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“You don’t have shit to be alarmed about, Cal.”
I grabbed a beer from the fridge and handed it to him with a sympathetic smile. His job wasn’t easy, but neither was continuing to take orders from my big brother. “The name Jack Beck ring a bell?”
He blinked. Shook his head. “No.”
I knew Jasper, and I knew when he was lying, which meant I had to keep digging.
“Right. You stop by for another reason?”
He took a long pull from the bottle and nodded. “How’s Bonnie? Oliver said you brought her home tonight.”
This fucking house was like living in a small town, or worse, a fishbowl. “She’s not doing well. A one-way ticket to hell as far as I can see. I’m worried as fuck about her, but fuck, do I even have a right to be?”
Jasper stared at me for a long moment, but it wasn’t his usual judgmental look or his commanding, king-of-the-world shit. This was assessing and then it was disgust. “Not you too,” he groaned.
I shook my head, vigorously. “It’s not like that.” I told him about running into her tonight at Club Degenerate. “I’m not sure if she’s just trying to cope with all the shit she’s going through or if she’s a liability.”
“Don’t act like you of all people can’t tell, Cal.”
Shit. I hated that Jasper knew me so well, that he’d been the one there for me when I nearly lost everything. Including my life. He was right, and I just nodded. Right now, she was both. Not dealing with her shit well, which made her our liability.
The question he hadn’t asked hung in the air. Was Bonnie worth the risk she posed to the family? “Did you come here for a real reason or just to check on Bonnie?”
Jas finished off the beer and nodded. “You heard about the dead priest?” I nodded; it was hard not to hear about the latest. It was particularly gruesome and had drawn together a multi-agency task force. Allegedly. Nothing had been announced officially, just email chatter going around local and state law enforcement.
“The FBI came sniffing around, including Agent Beck, asking questions about him. Find out what you can about Father Seamus O’Brien. Just in case.”
I mentally added the name to my list of things to do and gave Jasper a quick nod. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.”
“Good, and if you’re really worried about Bonnie, try a distraction. I seem to remember some video game helping you through your shit.”
“Some video game?” I chuckled. “You mean the apps I created that earned me my first, second and third million?”
He nodded. “And mostly from coming up with it in rehab too. You’re the best person to get her back to reality if she’s falling over the edge.”
I agreed, but it didn’t sound like something the older brother I knew and loved would ever say. I told him as much. “Were you hit in the head? Tell me something nobody else knows, so I know it’s you.”
He rolled his eyes, a move designed to make me feel like a child. Always. “If you like her, and it’s obvious you do, even if you’re not ready to admit it yet, then it’s better for her and for us that she shakes this shit and stops being a liability. I can’t have a drug addict fucking up the business.”
My shoulders relaxed and a small smile touched my lips. “There’s the calculating brother I know and love.”
He flipped me off as he walked toward the door, the sound of my laughter at his back.
Alone once again, my thoughts inevitably turned back to Bonnie and that fucking kiss. Maybe it wasn’t all that great. Hell, maybe my reaction to that kiss meant I needed to get out of the house more. Spend some time away from my computer and find a chick without an airplane hangar full of baggage.
Like I was one to talk. I could rent the one beside her.
All the more reason to keep some distance between us.
CHAPTER NINE
Bonnie
Pain clinics were terrible places. The staff was always so judgmental and the patients were all addicts. I felt like a criminal just walking in.
The waiting room was full of people who looked like they had given up on life. They were all either asleep or nodding off. I tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone.
All around me, misery reigned. I tried to keep my head down, but it was impossible not to overhear the conversation of the two women next to me.
“I swear, if I don’t get my prescription today, I’m going to kill myself.” The woman in a blue chair said.
Her friend nodded knowingly. “I know, girl. I know.”
I looked away, not wanting to intrude on their pain, but I couldn’t help but feel a kinship with them. I was in the same boat. If I didn’t get my pills today, I didn’t know what I would do.
