Page 22 of 6 Clues Your Nemesis Loves You

“Agreed.” Cal gestures to the sides. “The shorter arm on the left means it can’t be a chaise.”

Des offers a derisive grunt. “You assholes are wrong. It’s a chaise…longue.”

“Definitely a chaise,” Jake agrees, assuming his crossed-arm pose. He diverts his attention to me and skewers me with an intense stare.

I stare back, annoyed with my brothers for being my brothers. I mean, I get what they’re doing. Making me sweat, waiting on me to crack, but the conversation is almost amusing enough to forget the land mine I’m sitting on. I assume E knows a divan from a chaise longue because he’s an artist who examines the beauty and quirkiness of his surroundings. Jake’s and Cal’s construction work must lead to interactions with designers. Des is the shock factor here.

When we lived in Houston, all our apartments were decorated in a style I like to call bland-on-bland. IKEA essentials. Garage sale finds. None of us wanted to give our fake identities the homey permanence that came with choosing stylish accents and vibrant colors.

Now Desmond’s living with Sadie, engaged to be married, their Victorian home painted a cheerful yellow, with gorgeous artwork on the walls, while he waxes on about his chaise longue, because my brothers know I’m hiding something.

“Regardless what the chair is,” Jake says, still winning our staring contest as he points at me, “this is a lying Bower.”

Their oppressive circle shrinks around me. A pack of wolves, waiting to pounce.

“I’m not lying.” Twitch, twitch, twitch goes my eyelid. “How can I lie if I didn’t say anything?”

E presses his fingers to either side of my spasming eyelid and holds it open. “Yeah. He’s hiding something.”

I swat him off me and keep my mouth shut.

“It might be nothing,” Cal says, resuming his role of Bower Tension Defuser. “He’s probably just stressed.”

Des nudges my shoulder with his fist. “Spill it.”

“Nothing to spill. Cal’s right. I’m just stressed about Dad’s book.” When my treasonous eyelid tremors again, I smack my hand over my eye and sigh. My brothers haven’t budged. They’re a ring of brown-headed interferers watching me with mixed expressions of concern and wariness.

Except E, who smirks. “I bet it’s Maggie. I heard the two of them got stuck in an elevator together. She probably freaked out when she realized he isn’t packing much between his legs and—”

I kick his shin, eliciting a grunt and laugh from him. There’s no point evading this truth grenade. These assholes will only get more irritating.

Sitting more firmly in this exceptionally comfortable divan-chaise-longue-whatever, I scratch my beard and say, “Dad texted me.”

“He what?” Desmond’s barked tone matches his rabid expression.

Jake’s face looks ready to erupt. “The asshole has no fucking right.”

“Always a fucking angle with him,” E says, his words quiet but deadly.

“Maybe there’s a good reason.” Cal’s make-the-peace words are barely out when our three brothers round on him with “No fucking way” and “The guy’s a fucking virus” and “Shut the fuck up with your glass-half-full bullshit.”

Good thing the girls have Max outside.

Jake paces, then spears his hand through his hair. “What does he want?”

I deflate and rub my eyes. “To meet with me, but I don’t know why.”

“And you agreed?” Desmond gets in my face, looking like a bloodthirsty Viking.

I flinch and shove him away. “Exhaling your noxious breath on me isn’t helping. Ever heard of toothpaste?”

“Swear to God,” he mutters, his thunderous expression verging on scary. “I will kill that man.”

Of all of us, I get Desmond’s hatred of our father most. Being forced to leave Sadie broke him. Losing her sucked out his drive and determination, leaving behind a mad-at-life grunter with a collection of horrible tattoos and an even worse temper. Eleven years later, when he found out Sadie had been pregnant at the time and they had a son, he fell to pieces.

Des missed ten years of Max’s life, a decade he can never get back. He and Sadie may have reconciled, the two of them finally living as the family they were meant to be with Max, but there’s no galaxy in which Desmond doesn’t want to murder our father for what was taken from him.

That same hatred has kept me awake most nights since getting the Life Wrecker’s texts. Unfortunately, so have the happier memories I shared with my father. The latter is what concerns me most.