I was floored by the theory.
“Are you kidding? Why are you saying that now?” asked Will in an equally paranoid tone.
“Are you telling me that maybe nobody got hurt? So we wouldn’t be at fault?” Was I the only one happy about this? It seemed like it, because obviously nobody was listening to me.
“Why do you think that?” insisted William, getting in front of James.
“Last night Austin asked me about the gun. Then I saw them at work. Then those two dickheads got scared off by a little girl. I’m starting to think they didn’t have the balls to actually kill him.”
A suspicious shadow flashed across William’s eyes.
“You told me June was in danger and that you didn’t call me because you didn’t want to worry me.”
I looked at James, who looked down at the ground.
“She was, Will.”
“So because you stayed at her place, they wouldn’t bother her? Did she ask you to do that?”
What the hell was going on? How had we ended up talking about June White?
“What?” James asked.
“Did she ask you to spend the night at her house?”
There was no hesitation in Will’s question, but James’s usually decisive gaze wavered.
“No, she didn’t ask me.”
I scrutinized him. He’d just lied.
I knew James all too well. He was the type of person who almost never lied, but when he did, you could spot it from a mile away.
But Will was too upset to notice.
“So then why the fuck did you stay there?”
I didn’t like where the conversation was going. Not if they were this tense.
“We’re getting off topic.” I tried to interject without anyone listening to me. James peeled his back off the car to look at Will.
“What the fuck are you implying?”
“James, calm down.” But obviously my order fell on deaf ears.
“Now tell me what the hell happened yesterday,” insisted William obstinately.
“I told you. She called me so you wouldn’t be worried.” James cut him off, then put away the empty vape pen cartridge.
“She was acting weird this morning. What’d you do to her?”
James looked worried before answering. “Fucking nothing.”
A disapproving grumble slid out of William’s lips. Why were my best friends two dumbasses? I thought about Marvin who couldn’t a shit give about anyone or anything right then. And here I was making myself sick over two hotheads.
“Austin threatened me like he usually does. No big deal, Will.”
“No big deal?! He knows where June lives!”
