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Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sawyer
“Why are you ignoring my calls?” my brother Dylan asks. It’s the first time I’ve answered his calls or texts, which started yesterday afternoon. Right after it all went down.
“I’m not. Just been busy,” I grumble, wishing I had let this one go to voicemail too.
“Bullshit. What’s wrong?” he pushes.
I sigh deeply, not really wanting to get into this AJ mess with Dylan. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. Just an issue with AJ.” The issue of her not speaking to me after finding me naked in bed with my ex-wife yesterday morning, nor was I able to talk to her today since she called in sick. You know. That issue.
“What’d you do? Fuck it up already?” His words are like a truth-bomb dropped right in my lap.
“Why’d you call again?”
“Uh uh, you’re not changing the subject that easily. What happened? Tell me you didn’t push away the only woman who’s made you smile in I don’t know how long.” Dammit, Dylan. I really don’t want to get into it right now, but there’s no getting around it. He’s like a fucking pit bull with a bone when he’s on to something.
“Something happened,” I confess, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck as that ever-present tightening in my chest grabs hold once more. “Something big.”
“What? She’s knocked up? She met someone else? She confessed she’s not into you because she wants your hotter, younger brother?” Even his brand of humor doesn’t get a rise out of me.
“Worse. She found me in bed with Carrie.” Just saying those damn words again brings back every ounce of pain.
I’m met with silence for several seconds. Seconds that turn to minutes. “Excuse me? Can you repeat that? Because it sure as hell sounded like she caught you in bed with Carrie. Your ex-wife!”
Closing my eyes, I see hers, every heartbreaking tear that rips my soul from my chest and tosses it into a paper shredder. “It’s not what you think, man,” I start.
“Then what is it?”
Sighing deeply, I drop down onto a chair on my deck. The waves are bigger tonight, slamming into the wet sand with force. “I think she drugged me.” Then I tell him the entire story. I start with how we confessed our love before she left to go be with Meghan, and ended with her finding me the next morning.
“And you have no recollection of anything?”
“Not a fucking thing. A few pieces have come back, but not all of it.” I take a drink of water, wishing it were something a hell of a lot stronger. But I told myself that I would not get drunk, even though that was my first thought. Instead, I make sure I’m with it in case she returns any of my texts or phone calls.
“Have you talked to either of them?”
“I’ve called a million times, but she isn’t answering. She called in sick from school. And I’m afraid if I’m face-to-face with Carrie that I might do something that lands me behind bars for the rest of my life.”
Dylan is quiet for a few minutes, obviously deep in thought. He’s always been the reasonable one, the one most levelheaded, so I let him work it out and wait.
“You need Carrie to confess.”
“And you think it’ll be easy? I mean, it’s not like she’s going to willingly tell me that she fucking drugged me and set everything up so AJ would find us in bed together.”
“True,” he replies, but I pick up on the underlying humor in his voice. “That’s why you need to scare her.”
“What?”
“Hear me out. You remember who is coming to town this weekend, right? That’s actually the reason I was calling. Mom was making sure you didn’t need any help with setting up,” he says.
“What does he have to do with this?” I ask, clearly not following the direction of his plan.
“Who better to scare the crap out of Carrie than him? He always had that intimidation factor going for him when we were growing up. And he’s a cop,” he points out, the pieces of his plan starting to fall into place. “She doesn’t know him, since he wasn’t able to go to your wedding, and that game last season in St. Louis, where he brought his family to see you, Carrie was off at that resort having work done–I mean she was sick.”
That makes me snort a laugh. I remember that weekend well. She was supposed to accompany me to a game in St. Louis, when she booked a girls’ weekend to some exclusive spa that specialized in nipping, tucking, and enhancements. The whole thing burned my ass because she knew part of my family that I never get to see was going to be there. She made me tell everyone she was sick so no one knew she was having work done.
“But how do we get them together?”
