Chapter 30
chapter thirty
Jude
Today's vocabulary word: endurance
I paced the length of my mother's patio, one hand kneading the back of my neck while the other gripped my phone hard enough to make the case creak. "That's it?" I asked.
Through my earbuds, Jordan Kaisall let out a rasping noise intended to highlight his displeasure with me. Unfortunately for him, I didn't give a fuck about his feelings. "If there was something to find, I would've found it."
"You're a shit friend," I said.
"Same to you, brother," he shot back. "I don't hear from you for a whole fucking year and this is the first thing you say to me? Go fuck yourself."
"Excuse me but the first thing I said to you was I need you to run a deep dive on my mother's boyfriend. And second, I texted you about getting tickets when the Caps went to the playoffs. Which was not that long ago."
"Let me explain something to you about mothers and boyfriends.
You have no control over this shit. You have to sit back and mind your fucking manners.
Okay? He's not embezzling money from nursing homes, he's not a sex pest, he doesn't have a string of dead women in his past. He cheats on his taxes but no more than anyone else, his internet history is unconcerning, and he's had an active prescription for ED pills for the past year. That's all I've got for you."
"We're not talking about his dick, Kaisall. Goddamn. Why do I have to tell you that?"
"You asked for everything," he replied.
Letting out an annoyed snarl, I glanced at my watch. I didn't know why Mom and Audrey weren't back yet but I didn't like it. Lunch didn't last five hours, not even with my mother talking a mile a minute. And Audrey hadn't answered a single one of my texts all day. Nothing about that seemed right.
"I've been there. You'll learn to live with it or you'll give yourself high blood pressure until you have a stroke. You just gotta pick which sounds like more of a hassle," Kaisall went on. "Hold up. Why are you having a shit fit over this? You're not a young guy."
"Fuck you very much."
"You're welcome but I mean this can't be the first time your mom has dated. There have been dudes before this one."
"She's never been serious about anyone. Never like this," I said. "She's just been through a lot in the past couple of years. She doesn't need some dickhead fucking up her life when she's finally doing all right."
"Okay, well, he might be a dickhead but he's unremarkable on paper and not a criminal." After a pause, he added, "And I'm sorry about missing the text about the Caps. I think I was off the grid when that happened and I was a little foggy when I got back stateside. You know how it goes."
"The fuck I do." I glared at the phone. "I don't understand your life. And I say that as someone with a really fucking complicated life."
"Accept the job, sign the nondisclosure agreement, and I'll explain everything."
Kaisall, formerly of the Navy SEALs, co-owned a private security firm that handled everything from rescuing kidnapped heiresses to the kind of shit he couldn't even allude to without breaching national security protocols.
We met about five years ago when I'd wanted to throw out everything and dive headfirst into a new world.
Back then, I'd been bored to the point of anger.
Restless enough to gnaw my arm off. Making moves had been the only thing keeping me going.
It wasn't about hopping from one corporate ladder to another.
I'd wanted to jump off the ladder and then use it to bridge a canyon.
I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
I was in the final rounds of interviews when Penny died. But I didn't regret bowing out. I liked where I was now—and I wouldn't have lasted long in Kaisall's corner of the industry. It was better being his friend. More plausible deniability.
"As I told you the first time we had this conversation, I don't live in a world where I can drop off the grid for a few weeks or come back a little foggy. Whatever the fuck that means."
"We'll keep you in the command center," he said. "No risk of concussion there. Or not as much of a risk."
"You're not helping. None of this is helping."
"I don't know what to tell you, man. When are you back in town? Want to catch a Nationals game? I'll let you whine at me all night if you buy the beers."
Again, I glanced between my watch and phone. Still nothing from Audrey. I didn't have a great feeling about this. I should've gone with them. "I'm on the West Coast for a few more weeks and then picking up Percy from his grandmother's place in Michigan."
"Last I checked, they still play in August."
I stretched my arms over my head to draw some of the tension from my shoulders. Didn't work. "I'll text you when we're back."
"And you're buying the beer."
"You have a private jet," I snapped. "Like fuck I'm buying the beer."
"I'll have you know that's a business expense."
"Whatever lets you sleep at night." I watched a family of quail scuttle across the yard and debated whether I wanted to involve Kaisall in another one of my problems. "How good are your hackers?"
