The Promise (Neighbor from Hell #10)(64)

“I lied,” she said, looking up from her Kindle and narrowed her eyes on the bastard as she made a show of taking another bite. “Mmmm, that’s really good.”

Eyes narrowing, Matt pointed to a spot next to her and said the one thing that was going to get him killed, “Snake.”





Chapter 37

“Can I have my clothes back?”

There was the sound of someone clearing his throat from the other side of the tent they’d shoved her inside of and, “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” her brother said, making her shoulders slump in defeat.

“Would it help if I said I was sorry?” Joey asked as she pulled another blanket around her.

“Probably not since we’d both know that you’d be lying,” Jackson said, chuckling.

“What if I promised not to do it again?” she asked, sending the closed tent door a hopeful look.

“That’s what you said the last time.”

“I was justifiably pissed,” she pointed out even as she reluctantly accepted the fact that she wouldn’t be leaving this tent for a while. With that in mind, she laid down on her side and watched her brother’s silhouette as he tossed another log onto the fire with a sigh before he sat down next to her tent.

“And no one blames you, but did you really need to make him eat mud?” he asked, making her wince because that might have been overkill.

“Is he okay?”

“He’ll live,” Jackson said, chuckling.

“And Reed?”

“Still looked pissed when he took off,” he said, making her bite back a groan.

“At me or Matt?” she asked, really hoping that it wasn’t her since she wasn’t ready for this to end yet.

“Matt.”

“Did he go with Reed?” she asked, reaching down to shove the hem of the large tee shirt that Jackson had lent her down past her knees in an attempt to ward off the chill making its way into the tent only to give up with a sigh and crawl inside her sleeping bag.

“He already called it a night and went to bed,” Jackson said as she took in the empty spot to her right.

“He did?”

“We’re sleeping in his old tent,” Jackson said, making her frown.

“I thought it was too small.”

“It is, but we decided that it was preferable to getting bitch slapped all night,” he said, which explained why she woke up sprawled across the tent alone this morning.

“I move around a lot in my sleep,” she said, shrugging as she curled up on her side and got comfortable.

“I remember,” Jackson said, chuckling.

“You do?” she asked, surprised that he remembered something like that.

“It’s hard to forget waking up to find your little sister shoving her knee into the middle of your back before she shoves you off the bed and follows that up by shoving all the books that she’d hid under her pillow off the bed and onto your head,” Jackson said, making her frown.

“We never had to share a bed,” she said because her grandparents had put a second twin bed in his room for all those nights when she got scared and needed to sleep with her big brother.

“You don’t remember anything before the accident?” he asked, making her stomach turn because she didn’t remember anything before the accident.

But she remembered the accident.

Every. Single. Heartbreaking. Second.

“No,” she said softly.

“God, you always hated sleeping alone. I think if you’d screamed your head off mom would have been able to handle it, but you would just lay there, crying quietly with the saddest little expression on your face. It would break mom every time. She’d scoop you up and carry you into my room so that she could curl up with you in my bed. As soon as I had my arms wrapped around you, you’d fall asleep.”

“I don’t remember that,” she said with a sad smile.

“After we went to live with Grandma and Grandpa, you used to sneak into my room every night with a stack of books and that old teddy bear that you used to carry everywhere. You’d climb into my bed, shove that old teddy bear between us, crack open a book and read until you passed out next to me. By the time you started getting violent, Grandpa asked Mr. Bradford to build a second bed so that you wouldn’t end up killing me in your sleep,” Jackson said, making her smile.

“You were a violent little thing,” he said, chuckling.

“Still am,” Joey said proudly.

“That’s what I heard,” he said, making her wince since she had a pretty good idea what he’d heard.

“It was an accident,” she said because there really was nothing else that she could say, was there?

“Which part? The part where Dr. Miller fabricated his work or the part where he screwed you over and tried taking credit for yours?” he asked, making her sigh.

“I meant the part where he had a heart attack,” she mumbled, still wondering what had compelled her to say yes.

“You didn’t give him a heart attack, Joey. He had a panic attack because he’d realized that he’d fucked up. It had nothing to do with you,” he explained, making her frown.

“Wait, how do you know?” Joey asked, immediately feeling like an idiot because there really wasn’t much that Jackson couldn’t find out.