Bad Things(61)

We dropped the subject as Jared joined us in the pool, and Frankie went over every piece of ink she’d done on his skin, which was considerable.

“Mama’s boy,” I teased him gently when she pointed out a tattoo for his mom that he’d done on his chest.

It was an anchor with the word mother etched into it. I thought it said a lot that he’d chosen an anchor to represent his mom, though to me it said something far different than what he thought it did. Lucy had trained me to look for signs of codependency, and permanently marking your body with the fact that someone was dragging you down was about as obvious as it got.

“Absolutely. Until the day I die, I’ll be a mama’s boy. She’s my best friend.”

In spite of my reservations, a little ‘aww’ escaped me at such sweet words coming out of a grown man.

“Tristan is a mama’s boy, too, but not as bad as this one,” Frankie told me, as she ran her hands down Jared’s abs, tracing over the scaled dragon she’d done.

My brow furrowed as I studied the intricate dragon. It was golden, and so elaborate that I had to study it carefully to catch all of the details. It was a lot like one she’d done on Tristan’s shoulder, but Jared’s dragon had one extra quirk that made me roll my eyes.

“Is that dragon smoking a joint, or a cigarette?” I asked, my tone wry.

“Guess,” Jared said playfully.

“Well half of it is in the water,” I complained.

“Here.” He hopped out of the pool, perching on the edge so I had a better view.

I moved close, getting between his legs to study the smoking dragon. “I can’t believe you put a dragon smoking a joint on his stomach,” I said to Frankie, my tone accusing, when I saw for certain what it was.

“I tried to talk him out of the joint. But he insisted. There’s also a marijuana leaf on his hip, though that wasn’t me. I explained to him that people almost always regret drug tattoos. When he’s older, with kids of his own, he’ll never be able to tell them to say no to drugs without looking like a hypocrite.”

“I wouldn’t tell them to say no. I’ll be a cool ass dad.”

“See now, everyone says that, until they have children,” Frankie explained. “Your priorities will change, I guarantee it.”

I glanced up at Jared when he had no response to her statement.

He was looking towards the house, an expression of frozen panic on his face.

I knew who it was before I turned to look. My hands fell from Jared’s stomach, where they’d been innocently tracing a tattoo.

“Fuuuck, he’s going to kill me,” Jared said softly.

Tristan had arrived, and he was striding towards us with a look on his face I’d never seen before.





CHAPTER TWENTY





Tristan didn’t even spare me a glance, his cold eyes all for his brother. The color gold had never looked so icy.

He barely paused when he reached us.

“A word, Jared,” he said tersely, striding right past us.

Jared ran a hand over his damp, inky black hair, his expression tight. “Wish me luck, ladies,” he uttered softly, before following his brother.

“This is an unfortunate development,” Frankie said, watching the brothers stride away.

“He wasn’t supposed to be here,” I defended.

“You’re right. I wonder how he found out about you guys being here together.”

“You think he came here because someone told him?”

“He had a club promoting job tonight, right? Something compelling brought him here, and you and Jared showing up together is the only thing that comes to mind.”

“But I don’t even know anyone here. Who would have told him?”

“It looks like me and Dean are the only possibilities, and I didn’t rat you out. I’ll be getting hell for that later, by the way.”

“Fucking Dean,” I said darkly.

“Fucking Dean,” Frankie agreed. “They’ve all been friends since they were kids, but I can’t stand Dean. He’s always rubbed me the wrong way. He’s just too slick. You’ll notice he disappeared right before the shit hit the fan.”

It was several minutes before Tristan approached us again, and this time it was without Jared.

“Where’d your brother go?” I asked him, searching the crowd. I saw no sign of Jared.