"I don't have hackers," he said, each word crisp.
"Right, yeah, of course not. But hypothetically speaking."
"Hypothetically," he drawled, "I hire only the best in the business."
I nodded to myself as the pieces took shape in my head. "Then would you say, hypothetically, that someone playing at that level of the game would be able to figure out when some emails had been opened?"
"Opened? Not just delivered?"
"Yeah," I said. "But they're not recent. We're talking old emails."
"How old?"
I glanced at my phone. "More than a decade."
Kaisall was quiet for a long moment. I heard him typing. Probably messaging one of the hackers he didn't have on his payroll. Another beat passed before he said, "I need more than a minute with that one. If you can send me—"
From inside the house, I heard a door slam followed by a loud, booming belly laugh and then, "Come on, let's bake bread!
Do you know about yeast? Yeast. Yeast! It's like an alien word.
A word from literal aliens. But for bread.
Did I tell you I bake bread every weekend? But not for the aliens. It's for me."
A breath whooshed out of me. "Kaisall, I have to go. My mother got my fiancée high."
"Your—what? When were you going to tell me you got engaged?"
"It's a stupid long story," I said, striding across the patio.
"Congratulations?"
"I'll explain it over beers," I said. "That you buy."
"Fuck you," he crowed as I hung up.
I pocketed my phone and yanked out the earbuds as I stepped inside only to find Audrey sprawled on the floor, her hair flipped over her face, and giggling. I pointed at my mother, who had the good sense to look guilty. "What the fuck is this?"
"It was an accident," she said. "I swear."
"I'm sorry. Did I need to explicitly tell you that you're not allowed to drug my fiancée? Because I'd thought I made that clear the last time you pulled this shit."
"It really was a mistake. I didn't have my glasses on," she said. "I mixed up the mints with the molly."
"I can't fucking believe you." I dropped to the floor beside Audrey and brushed her hair out of her eyes. I swept a thumb over her warm, rosy cheek. "How are you doing, princess?"
She grabbed my wrist, holding me in place. "I feel…pink."
"Yeah. I can see that. I'm going to pick you up and—"
Her eyes went comically wide as she glanced all around. "Up from where?"
"You're on the floor, baby."
She laced her fingers with mine and grabbed for the front of my shirt, dragging me closer with startling strength. "How did I get down here?"
"The details are hazy but it started with my mother being a psychopath."
"I'm going to make some tea," Mom said. "Tea always helps."
"Don't you dare," I said. "Water is the only thing I'm trusting from this house."
"How about I run down the street to Gary's and get some seltzer? I know Audrey always orders sparkling water with lime."
"Yeah. Sure. Perfect. Go the fuck away." My mother hurried out the door as I hooked Audrey's arms around my neck and gathered her up. "Hold on tight for me, Saunders."
She nuzzled her face into my neck and proceeded to lick her way from the base of my throat to my ear. It was almost enough to make my knees buckle. I knew this wasn't what she wanted and I had no business reacting to her right now but my dick was late in receiving that message.
"You taste good," she said, tiptoeing her fingers up the back of my neck.
I kissed her forehead. "You taste better."
She closed her eyes and smiled like the first light of dawn. Those fingers curled around my hair. She gave a slight tug, just hard enough to send a snap of heat through my entire body. "Sometimes you're nice to me."
"Sometimes." I stared at her lips for far too long. "More, if you'd let me."
Audrey shook her head, her eyes still shut.
Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind I found a memory of her like this—happy, free, completely uncalloused by years of doing what she was told and never what she chose.
I couldn't place the time or the circumstances but I remembered the way she smiled and how it dug into my muscles, under my ribs, until it wrapped around my heart.
Seeing it again made it hard to breathe.
"You don't want that," she said, the words satin soft.
"If you knew all the things I wanted," I whispered, "you wouldn't worry about me being nice."
She traced along my collar and down the line of my jaw. She tapped at my bottom lip like she was calling for an elevator until I scraped my teeth over that fingertip. "What would I worry about?"
I didn't know if she'd remember this. If she was in there now, conscious of everything but too stoned to stop it. I didn't know which way I wanted that to shake out.