Chapter 11 #2
“I just said I didn’t.” Bentley’s glower turned cold. “Why do I feel as though you’re both conspiring against me?” He eyed the fruit bowl and the sandwich. “Ugh, human food.”
Theo gave up, rolled his eyes, and came back to my side. “Did you want something or are you here just to annoy me?”
“This is my kitchen too.” To prove it, he made a show of clattering through the kitchen cabinets, looking for something or just making a nuisance of himself.
Theo folded his arms and glared.
The banter between them would have been harmless, if I didn’t know Bentley actively wanted Theo dead.
“Mother wants us around next Friday. Big party. We will project functional family vibes. Can you do that, Theo? Show up and be the distinguished heir and not some emotional washout, not shame us in public like you normally do?”
“Fuck you.”
“Didn’t think so.” Bentley grabbed a semi-transparent bag full of sloshing, dark liquid from the fridge, then a glass from a cabinet. He tore a cap off the bag and filled the glass. Thick, dark red stained the sides.
Theo looked away and stared at a point on the far wall. Then, without a word, he pushed off the kitchen counter and left the room.
Bentley watched him go, raised the glass to his lips, and brought his glare back to me. “You’re wasting your time with him. He’ll be dead soon.”
“I’m just gonna . . . go too.” I took the fruit bowl and sandwich and hurried after Theo, catching up with him on the patio. “You good?”
“Don’t ask me that,” he snapped.
I missed a step, tripping over the venom in his voice.
“Sorry,” he said, fast, his face softening. “I’m a bitch around blood and him.”
“It’s alright.”
“No, it’s not.” He stopped outside the pool house and clasped the back of his neck with a sigh. “I don’t want you to think I’m like that. That’s not who I am, I just . . . I can’t stand to look at him sometimes.”
“It’s okay, really.” I handed him the fruit bowl to break the tension.
He took it, smiled sheepishly, and we headed inside the pool house.
We filled the next hour helping Theo’s guest get comfortable in her new surroundings.
After, there wasn’t much more for me to do.
Theo was going to keep an eye on her. She seemed alert, and healthy, not about to drop dead.
Whatever had happened, she was doing pretty well considering she’d been face down in Theo’s pool for a long time.
As the girl got comfortable with a bag of chips, legs crossed on the couch, TV on, I nodded for Theo to join me over by the pull-down bed.
He ambled over, and we both leaned against the wall, heads bent close.
“So, I uh . . . I took the job next door,” I told him.
His eyes blew wide with genuine fear. “You what?”
I hadn’t expected him to care, and shrugged to diffuse it. “Just to figure out what’s going on.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Owen, shit. Jay died next door.” He whispered that last part so as not to scare his guest.
“Yeah, I know that. I’ll be extra careful.”
“No.” He stared at the TV, not really seeing it.
I frowned. Why did my chest hurt? What he thought shouldn’t matter. I was doing this for Jay, for a man I’d never met. Actually, no, I was doing it for Theo, and he was being a dick about it. “It’s done.”
“Then undo it,” he said, still staring at the TV.
“No.” I huffed a laugh. “I’m done arguing. I have to do this.”
“No you don’t.” He wasn’t laughing at all. A muscle twitched in his cheek. He turned his head and stared. “I’ll pay you double not to go back there.”
“Theo, stop.”
“I will—”
“Stop. I’m not taking your money. I’m going over there, I’m going to figure out what’s going on and what killed Jay, because I’m all he’s got.”
“Jay is dead, Owen,” he snarled. “He hasn’t got anything.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t understand you. You didn’t even know him.”
“It’s the right thing.”
“The right thing?” He laughed but it sounded sour. “Whatever, man. I’ll put that on your gravestone. Here’s Owen, died doing the right thing. Hope he’s happy now.”
He seethed, and the sense of guilt gnawed on my conviction. I was doing this. He could hate it, but it had to happen.
“It’s alright.” I lowered my voice again. “I’ve dealt with dangerous people before.”
“The Briars aren’t people, they’re different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Mother won’t say, but they’re different enough that I think she’s afraid of them. We already lost one pool boy, I can’t . . .” His voice caught. He pinched his lips together and looked away again.
Hold up, did Theo actually care what happened to me?
“Hey?”
He reluctantly flicked his gaze back.
I almost told him then how I’d survived prison, so I could survive Jeremy Briar, but my past wasn’t supposed to touch me here. New Owen, new life, no past. If he knew I was an ex-con, knew the things I’d done . . . No, I couldn’t ever tell him.
“If something goes wrong, you’re just a fence away, right?” I smiled, trying to make light of it.
“Then you’d call me?”
“Yes, I’d call you. Just so long as I’m not bleeding, because, well . . . we’ve seen how that ends.”
“No blood. But if you need me, Owen, I’m there, I swear it. I won’t lose another friend. I won’t . . .” He swallowed again. “I won’t lose you too.”
His words darted straight through all my defenses and excuses and landed in my heart. I grinned before I’d even acknowledged what his words did to me.
Theo brightened too. “I like your smile, Freckles.”
“Yeah?” Well, this was . . . interesting. I swallowed and tried to get my grin under control. “I like your shirt, so we’re even.”
“My shirt?”
“Yup.”
“That’s it? Just the shirt?”
“Yeah. I guess the guy it belongs to is kinda okay, though. Little bit dramatic sometimes.”
His smile said he didn’t believe me. “Don’t fucking die.”
“I don’t plan to.” I turned and leaned back against the wall. We rested shoulder to shoulder now, a few inches between us. “I have to get back to set up the equipment for starting next door.”
“Alright. I guess I’ll watch our guest and try an’ figure out where she came from.”
“I’ll see you later, Theo.”
Theo’s guest grinned as I passed by, but she barely looked away from the TV. “Bye, Owen.”
“Hey, let me know if you remember anything, alright?”
“Will do.”
Theo sent a small wave my way, and watched me all the way to the door, until I stepped out into Miami’s brutal sun. Funny how the air felt colder without his gaze on me.