Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“Yeah. It was late one Tuesday, and she was walking through a park. I was the only other person there, and I guess I was walking too close, because she tried to hit me, and I tackled her to the ground.”
I’m shocked at how much of the truth he’s giving her. “I did not try, ” I correct. “I did hit you.” I think. I can’t truthfully remember the details of our first meeting.
“I still pinned you.”
“I cut you first.”
“Barely.”
“I almost had you!”
“You had as much as I wanted you to have, little reaper.”
I bite my cheek, catching myself before I can keep arguing and possibly give away too much in front of Sadie, who's watching the exchange with enraptured eyes and a splitting smile.
“Little reaper?” she asks.
“He thinks he’s clever.”
“I am clever,” he says. “Her last name is Graves, and she has a cemetery tattooed on her arm.”
Sadie spreads her hands over the kitchen table.
“Let me get this straight. You decided to go for a walk, alone, at night, in the woods, and when a strange man who has a good ten inches and a hundred pounds on you started following you, you decided to fight him instead of calling 911 or, I don’t know, running? ”
“It was a park, not the woods.”
“You’re lucky he turned out to be a biker with a soft heart and not a fucking serial killer.” She gives me a look I can’t quite interpret and don’t have the time to because Theo laughs, and I turn my glare on him.
“In her defense, she’s a good fighter,” he says when he’s done laughing.
“I’m a great fighter.”
“You two are adorable,” Sadie says.
He smirks, satisfaction leaking from his pores. I hear steps behind me, and Sadie looks down the hallway, her lips parting. Her eyes move up and down, filling with the recognizable glint of attraction.
“Hey, James,” I say, before turning to see him walking over.
His eyes are also trained on Sadie, with thinly veiled suspicion.
He’s wearing tattered jeans and an old AC/DC t-shirt that leaves most of his tattoos on display.
His normally slicked-back red hair is hanging loose, strands falling over his forehead.
“Morning, June, T,” he says, nodding to us both. Then he looks at Sadie, his lip twitching. “Sadie, right?”
Oh, right. I forgot they stalked me almost as much as I stalked them.
“Yeah. And you’re the Weasleys’ badass uncle who left to become an American biker.”
James frowns, his brows lowering in confusion.
“She’s making a joke, dumbass,” Theo explains. “You know, the Weasleys from Harry Potter ? Family of redheads?”
“Right.” He nods. “Nice to… meet you.”
“You too. So, you’re Theo’s roommate and basically his brother?” Sadie’s voice sounds like it’s dancing, and I know she’s loving every second of this.
I avert my eyes but still feel James’s sharp look in my direction. He’s probably wondering how much I’ve told my friends.
“Yes.”
“James is the vice president of the Saints,” Theo offers.
“What’s that like?” Sadie asks.
“A headache,” James says.
“He’s pretty much the parent of fifteen psychos,” I say.
“Sixteen,” he corrects.
“I wasn’t including Theo.”
His eyes narrow on me. “Neither was I.”
My cheeks burn. I clear my throat and push against the table, the chair scraping against the floor. “Alright, that’s enough.” I motion for Sadie to follow. “Let’s go.”
“But—”
“Sadie.”
She pushes her bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout.
“Fine.” She and Theo both stand and follow me to the front door.
James stays by the table, hands in his pockets.
“It was good to finally meet you, Theo,” she says, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
Then she looks past him to James and winks. “And you, Weasley.”
James dips his chin in her direction.
Theo says, “You too, Miss Oliver,” then calls to me, “Be safe, little reaper.”
I hold up my middle finger, ignoring his laugh and the answering warmth that blooms in my stomach.
Miraculously, she waits until we’re locked in her car before saying, “Holy shit, you live with two Adonises.”
“I don’t live there.”
She waves her hand in the air. “Semantics. So, where are we going again?”
I plug the address into her phone, and directions show up on the dashboard screen.
“And we’re not telling your boyfriend because?”
“Because I’m going to talk to his ex-girlfriend,” I admit.
She briefly glances at me with wide eyes. “Becoming an obsessed new girlfriend, are we? I support it.”
I chuckle. “I love you, you know that?”
“‘Course you do.”
We listen to Olivia Rodrigo, starting with “Obsessed,” much to Sadie’s delight. When we arrive, I take a deep breath to calm my racing heart. “You can wait either inside, out here, or go get coffee then come back and pick me up.”
“I’ll wait here. How long do you need?”
“No more than an hour.”
