9
EMERSYN
Gabe peered out the window. “Right there,” he said, pointing to a house up a steep driveway. “Just pull over. I can walk.”
But I wasn’t about to let the chance to meet Jake Thornton pass me by. “It’s okay.” I turned into the driveway. “I’ve got nothing better to do today. I’ll help.”
Gabe looked at me quizzically, and for a moment I wondered if I was coming across too eager. I didn’t want to arouse his suspicions, but I also knew I probably wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again. “What?” I said, jerking on the handbrake and cutting the engine. “One sleepover and you’re sick of me already?” I shook my head. “Typical.”
Gabe opened his mouth to respond, but Amelia’s sister, Molly, the girl who’d wanted Gabe to dance last night, tapped on his window, dressed only in a flimsy bathrobe.
“About time you got here,” she yelled through the glass. “Jake’s been—” She stopped talking when she saw me get out of the car.
“Hi!” I greeted her cheerfully as she narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “Syn.” I held out my hand and used the name Gabe had for me. I may as well be Syn to everyone in his world.
She looked me up and down, and I wished I’d dressed a little nicer or, at the very least, done something to my hair other than merely brush it. Then she turned her attention back to Gabe. “Who’s she?”
Gabe chuckled. “As she just said, she’s Syn.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“ She can actually talk for herself,” I interrupted.
“Syn, meet Molly. Molly, meet Syn.” Gabe gestured between us.
Molly narrowed her eyes even more, if that were possible. “Hi,” she said bluntly.
“Hi,” I replied. I strolled over and looped my arm through Gabe’s. Molly’s eyes followed the movement, and she set her mouth in a hard line. She glared at me for a while as I maintained my most innocent of smiles, and then she turned and stormed inside.
“She seems nice,” I said to Gabe.
He just laughed and moved to follow Molly. He didn’t object to the casual affection, so I kept my arm looped through his.
Amelia’s kitchen wasn’t much bigger than mine, and Jake Thornton filled it almost entirely. He was tall. Super tall. Muscular. And hairy. Long waves of dark hair fell to his waist, and his face was covered in a long, scruffy beard. It had been trimmed shorter in the wedding photos, so I was amazed it had grown so much in such a short time.
He grunted when he saw Gabe. “Nice of you to finally turn up.”
“Sorry,” Gabe replied sheepishly. “I got distracted.”
“So I can see.” Jake hadn’t acknowledged my presence, but he looked at me then, and I almost shriveled under the weight of his glare.
“Oh, stop it.” Amelia whacked Jake’s arm playfully. “You’ll scare the poor girl off, and we all know Gabe needs all the help he can get in that department.”
“Hey!” Gabe exclaimed.
“I’m Amelia, and this is my partner, Jake. Molly over there is my sister.” Amelia smiled widely. She seemed nice and friendly, unlike her sister.
Molly was sprawled on the sofa, her nose buried in her phone. There were photos dotted across the walls of the lounge, all of Amelia and her family during various stages of their lives. The house was tidy but still had that lived-in look.
“We met outside,” I explained when Molly made no attempt to say hello. “It’s lovely to meet you all. Gabe’s said such nice things about you.”
“He has?” Jake questioned with a deep chuckle.
I scrunched up my nose a little. “Okay, not really. We haven’t known each other for that long, but I feel like he would’ve if he’d had the chance.”
Amelia laughed, cradling her stomach as though the motion caused her pain. I smiled. Jake merely grunted and raised an eyebrow at Gabe.
It was strange watching Gabe and Jake interact. It felt as though two characters from a story had suddenly jumped off the page and come to life. I’d spent so long observing them from afar, creating a narrative of who I thought they were to present to my readers, and now they were here. In front of me. Arguing like brothers. Two normal, everyday brothers, not the stuck-up bastards I thought they were. Maybe it was Amelia who humanized them. Their arguments seemed almost playful, whereas I’d been led to believe the brothers couldn’t stand each other. Or maybe that’s merely what I’d led others to believe.
Amelia watched them with a smile of affection, her hand still spread protectively over her stomach.
“When are you due?” I asked.
“Just under five months.”
I widened my gaze. She looked much further along than that.
“I know.” She patted her belly. “One day I was flat as a pancake, and then suddenly there it was. You’d think there were two in there or something, but I assure you there’s only one.”
