FOURTEEN
STORM
My self-respect only allowed me to try Reed’s cellfivetimes, and after that fifth attempt, I turned my phone off.
Motherfucker.I had reached out to him, and now he was ghosting me?
The Patriots had won their game the night before, and I’d watched some of the highlights on TV with my father in the den. That’s when I decided to message Reed and arranged for us to meet up. I didn’t know what I would say when I saw him, but I needed to explain, maybe even tell him the truth about why I had to marry Jasper.
As I left the gym and made my way back home, I started to feel a bubble of anxiety. What if something had happened to him? Jasper’s threats circled my head like a shark’s fin. Reed could have been laid in a ditch somewhere, and I was bitching due to his no-show; typical, selfish Storm.
It was a bright day, and my yoga session with Harper had reset my system and given me a second wind. I had been more than ready to see Reed, even though my hair was wet and I didn’t have any makeup on. But when he didn’t show, my temper got the better of me, and I shut my phone off, clutching it so tightly I was surprised the screen didn’t crack.
After pulling up the driveway of our estate, I noticed Jasper’s disgusting, python-green Porsche immediately. Great. I hated the fact that he was at the house so much, even holding meetings with his father in my dad’s office. What was that about? Another twinge of suspicion that they were plotting something presented itself in my brain.
Climbing out of the car, I was just about to switch my cell back on when I saw Phoenix walking past the pool house. He didn’t have that usual skip in his step and looked more than a little worse for wear. He had a mark on his head.
“Hey sis,” he shouted as I slammed the driver's door closed. He was dressed for the gym in sweats and a tee and holding a backpack. That was odd, it was almost two. Nix never left it so late to visit the gym. I wondered where he was going. His eyes were also squinting against the sun, like the brightness was too much. That suggested he had a headache, or more likely a hangover.
I cut to the chase, leaving my yoga mat and bag in the car and repocketing my phone.
As we approached each other, I noticed his face looked unusually red.
Shaking off the thought, I asked. “Have you seen Reed?”
Nix lowered his bag to the ground. We were standing on the stone pathway where it split off into two directions. One led up to the main doors into the house, and the other to the annexe next to the pool house, where Nix lived. “Yeah, tall guy, black hair, ugly fucker, why?”
As usual, my brother was full of jokes. I usually found them endearing, but at that moment, not so much.
I folded my arms across my chest and raised my eyebrows. “He was supposed to meet me this morning and never showed up.”
Phoenix’s shoulders dropped, and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Ah, sounds like a you problem, sis,” he explained, looking sheepish. Nix knew exactly how pissed I got from people letting me down. He’d been on the receiving end of my wrath when he’d forgotten to meet me for lunch one day.
Narrowing my eyes, I delivered my bestcut the shitexpression, and it worked.
“What? I know nothing,” he huffed with a dumbass look.
“You’re the worst liar out of all the Sawyer Brothers, so I suggest you start talking.”
Lowering his hand, Nix shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Well, we may have gone out last night,” he replied vaguely.
“So, you went to the after-game party?”
“No. We met up later, at The Touchdown Tavern in town.” My nose automatically wrinkled in disgust. The place was an absolute shithole.
“Why on earth would you go there?” My stare was now intrusive.
“It brings back good memories.”
I could only imagine. Good memories of the Sawyer Brothers working their way through the entire female population at high school, no doubt. Thankfully, they’d toned it down during college. They’d had to. By that time, Hudson and Molly were together and were the perfect couple. I remember Phoenix had a friends-with-benefits arrangement with my friend Courtney, but really, he fancied his foster sister. I remember how they used to fight all the time, a proper enemies-to-lovers scenario. This had been before it had been revealed that Nix and I were half-siblings.
My thoughts flashed to my old friend. Poor Courtney, she never did end up with the boy she thought was the love of her life, Maxwell Stone. Max had ended up getting Nieve Cooper pregnant during the last year of college, and now they were renting an apartment together on Beaver Street. Not the type of place you wanted to raise a kid.
Nix dragged me from my reverie. “It was a good night, shooting the shit and talking about old times.”
His aside dragged my thoughts back to the shithole that was The Touchdown Tavern. “The place is still a dive.” There was a rumor going around in school that Tate Parker let one of the Sawyer brothers, Micah Mehari, do her in the ass in the bathroom there. Some people have no class. “I hope you’ve showered since?” I added.
“You’re such a little snob,” he chuckled with a head shake. I lowered my arms as he plucked the Ray-Ban shades from where they were threaded on the neckline of his tee. I rolled my eyes as he shook them open and placed them on his face.