She nods, then looks back at the building. “You think dating Theo is what landed her in rehab?”
Yes. “No, I just have some questions.”
“Text me if you need me.”
“Thank you.” I open the door and jump out, then take a deep breath before heading inside.
“Good morning. Welcome to Cottonwood,” the older woman behind the welcome desk says upon my entrance. “How can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Amber Wallace,” I say, setting my credentials and ID on the counter.
“Are you family?” she asks, examining my driver’s license first.
“Family therapist.”
It takes a few minutes of careful conversation before the woman leads me back to a meeting room with three sections of chairs and couches, one section already occupied.
A thin, pale, Scandinavian-looking man sits in an armchair.
Next to him on the corner of the couch is a woman about the same age, with dark brown skin and long black hair.
They’re holding hands, both wearing wedding rings.
By the man’s torn cuticles and bouncing leg, I’d guess he’s the resident here.
Next to the woman is a man a few years older, who looks like he could be her brother.
A little girl sits cross-legged across from them, wearing headphones and holding an iPad in her lap.
She looks up as I walk past, her glistening eyes meeting mine.
“You can wait here,” the employee tells me, gesturing to the couch furthest from the family. “Amber will be out in a few minutes.”
“Thank you.”
She nods, gives me one more look as if I’ll announce my less-than-honorable intentions, then walks off.
Five minutes later, I’m leaning my forearms against my knees when a young woman arrives, dark eyes full of suspicion landing on me.
I recognize her immediately, though she’s gained a bit of much-needed weight and her hair is longer, still choppy, the remnants of a pixie cut that has grown out unevenly. None of her tattoos are visible.
I stay seated as Amber approaches and drops into the chair across from me.
“You’re not my therapist.” She has one of those sexy raspy voices.
“No.” I almost tell her I’m Jennifer’s, but that would be yet another HIPAA violation, and I can only stomach betraying my clients so many times. What I decide to say is still a grey area, though. “I know your aunt, though. She’s really worried about you.”
Amber scoffs. “She doesn’t give a shit about me.”
“You’re all she talks about.”
“Don’t mistake that for family love. Jennifer only cares about herself and what people think about her.”
“She cares about you.”
“When I was a kid, she cared about proving to my parents that she was a successful person with an enviable life, despite being alone and childless. She only spent time with me to pretend she cared about my mom. They had some fucked up sister passive-aggressive rivalry thing going on.”
“And now?”
“Now, she just cares about controlling me. She got stuck with me, and her perfect single life was over. She resented me until she realized I could be an extension of her. People pitied and respected her. ‘Poor Jennifer, losing her sister and brother-in-law like that. How wonderful of her to take their troubled daughter in,’” she mocks.
“She wanted me to be the perfect woman, a beautiful and successful model that reflected her brilliant parenting. She let me know every day how much I disappointed her.”
I open my mouth to respond, then clamp it shut again. I’m not here to have a therapy session with Amber. She gets one of those every day in this place. She’s saying this to try to prove she doesn’t care who I am and has no intention of talking to her aunt.
“I don’t want to talk to you about Jennifer.”
She crosses her arms and leans back in the chair. “Then why the fuck are you here?”
I glance over her shoulder, noticing that one of the employees is standing in the doorway. He’s not looking at any of us, and thankfully, he’s too far away to hear us.
“Who gave you that scar?” I ask, referring to the raised white scar on her neck.
Her brows fall into a scowl. “The car wreck.”
“You weren’t in the car with your parents,” I say. Jennifer has gone over the day her sister died in detail. “And that scar is newer.”
“Why do you care?”
“I’ve heard you got caught up with a bad crowd.”
“Did Jennifer tell you that?” Amber interrupts. “Last time I saw her, she yelled at me for ‘whoring myself out to a bunch of lowlife gang bangers.’” She makes air quotes with her fingers, then crosses her arms again.
I try not to look surprised that Jennifer would say something like that. It’s possible those aren’t her exact words, and Amber just interpreted them poorly. There’s no way to know for sure. And it doesn’t matter , I remind myself.
“Did they do that to you?”
“What is this? Are you some undercover cop trying to get me to rat on the Saints? Or…” her eyes widen, realization filling them. She uncrosses her arms and leans away from me, her face going slack with fear. “You’re with them. Look, I already told Bowie—”
“I’m not with the South Five,” I interrupt.
“But you know about them?”
“And your debts to them.” Amber moves to stand up, but I hold out my hand. “I want to ask you about Theo.”