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Writing come over in the group text with nothing else is a desperate demand if I’ve ever heard one. It’s the same as writing 9-1-1.
I’m not invested enough in my brothers to haul my ass out of bed and respond to their emergencies. That’s what I tell myself all the way across the room and into the walk-in closet. I still believe it while I throw on boxers. Sweatpants. Hoodie. I’m being very fucking convincing when I text the night-shift valet and tell him to bring my SUV to the front of the building as fast as he can.
I’m collecting my wallet from the bedside table when the covers rustle. “Will?”
Bristol. Holy fuck, she’s in my bed. She’s still in my bed. She didn’t flee to the couch after I fucked her and cleaned her up and dressed her in one of my T-shirts. She didn’t go anywhere, because I tucked her into bed next to me and let her fall asleep.
It wasn’t what I wanted to do. Wasn’t all I wanted to do. But it was what a man who lives in an apartment like this would do.
“Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”
What am I saying? The only thing I can say. I can’t ask her to leave. I don’t want to. She and her siblings are here with me until her apartment is repaired. Bristol’s here in my bed because where else is she going to sleep?
She pushes herself up from the pillow. “How come you’re dressed? Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“I can go. It’s really okay, Will. You should have said—”
I climb back onto the bed, push her down into the pillows, and kiss her. I don’t know what I was thinking, letting her in this far. Kissing her like this. I feel like the roof is about to cave in.
Bristol blinks up at me when I let go.
“I’m going to my brother’s house. I’ll be back soon.”
And Bristol will still be here. She’ll stay, because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
“Is everything okay?” She’s sweet. Soft. I want to stay with her, too, and that is absolutely fucking unhinged. I can’t want any of this domestic bullshit.
“Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep.”
Nothing to worry about, my ass. My SUV’s waiting at the curb. I force a tip into the valet’s hand at top speed and gun it away from the building. Nervous. Irritated. I don’t know what come over means. I don’t know what’s gone wrong. What I do know is that if Emerson could have added more details, he would have.
I dial Sin.
“Where are you?” He’s breathless when he answers, like he’s running.
“On my way out of the city. The hell is this about?”
“I don’t know. He’s been good lately.”
Good, because of Daphne. Good, because our dad is back behind bars. When he got out on parole last winter, everything went to hell. Emerson just about lost his mind. It didn’t help that our asshole father showed up at his house.
He should have come for me. I’d have welcomed the fight.
He never had the courage.
“This text doesn’t sound good.”
“No,” Sinclair agrees. “Be right there.”
There’s no traffic to slow things down on the way to Emerson’s. He lives outside the city in a huge beach house where he can store his most important pieces and stay relatively secluded from the world. It’s a big step up from the first place he shut himself away in.
His front gate swings open ahead of me. A shadow moves closer to the driveway as I go through. One of the guys from Emerson’s security staff. His wife’s family is notorious in the city. They weren’t about to let her live here without as much security as the fucking president.
None of them stop me. There were meetings about this early on. Our cars have sensors now that tell the gate to open automatically. My phone will unlock Emerson’s front door when I get close enough. There’s an app that can do even more.
No lights are on inside. I don’t know what that means, either.