“It’s because you’re so tiny.” Gabe walked past and winked at Amelia, who scowled playfully. Then he turned his attention to me. “Thanks for dropping me off.”
I recognized a dismissal when I heard one. It was time to go. As much as I wanted to stay and study these humans I found so fascinating, it was hard to come up with an excuse. I held Gabe’s gaze for a while, part of me hoping he’d ask for my number or at least reference us maintaining a friendship so I could gather more information, but he didn’t. So I said my goodbyes and left, barely catching some of the questions they hurled at Gabe the moment I was out of sight.
My Sundays usually consisted of laziness, the only day I allowed myself no routine, but for some reason, I couldn’t settle for the rest of the day. I tried typing up a story I’d been working on about a girl who’d gone missing for the second time, but the words just wouldn’t come. I ended up staring at the screen of my laptop, fingers poised to type but not moving. So, I just stared at the logo on my website. It was bright red lips, with the word ‘Hearsay’ forced to fit the contour of the inside of the mouth. Under the lips was the tagline: information received from other people which cannot be substantiated. It was all there in plain text. My reporting was nothing but rumors, but people didn’t care. I stared so long and so hard that when I blinked, I still saw the logo in burning red against the back of my eyelids.
Blinking myself back to reality, I tried watching some TV with Tara and Cody, but I couldn’t follow along with anything that was happening as my mind was too distracted.
In the end, I scrolled through the various social media accounts of the Thorntons. Lauren Thornton had just posted some new pictures from a marketing campaign she was working on. Amelia’s last two photos were belly expansion progress shots, and she was right. One day there was nothing, and a week later, wham! Jake still hadn’t posted anything other than a single image of a sunset, and Tyler hadn’t posted since his wedding. The only person who posted any consistent content was Billie Thornton, Hamish’s wife and stepmother to Tyler, Jake, and Gabe. And she posted too much. There were pictures of food, hideous gold ornaments she had dotted around the house, and selfies. Many, many selfies. Duck face selfies. Hair-curtain selfies. Kissy face selfies. The ‘I’m bored’ selfies. They were all there. Multiple times. I flicked away from her profile and brought up Gabe’s. His posts were sporadic and humorous. I found myself smiling as I looked at the photos.
“You like him, don’t you?”
I became aware of Tara leaning over my shoulder, watching me scroll through Gabe’s photos. “He’s just a friend,” I said quickly. “And a person of interest on my blog.” Urgh. I called it a blog.
“A very good-looking friend.” Tara wiggled her brows.
There was no denying it. Gabe Thornton was hot. Super-hot. But I’d always known that. And super-hot wasn’t something I fell for. Well, not anymore. I had learned that lesson from Conrad. Good-looking didn’t always equal good. Or even nice. It just meant they’d been genetically blessed or knew how to groom themselves.
“So what happened with you two last night?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, thinking back on the evening.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure? You were there, weren’t you?”
I sighed. I’d never really been one to delve into the personal details of my relationships. Mainly because the only one I’d had was with Conrad, and the way that started was . . . complicated. “It was strange. He was really drunk. And flirty. I verged on rude at times—”
“What a surprise,” Tara interrupted.
“But he just found it funny, probably because he was drunk. Then he tried to kiss me.” Tara’s eyes widened. “Again, probably because he was drunk. And nothing happened,” I rushed to add. “Not even the kiss. I pulled away.”
Tara looked at me suspiciously. “But he stayed the night.”
“We slept in the same bed. That was it.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“He didn’t say anything when you left?”
“Neither of us did.”
“You know,” Tara said, “it’s okay to like someone again. After Conrad, I mean.”
“I know that,” I snapped. I hated when people commented on my personal life. It’s why I kept things to myself. I’d learned the hard way how opening up and letting someone in can come back to bite you. “We’re friends. Nothing more.”
Tara rolled her eyes as she picked at her nails. “If you say so.”
Sometimes I felt like the only reason my flatmates put up with me was because the house was rented in my name. Also because the rent was so damn cheap and because the place was a dive.
With a loud sigh, I got off the sofa and walked into my room. Taking out my journal, I started jotting down notes about the story I wanted to present regarding Jake. There was something cathartic about handwriting my notes. There was so much unknown; it wasn’t even a story yet; it was more like the sense of one. I could feel it in my bones. It was a gentle humming or buzzing—the excitement of knowing something could be big, even if I didn’t have all the pieces yet.
I knew that Jake had beaten the shit out of someone.
