to see his little sister, who had been sick with a bug. She was better and no longer contagious and wanted to see her brother to wish him luck for the game the next day, since her mom deemed her still too poorly to attend. There was not one Santo man alive who could deny Tilly anything. After I spoke to Quinn, I’d gotten a text. “Where’s my phone?” I demanded as I looked around the room.
“Why?” Gray asked as he looked up. “It’s not like you would take her number.”
“I got a text to go to the party. I don’t remember who though.” I looked at my brother. “Do you?” Gray shook his head in answer.
“Here,” Ash said. He picked the phone up from the side cabinet and tossed it to me.
Scrolling through my messages, I searched for Friday night. “I must have deleted it,” I said as I read. “There’s nothing here except . . .”
“Except?” Gray demanded as he stood.
“Who the hell is Wade?” I asked as I looked up at them.
“Fuck knows. Why?” Ash asked as he looked over my shoulder.
“Because I have a message from him after one saying it was nice meeting me.” I looked between Ash and Gray with a raised eyebrow. “It’s neverniceto meet me.”
Ash laughed despite the situation, and even Gray cracked a smile as he looked at his watch. “As true as that is, brother, we need to move if we’re doing this tonight.”
“Yeah.” I nodded as I stared at the phone. “How long we got?”
“Fifteen.” Gray picked up the plates and headed to the door, where he hesitated and looked once at Ash before he spoke to me. “You’re going to need to call Quinn, she may help.”
“Shit, really?” Ash groaned as he stretched, his hands touching the ceiling easily. “Why do we need to bring her into this?” he protested sullenly.
“Because she knows everyone, even if she is a giant bitch.” Gray gave him a tight smile. “She also hears shit we would never be told.” Gray shook his head in admiration as he thought about our childhood friend. “To be honest, I’d be surprised if she didn’t already know,” he added with a fond smile.
I agreed with my brother, but I hesitated as I looked over at Ash, who rolled his eyes. “Whatever, just don’t expect me to be there.” With a shake of his head, he left the room.
“It’s been almost two years,” Gray said softly after Ash was gone.
“Quinn has a lasting effect on people,” I quipped.
“He’ll go apeshit when he learns how much you both still talk.”
“Will it be more or less apeshit when he finds out it was you who told her to break up with him?” I asked with mock curiosity. Gray gave me his full attention, and after a long moment, he raised an eyebrow. “What?” I challenged him with a smirk as I crossed to the bathroom. “You think you can get anything past me,littlebrother?”
“Up until Friday, I would say no. But that was before you got your drink spiked and got more or less date raped.” Gray’s voice was cold. “Now I think you’re probably the pussy I always thought you were.”
I turned to look at him. He was slightly shorter than me, a fact I knew pissed him off. His hair was dark brown rather than black, his face rounder, fuller, and in my opinion — not that I ever told him — better than mine. I was all sharp angles, whereas my brother was softer. Not in temper, though, in temper we were both explosive.
“Did youreallyjust go there?” I asked him as I took a step toward him.
“Yes, I did.” Gray stood tall. “Becausemybrotherwould never be sitting fuckingworryingabout who some slut was. Instead, he would be wreaking fucking mayhem, finding the bitch who drugged him and then,” Gray leaned forward as if in challenge, “be mopping up her blood with her blonde . . .fucking. . . hair.”
We stared each other down for a few more minutes before I looked him up and down. “Man, you’re a bitch.” I felt my top lip curl in a snarl. “Bitch-slapped by Gray Santo,” I added with a shake of my head.
“Anytime, big brother,” Gray said as he turned back to the door. “Any fucking time.”
When the door closed behind him, I gave another shake of my head as I thought about it. He was right. I was too caught up in the aftereffects. I needed to focus not only on thewhobut thewhy.
