Page 154 of Forever Relentless

“My brother can’t always be relied on to be . . . rational.”

“But . . . You and Noah—”

“Nothing. He’s a guy I slept with,” I cut her off sharply. “Who also told Mason he had no interest in me. Mason doesn’t do well with liars.”

Because my brother was overprotective. The fact that I was more than a foot shorter than him apparently made me vulnerable. He’d never had to protect me in his life. I had enough sass, brains, and attitude to do that all by myself.

But nope, in his caveman brain, small woman must mean damsel.

Asshole.

“Have you spoken to him?” Savvy asked gently.

“No, he won’t answer because he’s a child.”

Savvy nudged me with her arm. “I meant Noah.”

Oh. I looked down at my hands. “No. I don’t have anything to say to him.” I remembered what else had happened to Noah that morning. “Did he talk to you about his brother?”

“Huh?”

“His brother got suspended for fighting,” I snorted. “Hotheads must run in the family.”

“Tate was fighting?” Savannah asked, looking at me with confusion. “I’ve seen one picture of Tate, and I’m pretty sure I weigh more than he does.” She turned more in her seat. “Are you sure he said he was fighting?”

“Got suspended for breaking the guy’s arm. I heard him on the phone — he was going to ask Dustin for air miles to fly down there.”

“Like that’s gonna happen,” Hadley muttered darkly. “Slater’s all butthurt he got left out. Noah has a better shot at asking Coach Sutherland for help than Dust right now.”

“The guys are writing him off?” I asked them in surprise. “I mean, I know I’m angry, but that’s because he went behind my back and involved my brother, and the fact it is literally my job to post on social media, but it’s not an end-of-friendship thing.”

“Bro code.” Hadley and Savannah said together. “No ‘I’ in ‘teamwork’ and all that,” Hadley elaborated.

“Only an immature numbnut thinks like that.”

“Good, you can tell that to Dante.” Savannah smiled widely at me.

I looked between the two of them. What was happening here? Did they think I was one of them? I got to my feet. “I just came by to see if you’d heard from Noah or my brother,” I told Hadley.

“I’ve never heard from your brother. If you want, you can give him my number.”

Wow. This girl just didn’t quit.

“I’ll pass on the request.” I headed to the door. “My advice, keep a low profile, and also, stop this. It won’t work, and the only people who pay will be you.”

Savannah gave me a small wave, and Hadley went back to her phone. I left her apartment and headed over to Diana’s.

Sometimes, rarely, my brother went to one of his hook-ups to ‘work out’ his frustrations. I was hoping this was one of those times. Even if it was an hour-long drive for his booty call.

I found TJ Hembry instead.

I wanted to ask Diana if she was serious, but instead, I had to bullshit my way into a reason why I was there.

“This is awkward,” TJ looked between me and the wall. “Um, this . . . ugh. This just kind of happened.”

I had zero shits to give, but I also had to pretend to be the Briar he was used to. So I kept my head down and thought frantically about why the fuck I would be here on a Sunday morning.

“Briar?” Diana came out of the bathroom, putting in an earring, and looked like a startled rabbit in headlights.