20
“Henry took care of it,” Bram says in a calming voice. “I overheard him calling your dad and saying you’d fallen asleep on the couch. Like a perfect gentleman.”
“And my dad was okay with that?” Even after his little warning about them in my room after Kennedy’s murder? And the way my questions about the Abbott-Russo feud seemed to freak him out? I guess Dad meant what he said about not believing the rumors. He really trusts Henry.
For the first time in my life though, I’m not sure I do. Henry hasn’t been forthcoming with me about any of this. He wouldn’t tell me where he was during the “fire drill.” He must be the person who headed into the woods with Kennedy, yet he never admitted it.
My stomach starts to turn. After Mariana died, Henry’s name wasn’t thrown around by the public nearly as much as his brothers’. He wasn’t the boyfriend. He wasn’t the brother who was there at the explosion.
Yet Henry was on the property that day, working on Mariana’s car.
And he might’ve been the brother in the school security camera footage with Kennedy.
It can’t mean what I think it means, and yet, goose bumps prickle up my arms.
“Here.” Bram reaches for the blanket, draping it around my shoulders. “You should get some more sleep.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think I can.” I keep thinking about Lydia’s suspicions, that Kennedy was seeing an Abbott brother in secret. Maybe Kennedy was acting weird because she liked Bram, and he never reciprocated. It could account for her sneaking onto their property and acting secretive.
But what if that isn’t the only explanation? What if, after so much rejection, Kennedy switched her sights to Henry?
“Bram,” I say, tugging the corners of the blanket in front of my chest, “you seem so sure that Henry isn’t for me. Is that because…? Did something happen between him and Kennedy?”
Bram’s eyes widen. “What? Between Henry and Kennedy? I-I don’t think so. I really don’t think so.”
“You don’t tell each other everything, though.”
“No, but…” Bram doesn’t finish the statement, and a forest of dread crops up inside me.
Somehow, I need to get ahold of Henry’s phone. If only to disprove this wild theory that’s spinning through my head.
“I can drive you home,” Bram offers. “Or…” He averts his eyes. “I can get Henry to drive you, if you’d be more comfortable.”
“No,” I say quickly. “I don’t want to go.”
He nods and gets up, but I reach out to touch his arm. “Will you stay up with me for a bit?”
The barest hint of a smile slides onto Bram’s lips. “Yeah, of course.” He lowers back down and picks up the remote, scrolling for something to watch.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my eyes on the television screen now.
“Sorry for what?”
“For not trusting you.”
He laughs. “Nobody trusts me, Phil. It’s not like you’re the first person to decide I’m dangerous.”
Bram is dangerous, that’s certain. But only in that I can’t trust myself around him.
I’m confused about my own feelings. “I trust you,” I say, offering him a small smile.
As his eyes meet mine, though, even sitting beside him on the couch feels different than it has in the past. “And I’m going to help you.
” I turn to face the screen again. “I won’t let you go down for something you didn’t do. ”
Except if Bram continues to hide the truth from the cops to protect his brothers, there may be nothing I can do. I think about telling him my plan, enlisting his help. It would be easier to get Bram to swipe Henry’s phone. But would he help me? If it meant betraying Henry?
I already know the answer. Bram pulled the fire alarm for Henry, after all, no questions asked. He has continued to keep the whole truth from the cops to protect Henry. There’s no way I can include Bram on this.
Which means I’m on my own.
***
When I wake again, I wake curled up on the couch with the blanket draped over me, my head resting on a throw pillow.
Only I’m not alone this time. Bram is slumped over at the opposite end of the couch.
I can’t help but look at his sleeping face, those sharp, beautiful features softened by the wash of blue light streaming in from the stained-glass window.
Almost angelic, if I didn’t know him to be a wicked pain in the ass.
The moment I start to get up, he stirs, reaching for the side of his neck. “Holy hell,” he grumbles.
“That didn’t look very comfortable,” I say.
“It wasn’t.”
“You didn’t have to sleep down here.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t want you to wake up alone in this weird place again. The first time you nearly got killed.”
“I did,” I say, though my leg barely hurts anymore.
Bram rubs his arms, the cold having apparently gotten to him. I slide closer on the couch, offering him half my blanket. He accepts, and I can’t help but think how natural it would feel to rest my head on his shoulder.
My arm brushes his bicep, which is shockingly cold. “What happened to the fire?” I ask, glancing over at where the blackened logs sit.
“I got up at some point and put it out. We’ve had our share of fire mishaps.”
This is true. Still, the feel of his frigid arm brings another thought to mind. “You never found your hoodie?”
“No, I’m sorry,” he says. “And not just because it was a gift from you. I’m sorry because having lost it makes me look like a murderer.”
A laugh escapes my lips, but I ram my shoulder into his arm. “You can’t joke about this.”
“It’s either joke or despair,” he says glumly.
“Did you check the lost and found?”
An amused smile lights his face. “Do I look like I’m in third grade?”
“Not even a little,” I say without thinking, and the back of my neck heats.
He laughs softly, slipping out from under the blanket. “I will check the lost and found this week, okay? You want coffee?”
“Sure. I’ll come help.” I start to fold the blanket and fluff up the throw pillow, my thoughts on the missing hoodie.
On whether or not someone could’ve taken it and made it look like Bram was with Kennedy before she died.
