49

Take a Hit, Baby Girl

Kelly was the first to get her laughter under control. She slid off the bed and began hunting for her clothes, eyes wide and frightened.

“You’ll have to call a tow truck,” Bryce said.

“What the hell was I thinking?” She mumbled. “I mean, I’m not supposed to be here. Not supposed to—” She dragged a hand through her sex-mussed hair, her wide pupils giving her panicked expression something of a vague focus. “I have to leave. Shit! I have to leave!”

He rolled onto his back, pulling Angel against him when the girl nuzzled into his neck. “Just relax — this isn’t the maddest I’ve heard him.”

“Why aren’t you getting up? I can’t go out there alone. What if he—” She cut off, and wrapped her arms around herself. “Shit. It’s coming back. It’s coming back, Bryce.”

“I’ll sort that out,” he said, disentangling himself from Angel despite the girl’s sulky moan. “Give me a sec.”

“Crap, crap, crap.” Kelly put both hands in her hair and then covered her eyes. “Oh my God, what was I thinking?”

“Help her get dressed, baby girl.”

“Ugh.” Angel pushed herself to her elbows and frowned at Kelly. “Where are your clothes, Kay?”

“I don’t know.” The woman began looking under the bed.

Bryce glanced back at Angel in time to catch the roll of her eyes before she slid from the bed and began helping Kelly look for her clothes. She seemed to have no issue walking around naked, but there was no joint rolling that was going to happen if he couldn’t keep his eyes on his job.

“You too; get some clothes on.”

“One command at a time please, Master.”

“Come on, you can’t walk around like that.”

“It’s natural,” Angel said, giving him a perfect view of her ass as she bent over to look for Kelly’s shirt behind the hamper in the corner of the room.

“And Drew? Is he going to think it’s natural?” He found his briefs and went to sit by the dresser to roll a joint for Kelly.

He watched the girl’s reflection in the mirror. She paused, glancing at him over her shoulder. Then she shrugged and walked over to the bed, turning to face him as she tugged her jersey over her head.

“Fuck him; he can go to hell. I’m done.”

“Yeah?” Bryce sprinkled a few chunks of weed on the paper, glancing up at Angel as he rolled it between his fingers. “So you wanna come cook for me then? I’ll even pay you.”

She gave him the finger, but then dropped her arm and crossed her arms over her chest. She’d found her underwear too, but her pants were still MIA. Kelly was tugging on her jeans, at least, but those massive breasts were wild and free. Bryce had to force himself not to look away from Angel, especially when the girl put her head on the side and gave him a long, thoughtful stare.

“Why?” she said. “Why’d you want that?”

“I like food,” he said. “You like to cook. Match made in heaven.”

She flinched at that, and something flickered in her eyes. “You’re both just the fucking same,” she muttered. “You and him. I’ve had it.” She threw her arms up and began yanking the covers from the bed in her search for clothes. “Marry me, un-marry me, fucking me around from day one. Probably thought up all this shit together, didn’t you? Planned it all. Fucking asshole jerks.”

He ran his tongue down the glue-end of the paper but paused before sealing it. “What did you say?”

“That I’m not falling for any of your fucking tricks again.” Angel swung around and stabbed a finger in his direction. “You or your fucking brother. I’m leaving with Kay—” she glanced at the woman as if waiting for Kelly to tell her to piss off, and then turned a victoriously smug expression on him “—and I’m going back to school. Fuck you and fuck your psycho brother.”

Bryce licked the gummed paper again and rolled the joint closed. “Only one who sounds psycho right now is you, baby girl. Here, come take a hit. Obviously, those sunflowers weren’t as mellow as they should have been. You too, Kelly. Jesus, woman, I’ll find your shirt now, relax.”

Kelly straightened abruptly, yanking her shirt from between the pillows piled against the headboard. She slipped it over her head and made her way cautiously toward him, glancing sidelong at Angel when she neared.

“I’m not psycho,” Angel said, plucking the joint from his fingertips before he had a chance to light it. “And fuck you for saying that.”

“She’s not,” Kelly said, hugging herself tightly and watching Angel smoke like a tweaker waiting for their turn with the needle. “She’s really not.”

Bryce snorted as he began cutting a line of coke. “What are you on about, woman?”

“He proposed.” Kelly rubbed her hands over her arms and then beckoned furiously for the joint. Angel blew out a plume of smoke and handed it over with ill grace.

“Right in front of a fucking lawyer, like it was ‘sposed to mean something.” Angel tossed her hair and hung her head back, letting out a massive sigh. “And then told me to shut up about it. Said it was a secret.”

He laughed, shook his head, and snorted up a line of coke that — judging from the thickness — Angel had cut earlier. When he turned to Angel, the girl was staring at him without expression. So he laughed again and glanced at Kelly.

The woman nodded her head, exhaled, and took another hit. “’S true.”

A tingling premonition slowly settled in his bones. He rose, and both women stepped back as if they didn’t like the way he loomed over them.

“You’re not making this up?”

Angel shrugged and scrunched up her face. “Why would I?”

“When?”

“Like I said—” she pulled her hair into a ponytail and glanced around as if looking for a hair tie. “At the lawyer’s place.”

“Who?”

“Who what?”

“Which lawyer?”

“Dunno.” Angel found a hair tie on the dresser and bundled her hair into a messy bun on the top of her head. “Did you leave some for me?” she asked, eagerly scanning the dresser.

Realization came to him then, dense and cold as frozen lead. “Harry? Was the lawyer’s name Harry?”

“Yeah, something like that. Big, fat man. Kept staring at my tits. You seriously didn’t make me a line? What—”

He grabbed her wrist when she reached for the vial of coke. Tugged her until she looked at him.

“What did he say?”

“The usual shit,” she said, pulling free. “I love you, wanna be with you forever, marry me. Now can I get—”

The trust deed. She’d been on there as a beneficiary. Drew had added him as a trustee. A successor trustee, so if anything ever happened to Drew, he would be in control of Angel and Penny’s money. Of their assets.

An unbiased third party.

Except he wasn’t, was he? Not if anyone bothered to look close enough at that sex-tape he’d inadvertently provided his brother with. The one that was currently safe and fucking sound at Trent & Morgan. The one that would prove, without a doubt, that he and Angel were fucking. And, not just that… that they were conspiring against Drew.

So if anything happened this weekend… say, if something happened to Drew… if there was attempted any-fucking-thing… He would be acting in self-defense. The courts would never find him guilty, not if there was so much evidence in his favor.

“Jesus—Mary—motherfucking—Joseph,” Bryce said all in one breath as he leaped from the bed and yanked on his pants. “He’s going to kill us.”

The man ran around the side of the bed, pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle, and let it fall to the bed. Angel screamed when he drew out a gun and tossed it onto the bed. She grabbed hold of Kelly, clinging to the woman as he began loading ammunition into the magazine.

“Bryce! Stop!” Kelly, arm still around Angel, grabbed his shoulder. He jerked away, spilling a few rounds onto the carpet. “Please, stop!”

But he didn’t even look at them as he slammed the magazine back into the handgun.

The key was still in the lock. He turned it, threw open the door, and strode down the hallway with his fingers so tight around the Smith & Wesson’s grip that his hand tingled.