Her head rose sharply. “I signednothing. I had my initial meeting, and I told them I would think about it.” She looked at all three of us.
“Did they know whose baby it was?” Ash asked quietly.
She hesitated. “No.”
Jett was watching her, and I felt him lean into my leg in warning. “You hesitated,” he spoke softly. “Did you tell them it was Gray’s?”
Quinn shook her head as she met my look. “No, I didn’t. But . . .”
“But?” I asked as I felt my brother tense beside me.
“My phone rang when I was with them. One of them recognized the caller.”
“Me?” Jett asked. He was the only one she had an actual picture of attached to his caller ID. Ash’s was a football helmet, and I had the angry dude from some animated film who went up in flames when it was angry, which she thought was funny.
“Yes,” Quinn answered as she held my stare. “Do you think that’s why they kept harassing me?”
“Because you had one of the state’s star footballers on your phone? Yeah, I’d say it was a good guess,” I bit out angrily.
“I didn’t do it intentionally!” Quinn yelled back at me.
“Did I say you did?” I snarked back, and my brother got to his feet.
“Okay, you both need to take a step back,” he said as he put the pizza box on the table. “Arguing won’t help anything.”
Ash grunted, and I turned to look at him. “What?” I asked.
“If they recognized Jett and thought they hit payday with the kid of a Santo, then we may have been reckless doing the houses,” he said carefully.
“You were reckless irrespective of who they saw on my phone,” Quinn bitched.
“And if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have known what we do now.” My teeth hurt from clenching my jaw too hard.
“I think I would be okay with that,” Quinn muttered as she straightened in her seat.
“What?” I looked at her in amazement. “You would be okay never knowing what they had intended to do had you gone through with it?”
“I mean I would be okay with you three not breaking the law and doing stupid reckless shit that may get you caught and put in jail.”
“Fuck jail,” I snarled as I stood. “And fuck you.”
“Gray . . .” Jett groaned.
“How can you say that?” Quinn snapped angrily at the same time. “After . . .” Her eyes flicked to Ash guiltily.
“What? After I fucked you all night, you mean?”
“Gray!” Quinn shouted in protest.
“What?” My temper was rising. “You think it would be easier if we didn’t know? You think it would be easier if we knew you’d lost a baby and that you were scared, and we did nothing? You think it would be better if we ignored that it happened, like you are? You would prefer to keep us all in the dark and let this happen again and again to other girls who are as clueless as you?” Leaning over her, I glared at her. “That what you mean?”
“No,” her quiet, furious whisper pissed me off even more.
“Well, it doesn’t fucking sound like it.” I scowled as I straightened. “Stop being a selfish coward, stop fucking hiding, and help us fix it.”
“You can’t fix this!” Quinn screamed in anger suddenly. Soon she was on her feet, and the two of us were staring at each other, equally angry. Jett and Ash may as well not have been in the room. “You can’t make this better for me! Nothing you’re doing helps me, helps me get past it; all you’re doing is making me feel bad and cruel and like shit.”
“Good.”
