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“But you love to judge,” I pointed out, stepping up beside him as we began our walk back to the car. “And be in control. And think you know everything when you barely know how to do basic arithmetic.”
“Okay, you know I have dyscalculia. That’s a low fucking blow.”
“Self-diagnosed.”
“I don’t need a fucking doctor to tell me that. And what the fuck would a formal diagnosis do for me? We work in construction.”
“Not sure how you made it this far in construction, either. It’s all numbers.”
Cade stuck out his foot and tripped me, making me stumble. I laughed and punched him in the chest.
“I’m gonna tell Whitney every embarrassing thing about you. Like how you wet the bed until you were ten.”
“Fucking tell her, then. I don’t care if she knows. I want her to know everything about me. Go ahead,” I goaded, feeling a little lighter since we’d left Jesse.
Cade kept ribbing me until we got to the car, and my only thought was that I’d feel fully whole if Jesse were here beside us.
Soon.
TWENTY
I decided to get something to eat before I looked for any information, so I went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, peering inside at the multitude of options.
I’d never had so many choices before and it was kind of stressful, having to choose.
“There are some leftovers from this morning, if you want.”
I whipped around to find Brooks sitting at the table, laptop open in front of him. He gave me a small smile, his eyes warm but his posture a little rigid.
“Oh. Thanks, Brooks.” I turned back to the fridge, lifting the tinfoil of a dish to peer inside. Eggs and bacon. That would do. I unwrapped the foil and stuck the plate in the microwave.
“What’re you doing all the time on that thing?”
He looked up at me, his brows drawing together. Oh. Was that a rude question?
Finally, he shrugged and said, “This and that. Lots of feed monitoring or going through old timestamps. Specifically of Thorne’s estate and some of the stores. Boring stuff, really.”
“But you don’t find it boring.”
“No.”
He really didn’t talk a lot. The microwave beeped, and I grabbed the plate and sat down across from Brooks, more interested in grilling him for information than eating.
“So how do you guys all know each other?”
Brooks watched me over his laptop, but unlike Cade or Vincent, his gaze didn’t feel cold or intrusive. He shrugged, then leaned back in his chair. “We met in grade school. We’ve just…” He rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip. “We’ve just always been there for each other. None of us did well in school and we always got into a lot of trouble anyway, so one day the four of us were in detention together and I guess the rest is history.”
I couldn’t picture Court being a kid in detention. I couldn’t imagine him as a kid at all, not as big as he was.
“So how often do you do stuff like this?”
He tilted his head. “Like what?”
“Stealing from people.”
“Well, we don’t. Usually. Not like this. This is about more than just stealing from Thorne.”
He really wasn’t going to offer up information so easily, was he? Or maybe that was just how he was wired. He wouldn’t elaborate unless certain questions were asked.
