Jaden (Jaded #3)

Both Bryce and Corrigan frowned at me from the hallway. I stood in my bedroom. The door was open between us, but we were all in a standoff. I lifted an eyebrow. “What?” My hand gripped the door, but I wasn’t sure if it was to shut it or to hold me up.

“You’re sure about this?”

I nodded. “You both are right. It feels weird to sleep with both of you, and I shouldn’t lean on one and not the other. It’s not right so I’m going to be sleeping alone from now on.” I had been since Grace’s murder, but knowing they were so close and saying those words aloud solidified it for me. I would’ve been tempted to crawl into one of their beds. It wasn’t right. I needed them right now, but I needed to think about them, too.

I tried to smirk at them, but it failed. “I’ll see you both in the morning then.” That was meant as a joke, but there was nothing teasing about the statement or about how I said it. A knot was in my stomach, and as I stared back at them, it tightened. “Okay. Well. Goodnight.”

They both continued to frown at me.

Feeling just all sorts of weirdness about this situation, I didn’t know what else to do so I did the logical next thing.

I shut the door in their faces. Then I crawled into bed and didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

CHAPTER FIVE

I was tired the next day. I was tired the day after and the day after that. In fact, I was tired the entire week and the week after that, too. The thing that pissed me off was that I was the only one. I swear. Bryce and Corrigan seemed to have renewed their friendship. They were all about the hugging, laughing, slugging each other’s shoulders, and they even started to have their own inside jokes.

Gag me.

Their cheerful attitudes wore off on Neil and Beth. My dad always adored Bryce so he seemed in heaven having him here. I could tell he got over whatever issue he had before allowing my friends to the house, and Beth, I didn’t think she could prance any more around the house before it turned into a skip. She was giddy with Corrigan. It took me another week before I finally got it.

I was sitting outside on the patio lounger, watching both of them in deep conversation with Neil and Beth. Bryce was sitting under the shade, nodding at whatever my dad was saying and using his arms to make gestures. I heard the word ‘soccer’ a couple of times and ‘football’ the rest of the time so it didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were talking about, but then I turned to the grilling area. Beth and Corrigan had their heads bent over a mixing bowl. He was wearing the apron she handed him, both in matching pink frilly aprons, and when she pointed to a garnish, he picked it up and broke it into pieces into the large bowl. After giving him an approving grin, she handed it over, and he resumed whisking it, smirking a little to himself. He glanced up, caught my gaze, and his eyes widened. He looked like he got caught at something.

I frowned.

They’d both been up their asses the whole month—then it hit me, smack in the forehead, and I felt like an idiot.

Bryce and Corrigan were working Neil and Beth. I didn’t know why, but I knew they were. It made more sense. Bryce was always polite to my dad, but never this congenial, and Corrigan, well, he loved his mother so much that baking wasn’t too far of a stretch, but his banter with Beth was flirtatious, not adoringly like he was with his mom.

Things made more sense. The world was right again. I could relax, not worried I woke up in an alternate universe.

I didn’t get a chance to ask them their plan until after dinner. Beth made meatloaf—yes, meatloaf—but she topped it off with three glasses of Moscato wine. Neil joined in, and the two were as drunk as skunks. It didn’t take long for the adults to giggle their way down the hallway and up to their room. That was when I shoved back from the table and stood up.

Both Bryce and Corrigan looked up.

I jerked my head toward the back door. “Outside. Now.”

Each wore a guilty expression.

I snorted. I wasn’t mad. I was just out of ‘the know,’ and that didn’t sit well with me. As I sat in one of the loungers and they took the other two seats, I folded my arms over my chest. “I know you’re doing something. Fill me in. Now.”

They shared a look.

Bryce shook his head. “Fine.”

Corrigan nodded. “Okay.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows onto the table. “We’ve been out here too long. It’s been three weeks and nothing. We need to get you into the city, and we need to do what you always do.”

My eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

Corrigan’s mouth flattened, and Bryce sighed. “Cut it out, Sheldon. You wreak havoc. It’s what you do. We need that again. We need to figure out who’s framing you.” He glanced to Corrigan and seemed to hesitate for a moment. “I can’t speak for Corrigan, but I’ve tried calling Officer Patterson. She won’t return my calls, and she’s never done that. I know Denton’s tried, too.”

“You’re in contact with Denton?”

Bryce nodded. “Yeah. He tried to send his lawyers in, but your dad beat him to it.”