Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз (бесплатные серии книг .txt) 📗

Saxon’s eyes went wide with surprise. He opened his mouth, and I half expected him to tell me that we could take it out back. Instead he said, “Fair enough.”

“And stay the hell away from Brenna,” I warned.

“I don’t want anything like that with Brenna.” Saxon held his hands up. “Look, I know we had a thing, but I told you, she’s always wanted you.”

“I see the way you are with her.” I dropped my voice when Brenna and Aunt Helene turned their heads toward us, always checking in. “Don’t feed me your bullshit. I know you care about her, and I don’t blame you. But she’s not your girlfriend. You can’t keep crossing the line with her.”

“Alright,” he said moodily. “Is that it? Can you get off my fucking back now?”

“I’m done.” I leaned back on the couch, suddenly so exhausted, I didn’t know if I could hold my eyes open much longer.

I could hear the happy sound of Brenna’s laugh, and it registered that that sound was one of the only happy things I heard on a regular basis. Saxon heard it, too, and I saw the look on his face. He was just as addicted to Brenna’s goodness as I was.

I felt bad for being hard on him; Brenna was an addiction that was impossible to kick.

  Chapter Ten

Brenna

“Did you girls get any sleep last night? ‘Cause you sound all kinds of loopy.” Jake’s smile practically glowed through the phone and made my ears warm.

Or maybe my ears were warm because of Evan’s very suggestive dance, cued by Jake’s specific ringtone on my phone.

Evan’s grandmother had stepped in when things between her parents got too awful. Gramma paid her school bills and for all her dance classes, then brought her to live in Savannah at her palacial house, at least until Evan’s parents could get back to normal.

Gramma also said Evan needed some “recovery time” after a summer spent witnessing her parents’ constant bickering and dealing with a very nasty public breakup when Rabin wound up at a party where some strippers were harassed. The strippers brought charges against the rich, entitled asshats who abused them, and Rabin was looking at time behind bars thanks to all the publicity the whole case got. To get her away from the reporters who were hounding her, Gramma flew Evan up for an entire week, and we’d been up all night talking after Thorsten brought her in from the airport the night before.

“We sleep like bosses. Most mortals need eight hours, but we can make magic four. And how is your bike coming, Jake the Speedy Snake?” I swatted Evan in the backside with a ruler when it looked like she might be bringing a lap-dance my way.

“Bren, I love you, but if you actually use any of your totally weird nicknames for me at the race, I’m going to pretend I don’t know who you are.”

“Okay, Jake the Jaguar Kelly. C’mon, that one has a certain ring to it, right?” I said as Evan flopped back and rolled on the bed, giggling with sleep-deprived giddiness.

“You’re killing me, woman. So, the bike is kind of sucking huge donkey balls. I’m covered in grease, I’ve been laying on the driveway messing with it all damn morning, and I don’t know if I got it all worked out. Couple more months, and I’ll have enough to get myself a shiny new bike and save myself the headaches.” The tired sound of his voice made me wish I could transfer all the hours of extra sleep I wound up wasting to him.

“Will you be okay for the race?” I picked up the clothes Evan had stripped off and left inside-out on my bedroom floor the night before and put them in the laundry. I straightened her bags and tried not to freak out over the fact that she was sitting in the middle of my unmade bed. It would be psycho rude to ask her to move just so I could make it.

“Yeah.” Jake was lying through his teeth. I could tell because he was totally confident when he explained. If he was really sure, he’d be more reserved. “This bike is gonna be fine, and it’s not a big deal anyway. This run is more so I don’t get rusty. I wound up missing a few big races while I was in New York, and if I want to get any contracts, I gotta be consistently in the top few every race.”

“If you need more time to work on it, you don’t have to come by later. We understand.” I looked over at Evan and she nodded emphatically, even though I knew she was totally curious to meet Jake.

“Are you kidding? Miss meeting the famous Evan Lennox? Not on your life. I might be a little later than I thought, but I’ll be by and we’ll go hang. Alright?” He quieted his voice, as if he sensed that Evan’s ears were pricked for any lovey-dovey talk. “I love you, Bren. I miss your face.”

I leaned over, pretending to swipe something from behind my desk. “Love you, and miss you so freaking much. Okay, go work on your bike. I need to see you!”

Evan cleared her throat and gave me a little half smile. “You don’t have to be all shy. I’m happy for y’all, and I actually like hearing all that gooey love stuff. It’s good to remind me about what I should be aiming for when I get over my dejected misery and consider dating again.” She screwed her eyes shut and gave her head a little shake, as if she could clear out all of her memories of Rabin.

“I’m so sorry he turned out to be such a huge asshole, hon.” I sat next to her and twisted her hair back behind her neck.

“I’m sorry for those poor girls they fucked with at the party. How disgusting. I always knew he was a piece of shit, but I didn’t realize he could crawl that low.” She dropped her eyes and twisted the hem of her shirt in her fingers. “You know, I watched this documentary once about this serial rapist guy. He was just this normal-seeming guy, had a wife, the whole nine yards, but here he is creeping into girls’ rooms and raping them. And when they caught him, the wife was all shocked. I remember thinking she must have been a total idiot, just the most oblivious dumbass in the world. I thought there was no way you could be with someone day in and day out and not know if they were a creepy fucking freak, right? Winds up I was just as big a moron.”

I squeezed her around the waist. “Don’t you dare beat yourself up. Just, next time, if I tell you a guy’s a huge, gaping dickhead sociopath, maybe you can listen to me? Because I love you, and it broke my heart to watch you waste your time with that filthy pig.” She nodded and laid her head on my shoulder. “Maybe those girls will get an awesome lawyer and take those assholes for all they’re worth.”

Evan’s smile was half sugar, half purely evil spice. “Granddaddy was pretty riled up when he heard Rabin was involved. He made a few calls and actually raised his voice. I swear, my granddaddy never, ever raises his voice, and people still always jump and listen to every damn thing he says. I’m pretty sure those poor girls will have the best freaking lawyers money can buy, compliments of a whole lotta lace and textiles and Granddaddy’s taste for vengeance.”

“Your life is like a Southern gothic novel,” I breathed, imagining Evan’s grandfather as a portly but commanding man with a cigar and a hat who made everyone cower under his iron will.

“You did a unit on Faulkner last year, didn’t you?” When I gave a sheepish nod, she laughed her lips stretched so wide, I could have counted every perfect tooth. “Forget my damn melodrama for a minute. Where are we going tonight?”

“Well. Tony’s.” I twisted my hands together and crossed the room, grabbed a t-shirt, and handed it to Evan. “I guess business was bad, so Tony asked if anyone know any bands, and you know how I do some t-shirt stuff for this band Folly?” Evan nodded and opened the shirt. It was a photoshopped design that I was particularly proud of. The band members all hung out of Jake’s truck, waving and laughing like lunatics and Cadence was next to them, in her skates, serving them food and drinks off a little tray. “Tony got Folly to do a show, and I worked up this special t-shirt, so I’m going to drop one off for him to see.”