9. Chapter 9
“Did you know about this?” Graham asked.
“You serious? I wasn’t even here,” Jase said.
“You knew about the end of the trip,” Graham pointed out. “Why wouldn’t he tell you he was giving our house to your girlfriend?”
“She was your girlfriend when he made that video.”
Helen wedged herself between them before Graham’s beard met Jase’s stubble in the battle of jutting chins. “Is this really the time for this argument?” she asked.
Jase ran a hand down his cheeks, pulling his lips into a frown. Seeing his old man’s face, hearing his voice somewhere other than Jase’s own head, was messing him up, and he was plenty messed up before setting foot in his father’s house.
Lindsey’s house.
Jase peered out the patio doors at Lindsey. She looked pretty messed up too.
She’d bolted the second the video ended. Every instinct in his body had urged him to follow so she wouldn’t be alone, but he knew better. If he was any other man…
He put the Dalmore to his lips, but even the world’s smoothest sip didn’t ease reality’s gut punch. Jase would never be that man for her.
“I didn’t know. All right?” he said. “If I did, I would’ve come back sooner.”
“It’s fourteen days,” Helen said.
“That’s longer than the trip,” Graham reminded her. “Than either of them.”
“Was there more than one?” Jase asked.
“I explained all of this,” Graham retorted. “Did you listen to any of my voicemails?”
“Not a single one.”
Jase had already deleted them.
“Dad planned another trip at the end of the first one.” Graham sighed dramatically and nodded to Helen. “Just for us. We were on it when I called Whitlock about the money. He told us to come home first and, much to our surprise, Lindsey was already living here.”
“I knew she and Dad were close, but our house?” Jase asked. “This isn’t some package in a storage unit.”
Graham’s head shot up. “Did you ever figure out what was inside? A briefcase full of money or something?”
“No idea. I still have it. She never opened it.”
“I don’t get it. What’s he hoping to gain with this?”
“Nothing,” Jase said flatly. “He’s dead.”
“So, what do we do?” Helen asked.
We. Somehow, she had become part of the collective kids Jason Young roped into his wild plans.
“What can we do? We stay.” Graham stopped palming a hole in his sternum and paled. “You are staying, right? If you leave—”
“I’m staying.” Jase bit down on any other options and repeated, “I’m staying.”
“Great.” Graham nodded, but he didn’t sound convinced. He was twitchy, his eyes darting around the ceiling under a deeply furrowed brow.
Jase tipped his glass to Lindsey. “You think she’ll let us?”
“She hasn’t kicked us out yet,” Graham said.
“He wasn’t here before,” Helen said.
Caught in Helen’s crosshairs—where no man wanted to be—Jase angled his junk away from her. There was a ball-ripping gleam in her eyes directed at him.
Graham turned an even whiter shade of pale. “You’ve got to—” he stammered. “You can’t—fuck, you can’t mess this up.”
“Relax before you have a heart attack. I know the drill,” Jase shot back.
“Yeah, well, you fucked it up last time.”
“And who fucked it up first?”
“Guys,” Helen hissed. “You’re both idiots. And you’re both going to mess it up if she hears you fighting about how to keep her happy so she lets you stay.”
“You’re part of this too, now,” Jase said. “If one fails, we all fail.”
“I don’t need the reminder,” Helen said. “I do, however, think she’d pick me over either of you right now.”
“Seriously?” Jase asked. How the fuck much had he missed in ten days?
“She’s done it before,” Helen said.
“I don’t need that reminder,” Jase glowered. Watching the women drive away in the Squire, leaving him and Graham in the dusty, bloody storage unit, was the last time he’d seen Lindsey until he showed up today.
“Okay,” Graham cut in. “What’s the plan then? How do we get through this?”
Their conversation, a conspiracy of three against one, was Austin all over again. Not the fun, naked part, but the three people who’d messed up doing damage control from a diner booth while Lindsey waited outside, shameful part.
Just like now.
“No plan,” Jase said. “No plans. No lies. No bullshit. And if she wants us out, we leave.”
“Not an option.”
“What is the alternative? Tie her up in the basement?”
When Graham was quiet a beat too long, Helen smacked his arm.
“Of course not,” Graham muttered. “But I’m not going to apologize for being pissed.
I can’t get over how Dad’s plans keep revolving around her, and she just gets the house, no matter what.
You heard the video. Dad knew she’d be pissed at us and he put our balls in a sling and handed it to her anyway.
Tying her up sounds better than tip-toeing around her for fourteen days, and it wouldn’t break any of his rules. ”
“If I thought you were even half serious, I’d walk out that door and make the decision for her,” Helen said.
“Come on. The only woman I’m going to tie up is you,” Graham said, a kinky promise in his eyes no amount of whisky was going to wash from Jase’s memory.
“Okay,” Jase said. “Get a room. Preferably not the one across from mine.”
“With pleasure,” Graham said. He downed his Dalmore in a swig only appropriate for much lower-priced alcohol and swore as soon as the thousand-dollar gulp went down his throat. “I need some air. Want to get out of here?”
“Sure,” Helen said. “Give me a minute.”
Graham pointed to her glass. “Are you going to finish that?”
She held it out of his reach. “Yes. After I talk to your brother.”
“What?” Jase asked. “Hey, we don’t need to talk.”
Graham was real damn eager to leave the room. “Good luck, man.”
The only other time Jase had been alone with Helen was at the airport in San Francisco.
This didn’t feel any less unpleasant. She sipped her drink and worked the kinks from her neck as if she was preparing to deck him.
He knew, from the black eye Helen had given Lindsey on the road, that she wasn’t afraid to take a swing.
“I don’t know what you want—”
She interrupted him. “Have you talked to her?”
“What?” His skin prickled wherever her icy gaze probed him.
“Have you talked to Lindsey since the trip?”
Since Graham told Lindsey I only wanted her for the money, and I didn’t make it to the airport in time to stop her from flying home to Ohio?
“No.”
“You have fourteen days,” she said. “Don’t waste them.”
It wasn’t a friendly suggestion. Helen was threatening him.
“You serious?” Jase asked. “Why do you care? A couple days ago you punched her in the face.”
“Weeks, Jase,” Helen corrected. “Weeks ago. A lot changed while you were gone.”
She didn’t explain exactly what changed before finishing her whisky and walking away, mercifully leaving him with his balls.
She had a point, though. If Jase was staying—and he was, at least, for now—then there was time to talk to Lindsey. He might be able to sleep at night if she knew he hadn’t hurt her on purpose.
He had hurt her. Nothing he said would change that.
She hadn’t known about the inheritance Jase and Graham would only collect if she finished their father’s trip with them and Jase had gone to great lengths to keep her around after Graham dumped her for Helen in Austin.
But he needed her to know it wasn’t all about the money.
One clear apology. The rest was up to her.