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There would never be any coming back from Hayden Carmichael.
We exited Hayden’s room about ten minutes later in search of something to drink in the kitchen. His brother was just finishing a pot of coffee and pouring himself a cup when we entered. I pulled to a surprised halt, having forgotten about him.
Whoops.
Lifting the mug to his mouth, he turned and paused when he caught sight of us.
“Ahh,” he said in pleasant greeting, appearing completely oblivious to what Hayden and I had just done. His eyes glittered with approval as they wandered over me, however. “And you still look hot with your clothes on, too. Sweet.” Then he held out the cup he hadn’t yet sipped from, offering, “Coffee?”
I shrugged and took the mug. “Thanks.”
Brick grinned engagingly over my easy acceptance and turned back to fix himself another. As I sipped and he poured, Hayden crossed his arms over his chest and rested his back against the counter on the far side of the room.
When his brother came back around with a new cup, he caught Hayden’s glare, so he said, “You can get your own,” before he took a long sip, sighing in delight and closing his eyes through the swallow.
Hayden shook his head and frowned. “What’re you doing here, Broderick?”
Brick frowned at him before sending me a telling glance.
Hayden followed the stare before he groaned and rubbed at a spot in the center of his forehead. “You can talk in front of her,” he finally answered. “It’s fine.”
Brick whirled to gape at him. “What, really?”
“Yes.” His brother rolled his hand impatiently. “So what do you want?”
Too busy sending me a curious once-over, Brick could only shake his head in awe. “You’re serious about her, aren’t you?” He sent Hayden a wide-eyed glance. “Are you going to marry this one or something?”
“It’s a bit soon for that,” Hayden bit out. “Now, speak.”
His brother only rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious why I’m here? I want answers. Like why the hell did you need me to get our mother dearest out of her apartment last night, especially after what she did to me this week? You’re lucky I didn’t strangle the old bat on sight. She crossed the line by stealing my department’s presentation. So whatever you needed at her place better well have been pretty fucking important.”
“It was.”
When that was all Hayden said, Brick lifted his eyebrows. “Okay, so what was it?”
Hayden didn’t answer, so his brother glanced toward me.
“Do you know?”
I opened my mouth and hesitated, not sure how to answer. Hayden had a lot to tell him, so maybe he didn’t want to get into all that quite yet.
Thank God, he finally decided to talk then. But what he said was, “It was about her,” which shocked the shit out of me. I glanced his way, and he met my gaze. “Lana has some information on Gabby to use against her,” he told Brick, “so we tried to find it.”
He could tell from the pinch in my expression that I thought he should’ve just told his brother the truth, but since he’d always so readily helped me out and gone along with my on-the-spot, spur-of-the-moment role plays, I decided to go along with his now, as well.
Nodding, I gave a sickeningly weak smile to Brick when he glanced questionably my way.
“Hmm,” Brick murmured thoughtfully. Then he grinned. “Was it a sex tape?” His eyes flared with interest. “Did you find it? Can I watch it?”
“No,” I said.
He paused, then held up a finger. “No, it’s not a sex tape? Or no, I can’t watch?”
I blinked before answering, “Both.”
“Huh.” Looking extremely disappointed by that, he turned back to Hayden. “So, I’m guessing you weren’t able to find whatever boring thing you were looking for, then.”
“With the timeline you gave us?” Hayden lifted his eyebrows like a scolding older brother. “Of course not. We barely got inside the front door before she was returning home again.”