I think of Lydia, who, according to Desiree, wanted the cheer captaincy more than anything.
Lydia, who, without Kennedy around, now not only has that captaincy but is president of the student council.
A few minutes later, the coffee is brewing, and Bram and I are scrambling eggs on the stovetop.
Henry wanders in wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, his hair messy. It’s a good look on him as he nears us to say hi with a sleepy smile. “I see Mom hired the kitchen staff back.”
“Except no one on staff bothered to do the shopping,” I say, pouring him a cup of coffee. “So we can only make eggs and toast.”
“Sounds perfect,” Henry says, taking his coffee over to the kitchen nook. “Though the market remains a challenge, seeing as how we’re banned from town and Uber Eats won’t deliver up here.”
“I’ll go,” Bram says. “I don’t care what that idiot Mr. Swanson says.”
“Bram,” Henry says in mock surprise, as though he’s only now noticed his brother’s presence. “You’re up early.”
“This toast would be so much tastier with apple butter,” Bram says. “Why don’t you head over to the orchard and pick some apples?” he suggests, his eyes devilish.
Henry gives him a bored look. The apple orchard is all the way at the tail end of the property, a twenty-minute walk.
“Apple butter actually sounds really nice,” I say.
Henry’s eyes widen. “You’re kidding, right?”
I offer my sweetest smile. “And if you get enough, I could make muffins later.” I know I’m pushing it, but if I could get him out of the house for forty minutes—without his phone—I might be able to put the Kennedy-and-Henry theory to rest for good.
Henry looks to Bram now, who says with a shrug, “Hey, your girl wants apples.”
My face ignites, and Henry goes just as red as he brings his mug to his lips.
“I can go,” Bram offers, “if the walk is too much for you.” He makes to pass Henry the spatula, and I consider throwing my coffee into his smug face.
“I’m happy to walk.” Henry flashes his brother a caustic smile as he waves off the spatula and slides out of the nook. “Apple butter it is.” He looks around as if missing something. When he pats his pajama pants, I double-check that they have no pockets. Zero pockets means zero phone.
I race to the cupboard where the family hangs the grocery bags. “Here,” I say, yanking one down and pushing it at him. “To carry the apples in.”
“Thanks,” he mumbles, unable to make eye contact with me. Which is perfect, because I can’t have him asking me to join him on this walk.
He wanders out, and I breathe a sigh of relief. But I quickly turn on Bram. “What the hell was that?”
“What was what?” he asks, scooping some eggs onto a plate, only the hint of a smirk on his lips.
“You know what,” I snap. “That wasn’t nice.”
“I’m not nice,” Bram says flippantly. “You remind me of this fact all the time. And yet, you know I’d walk a few state lines to get you those damned apples.”
My stomach swims. Somehow, I do know. I know that Bram would do a lot more for me than trek far and wide for fruit. “I’ve got to call my dad,” I say, leaving my coffee on the counter.
I hurry out the kitchen door and upstairs to Henry’s room. I have to be quiet; Adam’s room shares a wall with this one, and he’s in there now.
To my dismay, Henry’s phone isn’t there on the bedside table.
I check the wrinkled bedsheets and the desk. I even root around in the drawer, but it’s nowhere to be found. When I start to wonder if he somehow had the phone on him after all, I spot the desk chair, rolled over to the corner. My spirits soar. The phone is resting on the seat.
I tiptoe over, finding it locked. Fortunately, I know Henry’s passcode. He had a phone long before I did and let me use it often to call my parents.
But when I try the passcode, it fails.
All the questions and suspicions I’ve had since Bram’s story last night trickle into my brain. Why would Henry change his passcode? Have I been a fool this entire time? Has Henry been lying? He told Adam he has feelings for me.
Was he actually seeing Kennedy in secret?
And how am I supposed to get into his phone? I can’t ask Bram for help. Not just because he’s infuriating, but because he’d never betray Henry. It was hard enough getting him to tell me the truth about the fire alarm last night. He’d never give me the passcode.
A traitorous thought sneaks in: Bram wouldn’t share the passcode, but Adam might.
My mind drifts back to that huge blowup between Henry and Adam last year before Christmas, right outside these rooms. Henry completely lost it in a way I’d never witnessed before. There’s bad blood there. The question is whether or not I’m willing to betray both of them by taking advantage of it.
I know the answer the moment I ask myself. Defeated, I head back toward the chair, only my gaze hitches on Henry’s desk drawer, which I somehow left half-open.
I pad back over and push on it, but something inside keeps the drawer from shutting all the way. I dig my hand inside to free up whatever’s blocking it, and my fingers light on what feels like a paperback novel.
As I tug it free, I hear a rip. The sound of paper tearing. My heart thumps, and I carefully twist and maneuver the book until it’s free.
I’m holding a copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Luckily, the cover seems to be intact. I flip through the pages in search of what tore, finding it marked up the way we were supposed to annotate our outside reading novels last year.
But I thought Henry was reading Frankenstein, like Adam. He had asked to borrow my copy.
Maybe he didn’t like it and moved on to something else. I continue flipping, and sure enough, there’s a page torn near the end. But the way the novel was crumpled up at the back of the desk drawer like an afterthought, I doubt Henry will notice.
When I go to put it back, the door creaks behind me.
I turn, finding Henry in the doorway. He’s clutching the empty plastic bag in one white-knuckled fist.
He isn’t smiling.