Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Maybe I like hanging out with him.
In moderation.
Jake taps his ball into the hole. “I can alert my security personnel about Varrick being a potential threat to our girlfriend.”
I make an annoyed face. Our girlfriend. It’s grated less and less on me the more he says it—because one alternative is Jake saying, My girlfriend.
And she’s not his.
It also reminds me that he’s looking out for Phebs during this con. Protecting her when I’m stuck with his fucking dickbag brother.
“I don’t trust your security,” I say. “No offense, but they’re more your mother’s people than yours.” Everett is managing the staff at the Koning estate, but he’s cautioned us that he has little control over their private security, who are usually only posted at the front gate unless told otherwise. “The best thing is to keep your security lax. They need to think there’s no threats around. Let them kick their feet up and snore.”
Trevor hits his ball back onto the green. “You know, I might not even be nineteen. I could be your age, Rocky.”
“I’m older than you, shithead.”
His lip slightly lifts.
Jake turns his back to the sun. “I asked Hailey if there was a blood test that could determine age.”
I already know the answer because I asked her, too. “Nothing that’d be accurate enough,” I say. “It can only estimate age within two to three years. But I remember this one when he was a baby.” I point my putter at Trevor. “My eyes didn’t deceive me when I had to change your diapers or when you hit a growth spurt at fourteen.” I’d been twenty. Or I was told I was twenty.
Trevor’s gaze relaxes on me with fondness. “ ‘Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see.’ ”
“I’ve seen you,” I remind him. “Throughout your whole life. I’ve seen you scrape your knees trying to ride a bike. I’ve seen you learn how to swim, then master the perfect dive. I’ve seen you tinker with toys, instruments, machinery, and computers, and rely way too heavily on your good looks to pick up people.”
“It didn’t take a pretty face to pick up Sidney.” He rests the golf club on his shoulder.
“How’s that going?” I ask him, since he’s still been spending more time with Sidney ever since The Hunt. He barely talked about that afternoon bopping around town to solve riddles with her. The way he shrugged about it, I thought she bored him.
But not enough if he’s been actively spotted at the ice cream parlor and coffee shop with her.
“It’s going,” Trevor says vaguely, nothing on his face to read.
Jake and I visibly tense, but he asks first, “She hasn’t been inappropriate with you, has she?”
“What he’s trying to say is, she hasn’t groped your dick without consent?”
Jake side-eyes me like I’m corrupting the youth.
“He’s nineteen,” I retort.
Trevor looks between us with a slanted smile. “No unconsented passes.” He clutches the golf club like a barbell over his deltoids. “She’s a virgin.”
I didn’t want to know that.
Jake scrapes a hand through his thick hair but freezes when Trevor adds, “Or she was one, before me.”
Great.
Fucking rigor mortis is setting in. Bury me.
“Are you playing her?” Jake asks cautiously.
“No…I think Sidney is using me to piss off her father.” At least he sees that. He drops the club off his shoulder. “Her life is sad.” He stares out at the green manicured valleys, a look in his eyes he’s wrestling. “I’m not trying to make it sadder.”
He’s struggled with empathy.
“Did you wear a condom?” I ask him.
“No, I raw-dogged her.”
“Wow.” Jake nods a lot with flattened lips, looking like a disappointed dad. I half expect him to go into a lecture on safe sex.
“He’s lying,” I tell him.
Trevor raises his brows in confirmation to Jake, then says to me, “Yes, I wore a condom.” He leans on his club. “What am I, twelve?”
“Just checking in, knucklehead.” I swipe his club, and he trips.
He catches his balance and straightens up with a laugh. “You wear a condom when you stick it in Phoebe? Just checking in.”
Jake’s head spins like The Exorcist to me.
I’m glaring. “We need boundaries,” I tell my brother.
“You started it.”
“Eh, I’m older, and I get to ask if you’re being safe. You don’t get to talk about Phoebe like that. Ever.”
“Like what? It’s anatomical. Your dick. Your cum. Her cunt—”
“Kill me.” I turn to Jake. “Just do it. Off me now so I don’t strangle him.”
Jake laughs hard, and the fact that he sees the humor in this weird back-and-forth is making me like him a little more. “You brought him here,” he reminds me.
“Regrettably.”
I don’t regret it, which is why Trevor smiles more, too. It’s hard to set boundaries when he knows I’d forgive him for a lot. But it’s going to drive me out of my fucking mind every time he brings up Phoebe.