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Luca shut the front door with a bang and he and his twin turned to face me. Arms crossed over their chests, chins jutting out, they looked exactly like their dad. If they had been a few feet taller I might have been as intimidated as they wanted me to be. But when I stood over them by at least a foot, intimidation was not on my list of emotions I was feeling for them at that moment.
“Of course we didn’t,” Luca informed me with a growl. “She’d tell Mom and then we’d have to give it back. What lesson would she have learned then?”
“Do you think there is a reason that no matter how much trouble you two little monsters get into, that no matter how upset your mom and dad get at you, that they never take your phone from you?” I demanded.
I knew for a fact that Jesse and Layla would never take any of their children’s phones away. Like my parents had done with Trinity’s phone, every one of the Thornton kids had a phone with a special chip installed. It didn’t matter if the phone was on or not, if something happened to one of them, the authorities could track them through their phone. It was something that the security firm that had been working OtherWorld and Demon’s Wings tours for years had developed themselves. The same chip was sewn into Trinity’s backpack, her shoes, even her jacket. Just like they were in Luca’s and Lyric’s.
These two little beasts, however, didn’t understand the why’s of all of it, though. They had been babies when Lucy had been taken by her biological father, and not much older when Emmie Armstrong’s daughter was nearly kidnapped by some lunatic. Luca and Lyric didn’t understand why their dad was so overprotective. They just knew that he was a basket case every time their sister left the house.
Lyric surprised me when he spoke. “I never thought of it, but he’s right, Luca. Mom and Dad haven’t ever taken our phones away.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Luca grumb
led. “She worried us. Mom and Dad were practically shaking when they left last night. Uncle Drake was upset and Aunt Lana was crying. Lucy needs to be grounded from something for doing that to us.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face and glanced around. Where the hell was Jesse? Muttering a curse under my breath, I crouched down in front of the twins. “Look, guys, I realize that Lucy having to go to the hospital was scary for you both. I know it was scary for me. She was in pain and there was nothing I could do. But it wasn’t like she wanted to be there. Some guy said some things that upset her and she stood up for herself. You can’t blame her for doing that, can you?”
“What did he say?” they both demanded at the same time. Their eyes, so much like their father’s, changed from one shade of brown to another so fast that a person would have sworn it was just a trick of the lighting if they didn’t know that it was a genetic thing.
“Doesn’t matter. She took care of him and hurt her hand in the process. She didn’t mean to upset you or anyone else. So why does she have to be punished?” I was trying to use my reasonable tone, the one I used when I was trying to get Trinity to see my way of thinking, but I was pissed at those two little demons. Lucy’s phone was important, damn it. She should never be without it. Never. Just thinking about her leaving her house without that lifeline broke me out in a cold sweat.
Lyric, ever the reasonable twin, turned to his brother. “He’s right, Luca. We have to give her back the phone.”
After a small hesitation, Luca finally nodded. “Yeah, okay.” Those dramatic brown eyes turned back to me. “So why don’t they take our phones?”
“Because if you are somewhere they aren’t and you need them, they are only a phone call away.” I straightened. “Now, go and give her the phone back.”
“You gonna tell on us?” Luca asked, his chin still jutted out like the tough guy he was.
“Not if you give her the phone back in the next two minutes.” I checked my watch and then glanced back down at him. “Go. I’m timing you.”
Two pairs of feet ran up the stairs with the force of a category-five hurricane. Thrusting my hands into my jeans pockets, I glared after them. Damn little troublemakers. And I was going to have to deal with them for the rest of my life if I wanted to be with Lucy.
A deep chuckle sounded behind me and I turned to find Jesse stepping out of the living room. “You handled them like a pro. I had a feeling that they had something to do with Lu’s missing phone when she couldn’t find it before school.”
“She left for school without a phone?” Panic for what might have happened began to choke me. What if she had needed help? I didn’t care that Marcus was with her and had his own phone. That didn’t fucking matter. Her phone was my lifeline to her. What if..?
“Relax, Harris. Layla let Lu take hers this morning. She was fine, boy.” His eyes were laughing at me even as his mouth turned down. “You’re acting worse than me, kid. Don’t give yourself gray hair.”
“She’s my best friend.” And so much more. “I worry about her every day,” I confessed.
“She’s my little girl. So do I.” He turned his head to the right, eyeing me oddly for a long moment before finally grinning again. “I’m glad it’s you, Harris. Maybe I can sleep a little better at night now.”
I tried to keep my eyes from widening but didn’t think I pulled it off when he threw his bald head back and laughed. “Sir?” Had I ever called anyone but this man ‘sir’? I couldn’t remember.
“I’m not blind, boy. Or stupid. I know Lucy better than even you do. She’s my baby. I see that she loves you and I know that you love her, too. I saw it when she was eleven. I knew when your face fell the night that First Bass opened and she wasn’t with us. I haven’t said anything because I was letting you two find your own way, but she wasn’t the same the last week or so. Glad to see that you two made up.” His smile was still in place, but his eyes were telling me vehemently that it would be better for everyone if it didn’t happen again.
I swallowed hard, trying to figure out if I was going to make it out of that house alive or not. I’d grown up in a not-so-pretty world. Rockers were scary motherfuckers. Yet it was only Jesse Thornton who terrified the living hell out of me. Not even Wroth Niall, the original rage monster and all-around scary bastard, had put the fear of God into me like the man currently standing in front of me.
Maybe it was because Jesse’s best friend was Emmie Armstrong and she could make someone disappear with as little as two phone calls. You didn’t work as hard as she had for as many years as she did and not make friends with people in powerfully high places—and some incredibly low places, too.
Or maybe it was something completely different that made me so nervous—and yeah, truly scared shitless—of Jesse Thornton. Maybe it was because I knew that he had the power to take away the one and only thing I knew I couldn’t live without. One word from Lucy’s father and I knew that anything we might have in the future could be thrown out the window. She said she loved me and I believed her, but Jesse was the man who had raised her, the first man to ever love her unconditionally. I knew that she hadn’t wanted to tell Jesse about us to protect me, but I also knew it was because she hadn’t wanted to know what he would do if he decided he didn’t want us together. She might not have admitted it to herself, but I knew that if Jesse didn’t approve of me being with his daughter, any chances we had of a future together were nil and void.
“So…you’re okay with… what, exactly?” Jesse had to be the one to tell me what he was actually okay with.
He shrugged his massive shoulders. To look at this big man with his bulky muscles, you would never think that he was one of the best drummers in the rock world. People made the mistake of thinking his bulk made him slower, less coordinated. It just made the show he put on when he took the stage for a show with his band-brothers all that more spectacular.
“I’m okay with whatever you and Lucy decide you want to be. Friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, whatever. I’m not unreasonable, Harris.” He took a step closer, brown eyes rapidly changing colors right before my eyes, and the look that crossed his face suddenly had my fight-or-flight senses going crazy. My brain was yelling at me to run for my fucking life—this was one badass motherfucker who not only lived on the ocean and could easily get rid of an above-average large body, but his best friend would help him do it. Thankfully, my heart kept my feet planted firmly in place and refused to let too much of my actual fear bleed through.
