“No, it was the wind.”
“Sounded like someone knocking.” Braden heads toward me, going fast for someone with an injured knee.
“Braden, just go. It was nothing.”
But it’s too late. He’s standing at the slider and yanks open the drape.
Chapter 7
My heart beats out of my chest, anticipating the fight that’s about to happen between Braden and Jackson. And then Braden andmewhen he finds out I’ve been seeing Jackson.
“What the hell?” Braden says. “There’s no one here.”
I look past Braden and see that Jackson is gone. Where’d he go? He was there just seconds ago. How did he know to hide?
“Braden, let’s go,” Trystan says. “Dante just texted and said the team’s already there.” He smiles at me. “Dante wants to know if you’re coming.”
I sigh. “Tell him no. And that we’re just friends.”
“You could tell him yourself if you’d go to the party with us,” Braden says, meeting Trystan at the door. “You sure you want to stay here by yourself, knowing someone’s out there?”
“Nobody’s out there.” I yank the drapes closed. “It’s the wind. It makes that noise all the time.”
“Trystan, give us a minute,” Braden says.
“Why?”
“Just do it!” he yells. “Go wait in the car.”
Trystan leaves, and my heart beats faster as I try to imagine why Braden wants to talk to me alone. Did he see Jackson on the patio but pretend he didn’t? Is he going to yell at me now that Trystan’s gone?
“What do you need?” I say, going to sit on my bed.
“I need you to go to this party tonight.”
“Why?”
He comes over to me. “Did you already forget our arrangement?”
I sigh. “The guys aren’t going to tell me anything. And they’re not going to do stuff you don’t approve of in front of me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, because that’s what they told me,” I say, hoping he’ll believe it. I need to end this plan of his for me to spy on his teammates. I only agreed to it so he’d let me sit at his table, but now I’m there, and his teammates love me, so I doubt he’d make me sit somewhere else.
“What’d they tell you?”
“They asked if I’m spying on them for you. I told them I wasn’t, but they didn’t believe me. They were saying they have to watch themselves around me.”
“Who said it?” he asks. “Was it Dante?”
“Dante, Miles, Kade — the whole team thinks I’m spying on them for you.”
“Fuck,” he says, shaking his head.
He believes me. Maybe I’m getting better at lying.
“So having me go to the party won’t do any good,” I say. “I can still try to find out if they’re—”
