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“Um,” I say, flustered, “right. You asked me a question?”
Tanner glares at me. “Really? I asked you at least four by my count.”
Ivy leans forward in her seat to whisper to me. “Watch it, woman. We wouldn’t want to upset Big Papa.”
Rolling my lips over each other, I bite down on the inside of them to keep from laughing. That’s the name we assigned Tanner when eating lunch by the pool.
“Of course,” I manage to say, gaining control of myself. “And those were?”
Tanner stares at me before shifting his eyes to Ivy. He clicks his damn pen, and I understand now what Shane was complaining about.
“Okay, this is why letting the women sit next to each other is a problem. Especially now that there are five of them. They start conspiring and shit. Too much estrogen on that side of the table. Everybody shift seats. Boy, girl, boy, girl.”
“You can’t be serious,” Gabe drawls.
Tanner’s dark stare fixates on him.
“You’re damn right, I’m serious. If one of these belongs to you, she needs to be sitting next to you. Now shift.”
All the women in the room laugh and move to sit next to who they’re dating. And not because we belong to them like some object. More because our hearts belong to them. I have no issue claiming my seat next to Shane.
Almost immediately, my fingers curl together with his, so quick his need to reach out and touch me whenever we’re close enough for that contact.
It’s as if I’m still that small, peaceful island in his turbulent sea, a bastion that soothes him, or a calm space that clears his head of the chaos.
His touch eases something in me as well. It reminds me not to worry. It beats down the anxiety that used to suffocate me when I had no reason to be so scared.
“Now that the seating issue is handled, back to my questions.”
Tanner turns my direction. “Brinley, everything you know about Scott. And … go.”
Sharing a moment of eye contact with Shane, I smile. “I’m not sure that was a question.”
Tanner locks Shane in his stare. “Stop rubbing off on her. Brinley was a semi-decent person when we first brought her into the group. Your influence is making her Shane 2.0. Quit it.”
“Nah,” Shane answers with a squeeze of my fingers, “she’s still a nerd.”
Laughter bubbles over my lips, but I let it go to answer Tanner’s question before he busts a blood vessel in his brain and has a damn stroke.
“Okay. I grew up with him and Everly. Their mom stayed at home, and their grandmother helped raise them since their dad was in the military and always gone. Everly kept in touch with Scott and me prior to leaving for Yale. After Yale, I barely heard from her. She’s running from something, and Scott told me it’s him. Um, Scott was in the military and now works for the governor, but I’m not sure why.”
Tanner nods. “Anything else?”
Shrugging a shoulder, I offer, “I have his phone number saved somewhere. I was instructed to call him if I ever ran across Everly or heard from her.”
Another nod. “And what we know about Everly is that she was at Yale for a reason, supposedly planted there by Luca’s dad and may or may not have gotten a message to him from Gabe when she returned to Georgia.”
Tanner shoots a look at Gabe. “These are important things for me to know, by the way. I can’t plot if you’re hiding shit.”
Gabe holds up his hands in feigned surrender.
“No more secrets.”
“As it should be.” Tanner moves on to Taylor.
“What do we know about Hillary and Paul?”
Taylor shoves his glasses up the bridge of his nose when he glances up from his computer screen.
