His voice startles me. As a general rule, he's always unnerving, but I've done a good job staying on high alert here, and I didn't even hear him come downstairs.
"What do you mean?" Dax asks innocently. "We're just having a little fun with your little sister."
"She's not my sister." He sits across from me, taking a bite of his omelet. "And Nolan made this—I can tell."
Nolan shrugs. "We never said she had to cook on the weekends."
Elias glares at me like I'm the one who said it, and he's about to come across the table at me. "That's before she was living here rent-free. You need to clean up down here, too. I don't know why that wouldn't be the first thing you did this morning."
"Relax," Dax says. "She's hungover."
"I got rid of a body for her after she tore the place apart and wrecked thousands of dollars in hockey memorabilia, remember? I don't really care."
As he stares me down, Arcadia bounds back inside, sitting underneath my chair. That seems to piss him off, too.
I don't know where the guy who stuck up for me last night went. He sure as hell isn't sitting at this table.
"I can clean it up; it's not a big deal."
"I'm going to a concert in Vancouver and won't be back until Sunday afternoon, so I have some biology homework I'll leave for you, too," he says.
Relief washes over me. He'll be gone…for more than an entire day.
"Actually, I have some art homework you can help me with when I get back from the wedding, too," Dax adds.
"Great."
"Well, who's going to stay with Saige?" Nolan asks.
"What do you mean?" Dax asks. "You are."
"No, my mom has a night shift, and I have to watch my sister tonight. I told you that."
"I don't need a babysitter," I tell them. "I can stay here alone for one night. I'll set the alarm."
"No," Elias says. "I don't want you here alone."
"Why? What do you think I'm going to do?"
"I don't know—murder someone and make it my problem again?"
"He's got a point there, baby," Dax says.
"No, he doesn't—that's not a valid point at all."
"After those texts, I don't really want you staying here alone, either. One of you guys needs to take her with you," Dax says.
"I'll just go stay with Kira," I tell them. "Or I can go home for the weekend. I'll take Arcadia with me; someone needs to watch her."
"Sorry, your parents will be at the wedding, too. I'd bring you with me if I could."
"She can't come with me—the show is sold out. I wouldn't want to listen to her complain her way through a concert, anyway."
I scoff. "You don't knowme.At all."
"You can come with me, Saige," Nolan says. "We can take the dog, too."
Go with Nolan? Alone, to his house? I feel my anxiety spike.
