I snorted.
Brady asked.
Layla said. She shrugged as if she’d spoken aloud, snickering.
Griff said urgently, even as Brady’s body stiffened at his sister’s goading.
So true. Shit. Now I was going to have to play a part for Magnum and our faux parents andalsopretend not to be hearing my friends’ voices in my head? I didn’t have the self-restraint, discretion, or finesse for that. Layla had even less. And I didn’t think Brady could pull it off either; he led with his reactions. Only Hunt and Griff had that quiet introspection down already.
Griffin added,
I said.
“Fuck, I hope your phone screen didn’t just crack, man,” Brady told Hunt aloud to fill the suspicious silence we’d allowed to stretch.
“Yeah, me too,” Hunt said, but made no move to retrieve his phone from where it had fallen.
“Hunt!” a girl’s voice yelled, and as one we turned. It was Zoe.
“Hey,” she called ahead with a smile as she bounded across the parking lot toward us, her backpack bouncing. When she reached us, she didn’t bother with individual greetings, just wrapped both arms around Hunt’s neck and pulled his face down for a kiss.
Layla told him urgently through our apparent mental bond.
Hunt’s arms had been clamped to his sides, but now he wove them around Zoe’s waist. His touch was still light, but it was definitely an improvement.
When it became evident Zoe was slipping Hunt tongue, and my friend’s fingers were clenching and unclenching behind her back, Layla whistled obnoxiously before patting Zoe on the back.
“Whoa, Zo. Lay off a bit there, will ya? We need you to leave some of Hunt there so he can make it to class.” She snorted a laugh that to my ears was fake, but I doubted Zoe would notice.
Zoe pulled back with a lick of her lips but left her arms looped around Hunt, gazing up at him dreamily. “Good morning, handsome. You’re looking especially hot this morning.”
Hunt blinked away the deer-in-the-headlights look that wanted to creep up on him and forced a smile to his glistening lips. “Thanks. You look … great too.”
Layla said.
I realized at once we were all in even more trouble than we’d thought. Now we’d have Layla heckling us inside our minds too? Talk about a mega distraction when we definitely needed to keep our shit together and all our stories aligned. But I already knew she wouldn’t be able to help herself. Layla would be Layla, even when playing the part of herself.
Zoe, appearing unbothered by Hunt’s modest enthusiasm, continued to gaze up at him with evident adoration.
“You’re such a sweetie,” she told him. Her hands traveled from his neck to his shoulders, then his arms, where she squeezed. “Did you, um, did you get my text?”
Right. The one where she wanted to bone our friend to carry out some orchestrated ruse. Talk about a violation for Hunt. This took our situation to a whole new level of fucked-upness.
I shuddered, drawing a questioning look from Griffin.
I’d intended the thought to travel solely to Griffin, but Brady answered, meaning I’d once more failed to deliver my words as precisely as I’d intended.
Then, because every time we spoke to each other, silences inevitably drew out for anyone observing us, I told Zoe the first thing that came to mind.
“Hunt dropped his phone.”
Zoe looked down to find the phone abandoned at Hunt’s feet and arched a brow at him. “And you didn’t even pick it up?”
Layla popped into my thoughts.
Hunt, appearing somewhat frazzled, for once did as Layla directed without prior deliberation. He parroted for Zoe.
