“Is it too early for me to disown him?”
I laugh, feeling a smile form on my face. “I think it might be.”
“You know, B, I’m really glad I found out about you,” Carter says a moment later, and my shoulders slump in relief.
“I’m glad you did too,” I reply, my grip tight on the phone.
Since the rest of my life has gone to shit, and I can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s a lie. But at least I gained a brother. Maybe there’s a reason he didn’t come into my life until now.
There has to be a reason for all of this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kaitlyn
NOW
On my wayinto the gallery, I called Bailey to check on Javi since visiting hours didn’t start until I was supposed to be at work. He said Javi woke up a little bit before I called, and was still pretty out of it, but he’d be happy to see me later.
Between Javi’s surgery and my parents leaving for France today, Thalia had planned to close the gallery, but we have an artist dropping off their pieces for a new installment we’re featuring. I told her it was fine, and that this is literally what she and my mom are paying me to do. However, I wasn’t going to complain when she told me I could close down after the delivery, as long as I had everything else done.
I was able to get some light cleaning done, make cards for the new work coming in, and help the artist move all the pieces to the back of the gallery until the current pieces are shipped to their buyers. Despite how well the air conditioning in 1133 works, I can feel a layer of sweat soaking through my shirt by the time I’m done.
I’m not sure how Hunter survives the humidity when he’s at football, and I can’t believe I used to cheer on days like this.At least when I’m surfing, I can jump in the water to cool off because clearly whatever tolerance I had before has disappeared, and I’m itching for a shower.
I’m flipping the lock on the front door when my phone vibrates in my pocket, and I check it on the way to my car.
Hunter
Can you come over?
Need to tell you something.
Kaitlyn
Yeah. Everything okay?
I wait for Hunter to respond, but he still hasn’t by the time I’m starting my car. I don’t have any other messages from anyone else, so it can’t be anything with Javi, but it still puts kind of a funny feeling in my stomach. Maybe I’m overreacting, though. I press my brother’s number, and my phone rings twice through the speakers before he picks up.
“Hey, I was just about to text you. Are you all done with your big girl job?” he asks, and it makes me laugh. “Why’s that funny?”
“Because I’m not sure that’s what I’d call working at our parents’ gallery, but to answer your question, I just closed up. Are you at the hospital? How’s Javi?”
“Yeah, Mira wanted to come back first thing this morning, so we sat in the lobby waiting for visiting hours to start. Javi’s good—pretty groggy still. He has a lot of questions, but it’s a good thing Mirabelle’s smarter than me, because I’m afraid to say the wrong thing,” Henry says, lowering his voice. At least he knows she’s smarter than him. “We tried to convince Bailey to take a break, but he’s refusing to leave his side. I’m just waiting for Thalia and Sebastian to come back because maybe they’ll be able to talk some sense into him.”
“Wait, I thought they would already be at the hospital?” I ask, cranking the air conditioning to blow right in my face.
“Yeah, um, they had to go back to the beach house,” he says, and now I’m a lot more worried about the weird texts I got from Hunter. Henry totally knows something. “So are you on your way here?”
“I was gonna run home first to shower, but Hunt sent me a weird text asking me to come over cause he needs to tell me something. Did Thalia and Sebastian say anything?”
I tap my fingers against the steering wheel as I wait for Henry to answer, but the longer it takes, the more suspicious I get. I don’t think I’m going home for that shower now.
“Henry, what do you know?” I ask, and he sighs.
“Officially, I don’t know anything. All I’ve heard are whispers, but if I’m right, I get where Hunter’s coming from,” he says, and I turn right to cross the bridge over the channel instead of going straight to my parents’ house.
“What whispers have you heard?” I ask, trying not to work myself up, but I’m not doing a very good job.
