Risk (Gentry Boys #2)(10)

I had to hunt around in the living room for my shirt. I finally found it beneath a big black cat.

“Pssst.” I held my hand out and made animal noises, trying to get the thing to move. It just dug its claws more firmly into the fabric and hissed.

“Move,” I whispered, lunging forward threateningly. “Come on, get.” The animal just stared at me with neon eyes. I glanced at the door to Truly’s room. I didn’t want her to come charging out here asking what the hell I was doing to her cat.

The stupid thing yawned and blinked at me. I’d always hated cats. They seemed like sneaky little shits.

“You don’t win,” I warned it, wagging a finger. “We’ll be revisiting this shit.”

I left Truly’s apartment bare-chested and closed the door softly behind me. I halfway hoped the stupid cat actually would try to run out.

After cutting across the back of several apartment complexes and jumping over a few cinder block walls, I was at my own door inside of ten minutes. The crappy pickup truck I shared with my brothers was nowhere in sight. In all likelihood Cord had driven it to work already.

After fishing out my keys and opening the door I heard Chase and Saylor laughing in the kitchen. I tried to go straight to my room but Chase heard me come in and called my name.

I sighed and headed out to them. Saylor had her laptop on the table and didn’t look up when I entered the room. She was a writer and sometimes used Chase’s superior brain power to help her edit her work. Cord had warned me she wouldn’t like it if I went after Truly but it shouldn’t be any of Saylor McCann’s business who the hell I f*cked.

“You leave her a souvenir?” Chase laughed, referring to my missing shirt. He was shuffling a deck of cards and leaning so far back in his chair he was on the verge of toppling.

“Something like that,” I shrugged.

Saylor looked up then, her face a little pinched. “You look wrecked.”

I smiled again at the thought of last night’s workout. “I was wrecked.”

Chase let his chair fall forward with a thump. “Holy shit, Creed’s grinning and everything. Must have been better than average.”

“It was,” I said honestly. Saylor was getting red in the face so I tried to change the subject. “Your boy go to work?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she answered in a rather lifeless tone that was probably meant to show her contempt for me. I was getting irritated. This was bullshit. This was major bullshit. If it had been her buddy Chase instead of me she wouldn’t have been bothered at all. She would have showered him with f*cking Trojans and winked.

Chase poked Saylor in the arm. “Can I still borrow your car?”

“Sure,” she shrugged. “Keys are in my purse.”

“Where’s your purse?”

“Somewhere in this apartment.”

Chase looked at her and nodded. “I’ll find it.”

“M’kay.”

My brother left the table. Before he wandered off to search out Saylor’s purse he slapped me on the shoulder, his eyes twinkling.

“That good, huh?” he mumbled.

“Yeah, I’d do it again,” I answered, deliberately loud enough for Saylor to hear me. She pursed her lips as I went to the fridge and began drinking milk directly from the carton. I knew it bugged the hell out of her when I did that.

“Is she okay?” Saylor asked.

I was dumbfounded. “What the hell do you think I did to that girl?”

Saylor turned and fixed her big green eyes on me. “Nothing. It’s just that you seem like you have a ‘use them and remove them’ philosophy on women.”

I fired back. “Kind of like Cord did to you once, huh?”

Shit. Shit. SHIT. What the FUCK made me bring that up?

Saylor’s mouth fell open. She knew exactly what I was talking about. There was a painful moment of silence between us. A million years ago, when we were all dumb teenagers back in Emblem, the three of us brothers had made a nasty bet. On the table was Saylor McCann’s virginity. Cord won. He felt like shit about it, especially after word got out, but I can imagine how much Say must have hated him. She must have hated all of us.

I watched Saylor’s eyes cloud over with bad memories and I felt like an evil bastard. Here was this girl who adored my brother, had given him a chance to prove he’d grown from a reckless jerk into a good man, and I was lashing out at her because I didn’t like to hear the truth.

I swallowed. “I didn’t mean it.”

She snapped her laptop shut. “Yes you did.” She stalked to her bedroom with her computer under her arm.

“Saylor!”

She ignored me and slammed the door.

Chase appeared a few seconds later, twirling a set of keys on his fingers. “What’s she all bent out of shape about?”

I sighed. “Ah, I was being a prick, that’s all.”

Chase laughed mockingly. “You? I don’t believe it.”

I shoved him. “Where are you going anyway? You don’t have class today do you?”

Chase had enrolled in a few classes at Arizona State. He’d done so after some prodding from Saylor, yet another reason I should be grateful to her.

“No,” Chase answered slowly, his face guarded. I stared at my brother. He wasn’t the secretive type, not by a long shot. Something was up.