Page 66 of Brandon’s Mate

“I don’t know why his crew respected him in the first place,” Kitty said. “He’s a total dick. But ‘Ray Junior’ and I can stay here with Remy. He and I haven’t had any quality time to catch up. Share our secrets.”

“Trade makeup tips. Braid each other’s hair,” Remy said. “You know, the usual shit we do.”

“Har har,” Kitty said. “Watch it, Featherhead, or you’ll wake up one morning with your talons painted sparkly pink.”

“I live for the day.”

She really did want to talk to Remy alone, which was almost impossible to do. He and Colt had always been inseparable. But it was becoming clear that there was something wrong with Colt besides being pissed off at Brandon for leaving all those years ago. And Remy had been quieter than usual.

Something was up with the two of them.

She waited until Colt and Brandon had driven away before she started in on him. They were sitting in front of his computer setup, where he now had a monitor screen for the bugs at the Crows’ nest, as well as the cell interceptor.

She said, “So spill it, flyboy. What’s really going on with Colt?”

Remy put on his headphones. “I think something’s going on in the office at the bar.”

Kitty looked at the monitor. There were little graphs that went across the screen for each bug, with lines moving up and down when they were recording audio.

Nothing was happening in the office.

She pulled his headphones off. “You are full of shit. Is Colt okay?”

He grabbed them back from her. “Colt is fine. And if you think I’m going to break the twin code by telling you stuff he doesn’t want you to know, you’re the one who’s full of shit.”

So there was something wrong with Colt.

“Stuff he doesn’t want me to know, or doesn’t want Brandon to know?”

Remy looked up at her with his stormy gray eyes. “It’s the same thing now, isn’t it?”

That threw her. Did he really see them as that much of a unit? “Not really,” she said. “We’re still working things out.”

“Now who’s bullshitting who? He’s your mate.”

“Dammit,” Kitty said. “How did you know that?”

Remy rolled his eyes. “Everybody knows that. Since we were all teenagers.”

Well. She wished someone had told her. Even better, she wished someone had told Brandon. Maybe then he would really have waited for her. But that water was far, far under the bridge, and she had to focus on now.

Aside from the fact that she loved Colt like a brother, the last thing Brandon’s panther needed was another cat he cared about going off the deep end.

“So what doesn’t Colt want Brandon to know?”

Remy sighed. “How many ways can I say, ‘none of your fucking business’? It’s a twin thing. We did something, and it didn’t turn out how we thought, and it kind of messed with Colt’s leopard, okay? And no, I’m not telling you what, because of the ‘none of your fucking business’ part of it.”

He started to put the headphones on, but Kitty put her hand on his arm. “Well, at least tell me if there’s anything I can do.”

Remy sighed. “Besides fixing Brandon? We hoped when we found him that maybe if he was ready for a crew…” He trailed off. “Oh, fuck it.”

“Wait.” Kitty felt like a complete idiot. “Did you guys think maybe we could be a crew? With Brandon? Like we all used to talk about?” That was huge. That was—

But Remy put his hand up. “They’re inside.”

The bug in the bar had activated, and Remy switched on the speaker so they could both hear Brandon meeting with Jax.

Brandon was good at this, Kitty realized. He spun his story for Jax, about how he’d been checking out their operation, and he knew the crows were just middlemen.