No wonder he’s so exhausted.
“If I tell you something, will you promise it will remain between us?”
Caidyn’s delay in answering isn’t surprising. You couldn’t hear how much angst was in my tone when I asked my question. He knows what I want to share is big, and he needed time to prepare his stomach for the impact it would cause.
When he nods, I gather Max’s leash into my hand before slowly pacing back toward his family home. “It started approximately eighteen months before Saint pulled his signature move on Sloane…”
Just like on my first ‘date’ with Maddox, Caidyn and I take the long route home. It gives me plenty of time to update Caidyn on everything that has happened on the whirlwind yet terrifyingly scary commencement of my relationship with his baby brother. I don’t leave a single thing out. I tell him everything. My uncle’s threats to sexually assault me. The outcome of Maddox’s death match. Why we were living at my uncle’s residence even with us having perfectly acceptable accommodations elsewhere. I even admit the shame I felt upon discovering the mortality rate of the men I recruited to my uncle’s fight circuit.
“I should have stuck to my guns, but I just couldn’t. Maddox was like a bull in a china shop.”
Caidyn tosses back his head and laughs. In the tenseness of the situation, it’s a nice thing to hear. “It isn’t the first time he’s been accused of that. Won’t be the last.” He curls his arm around my shoulders before pulling me into his side. “He wanted you to be his girl for over a decade. I understand his eagerness.” After dropping his arm from my side, he climbs the front stairs of his family’s home before sitting on the top step. “How much does he owe?” When my brows join, he adds, “Your uncle. If Maddox agreed to go away to pay back a debt, there has to be a monetary amount attached to it.”
“There would be, but I don’t know how much it is.” I sound like an idiot. Rightfully, so. I feel like one as well.
“Could you find out?” Caidyn asks through quirked lips.
I nod. “But it will bewayoutside our means. My uncle doesn’t live in the real world. We couldn’t come up with the capital needed in three lifetimes, much less one.”
“Are you sure?” After giving me a moment to hear the confidence in his tone, Caidyn stretches his arms out in front of himself. He isn’t suggesting for him to take Maddox’s place. He’s directing my focus to the mammoth residence behind him. To his family home.
“I-I couldn’t ask them to do that. It’s too much.” I hate the stutter of my words. I’m not a complete imbecile. I just either cry or stutter. I went for the one that will be easier to hide once it’s over.
“You don’t have to ask them, Demi,” Caidyn interjects. “I will.”
His promise lightens the heaviness in my chest, but only by a smidge. “But they’ll want to know what it’s for, which means you’ll have to break the promise you just made.” I can’t tell if my voice is crossed with anger or pleading. It could be both. “I don’t care how people look at me, Caidyn, but I don’t want Maddox subjected to the hatred I’ve dealt with my entire life.”
“I won’t break my word, Demi. What you told me will remainsolelywith me, but there are ways we could get the funds without telling them what it’s for. I simply need to know if it is close to what we need.”
I swallow to mollify my suddenly dry throat before saying, “I’ll find out.” When Caidyn leaps to his feet, eager to get started, I push him back onto his backside. “Alone. If your family is going to lose everything, I’d rather it be only materialistic things.”
“Demi…” When his ruthless call of my name doesn’t slow me down, Caidyn tries another tactic. “Maddox will kill me if he finds out I let you visit your uncle by yourself.”
I whip around to face him, smiling when he spots the key to his Jeep I pinched from his pocket when I shoved him back onto his backside. “Considering he’d need to be a free man to do that, I’m willing to take the risk.”
When I turn back around, I smack headfirst into a steaming angry blonde with curls that would stretch for miles if they were ever ironed out. “Sloane.”
Even though her taut shoulders and tapping foot reveals she overheard the last part of my conversation with Caidyn, she returns my greeting when I throw my arms around her shoulders and hug her tight.
I’m not ashamed to admit it takes several long seconds for me to let her go, and even then, it isn’t done without a protruding lower lip. “What are you doing here? I thought you had exams.”
She arches a perfectly manicured brow. She looks so much more put together than she was months ago. Almost back to her full self. “I said I’d be here for you when the verdict was read.”
“I thought you meant emotionally, not literally.” I should have known better. Sloane never does things in halves. “Are you staying long?”
My silent prayers are answered when she replies, “For a couple of weeks. My professor thinks this will be a great learning curve for me, so he gave me a prolonged extension on some assignments.”
I crank my neck to Caidyn, curious to see if he too heard Sloane’s tone increase when she mentioned her professor. From his arched brow and quirked lips, I’d say he did.
“Anyway, enough about me.” Sloane bumps me with her hip before snatching Caidyn’s Jeep key out of my hand. “There is a wonderful thing these days called a telephone. You can use it to communicate with anyone.” Her eyes narrow into thin slits. “Especially men you shouldn’t be associating with.” She climbs the stairs, plants her backside next to Caidyn as if she belongs on the Walsh family porch even more than me, then holds her hand out palm side up. “Cough it up. If a bullshitter needs bullshitting, who better to make the call than another bullshitter?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want you in the middle of this mess.”
I freeze in place, frozen by a glare I didn’t think Sloane could pull off. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
As she tugs down on the sleeves of her long-sleeve shirt, hiding the welts only she and I can see, I dig my cell phone out of my pocket. Is it cowardly of me to do? Probably, but you can’t see what I can see. Not only is Sloane clawing her way out of the deep and dirty trench my uncle forced her in, so is our friendship. I can’t give that up for anything—not even me.
6
