Page 44 of Take The Risk

​“Phoebe writes under a pen name. Well, two,” Jesse explained, vibrating with excitement. “She writes under A.J. Lane for The Cursed Bonds, and under P.J. Alexander—” he pointed to the names on the contract “—for her romance series. You know the ones that Mom reads and pretends she doesn’t.”

​Jesse shuddered in revulsion and I felt my lip curl in disgust. No man wanted to think about his mom reading stuff like that.

​Jesse went on to explain the lore of both authors. How they were unknown in a practical sense. No pictures of either author had ever been released, no identifying information to lead to the person, the woman, behind the words. She was a recluse. A mystery.

​Suddenly, a lot of things started to click into place. The packages of books she’d received and the way she kept things under lock and key up here. The secrecy.

​Wade pulled his phone out, looking up her work. When Wade showed me the screen, I saw an impressive collection under both authors’ names. When he clicked into a social media app, there were lots of posts from her author account, but not one single photo of her face.

​Jesse patted his pants. “Damn it! I left my phone downstairs. My friends are going to lose their minds—Hey!”

​Wade and I both grabbed him when he went to race downstairs, hauling him back.

​“You’re not going anywhere!” I said forcefully.

​“This isn’t information you can share.” Wade backed me up. I knew he’d understand the gravity of our accidental discovery.

​“But—” Jesse went to argue only to fall silent at the stern looks on our faces.

​He needed to understand. This wasn’t our information to share. Phoebe trusted us, and though we didn’t find out by intentionally violating her privacy—a flood and box breaking were accidental—we owed her our silence.

​“So she’s one of the best-selling authors in the world, my favorite author, and I’m just supposed to pretend like I don’t know?”

​That was exactly what he was going to do. I laid out the rules for him, maybe a little more sternly than I would have, given he was my kid brother and a good person. Still, the implications of what this meant, what this meant for Phoebe, started to sink in. And I didn’t like it.

​Jesse’s shoulders dropped as he reluctantly agreed.

​I felt bad about how sharp I was with him, so I promised if Phoebe was ever okay with him knowing, that I’d let him know.

​Wade looked at me. “So you’re going to tell her.” It wasn’t a question.

​“Do you have any more suspicions about her?” I asked Wade, making sure Jesse was out of hearing, having sent him back downstairs to help my dad, whose truck had just pulled up.

​“I wasn’t the only one with questions.”

​Shame washed over me. I’d had a lot of time to think since Friday night. Once the words had been out, I’d wanted to suck them back inside. By the next morning, I’d realized that yes, I did have questions about Phoebe. I wanted to know her better. I wanted to know the things she didn’t share with others. Did that make me think she was guilty of something? No. I’d been a total prick and fighting for any last crumb of something to keep my feelings for her in check.

​Wade was right. I didn’t do messy. I hated messy.

​Phoebe was messy. FEMA-level messy now knowing this.

​And I couldn’t fight wanting her anymore.

​“When are you going to tell her?” Wade asked.

​I’d already left her a message about the flood, so she knew we were in here. I couldn’t just leave something like this on her voicemail. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her when I wasn’t there to make sure she was okay, knowing this would make her anything but okay.

​“When she comes home. I’ll tell her when she comes home.”

Chapter 18

​“Ty’s here!” Lock cried, throwing himself out of the car the second I pulled into our driveway.

​I’d barely turned it off before he was bursting through the front door.

​Looking at my house, I sighed. God, what a hellacious few days.

​After Saturday night, when Alex and I had gone out and met up with our friends, only to crawl back to her condo and pass out on the couch after too many drinks, things had…gone to hell.