I knew that the person had lots of cash on them.
I knew that they argued.
I knew that Jake had never been held accountable for his actions.
I knew that the person, according to Tara at least, had been seriously injured. I needed to find out who this John Doe was, how serious his injuries were, and why Jake inflicted them. And there was one person who could help me with that. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Jumping off the bed, I raced through the house and pushed open the door to Brady and Brittney’s room. They were asleep, but the sound of the door hitting the wall woke them.
Brady sat bolt upright, eyes darting around the room before landing on me. “For fuck’s sake, Emmy.” He flopped back down. “What do you want?”
“Hey,” I chirped cheerfully and sat down on the edge of the mattress.
“The keys are on top of the fridge,” Brittney moaned.
“No, silly.” I laughed sweetly. “I don’t need your car.”
“That would be a change.”
“I need Brady.”
“Good,” Brittney grunted. “I’m going back to sleep. Take him. Just make sure you return him with a full tank.”
“What do you want?” Brady sighed, lying back on the bed and tugging the blankets up around his chin.
“I’m looking into something that involves someone coming into the hospital seriously injured.”
“And?”
“And I need your help to find out who it was.”
Brady opened one eye. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“All I need you to do is contact your friend who works at the hospital near the city center and get him to send me the footage from the entrance on the night of Sunday, May fifteenth.”
Brady snorted. “Is that all?”
“Yep, that’s it.” I batted my eyelashes and grinned.
“Fuck off, Emmy.” Brady rolled over, turning his back to me.
“Please, Brady, I need this. I really, really need this.”
“Fuck off, you know I’m on night shift.”
“I promise this will be the last thing I ever ask of you. I’ll even pay. Whatever it takes to encourage them to get it for me, I’ll do it. And it won’t go anywhere other than my hands. I promise.”
Brady ignored me, pretending to snore.
“Please?” I begged, shaking his shoulder. “Please? Please? Please?”
“Argh, just give her what she wants so she’ll go away,” came Brittney’s mumbled voice from under the blankets.
“Fine. I’ll call him later.”
I picked up his phone from the bedside cabinet and handed it to him. “Do it now, and I’ll leave you alone.”
Brady ignored me, pulling the sheets above his head. “Later.”
“Now, and I’ll stop singing.”
“But you’re not—”
“Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer. Take one down, pass—”
Brady threw the covers off his head. “You’re a bitch, you know that, right?”
“It might have been said before.” I grinned and batted my lashes again.
“Leave.” He pointed to the door. “Leave right now, and I’ll call him. Then I’ll come out and tell you what he said, and then you’ll leave us the fuck alone, right?”
“Right!” I saluted and bent over to kiss his cheek. “You’re a darling,” I sang as I got up and walked out the door. Then I stood on the other side and listened to the muted voices. As soon as I heard him get up, I ran over to the sofa and tried to act as though I’d been sitting there the whole time.
“It will cost you a couple hundred,” Brady said grumpily.
“Two hundred? But I don’t have two hundred. I barely have two dollars.”
“Well, you better get onto it. He’ll grab the footage tonight, so you better have the cash by morning or no deal.”
I grabbed both his cheeks and planted a kiss on his lips, which he promptly wiped off the moment I let go.
“This better not come back to bite me in the ass,” he called as he walked back to his room. “I want nothing to do with this, Emmy.” The door slammed shut behind him.
I couldn’t help but grin. If I could identify who the person was, I would be that much closer to getting the full story. All I needed to do was pay for the information. I’d lied when I said I didn’t have two hundred dollars. I did. But if I spent it on this, I would really only have two dollars left. I could ask my uncle; I knew he’d help me, but I’d already relented and spoken to him once after vowing never to again, so I wasn’t about to reach out to him for help once more.
I also needed to talk to Tara again. She had to know more than she was letting on. She must have overheard something during Jake and the man's argument. I just needed to push her a little more—maybe offer her something beyond just a night out on the town.
My phone was left beside my bed, but when I grabbed it, I noticed all the missed calls from my mother. I was late for our monthly Sunday dinner. Again. Grabbing Brittney’s keys from the top of the fridge, I raced over to my parents' house and pulled into the driveway.
“Sorry,” I said as soon as my mother opened the door. Charles was growling and yapping behind her. “I was just—”
She held up her hand. “I don’t want to hear it, Emersyn.” She only ever used the full version of my name when she was annoyed.