Page 55 of Brand
My head hurt. And my heart. Yeah, I could admit it.
“So, I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, I was wrong,” he said and my head rolled against the back of the couch to look at him. “I’ve been thinking. I saw the two of you together and I think I picked up on things before either of you realized it. There has to be something more to the text. I don’t believe it for one second. Think, man.”
I pulled out my phone, brought up her message and all but shoved it down his throat.
“Does this look like someone that wants me to go after them? Wants me to get down on my knees and beg for her to change her mind?”
“You know this text looks really formal, right?”
His words hit me like a punch to the gut. I pulled my phone back and read the words again, even if I already knew by heart because I may have looked at the text a time or two. Or twenty.
“Lake sent me a text filling me in about what’s going on with her car. What you don’t know, because you’re sitting here like an angry dickwad, is that they bought the car. Apparently, it’s her brother that was selling it. Cami wasn’t even around. Her dad was on the title and he’s the one that signed it over. Everything was pretty much taken care of by the time Ky and Lake showed up, like they were ready to get rid of the thing.”
“She wasn’t there?” I asked, but I didn’t think that really mattered because a rich girl like her let everyone else handle shit for them.
You know that’s not fair. She’s not like that.
Fuck my brain and all the thoughts screaming at me that something was off. It was like the inner me was shaking a pointed finger in my face, telling me what a dumbass I was.
“You need to find her, Brand,” Chris said, his eyes saying more than his words did.
“Fucking shit!” I barked as I shot forward, my arms resting on my knees as my fingers pulled at my hair.
“I didn’t want to accept this. But everyone kept saying that she just needed time. I wanted to track her adorable ass down and demand that she tell me to my face that she doesn’t want me anymore. But I held back because sometimes I fuck things up so bad because I lead with my heart and not my head. This one time, I was trying to be smart. Only the thing is, I just turned out to be a damnturd nuggetand I could be letting her down right now by sitting around on my ass.”
“Great! So where do we start?”
“I’ve got her address back at the shop, but I should check with Cable before I drive all the way over there. I’m sure he has a folder on her already.” I jumped up. Chris, being the amazing guy that he was, followed suit.
“Brand,” B-ry’s voice called out from the propped open front door.
“Yeah?” I barked as I snapped to face him.
“There’s, ah, a chick here asking for you. Says her name is Laurel.”
My mind spun trying to think of whether or not I knew someone by that name. Something about it seemed familiar but it wasn’t ringing any huge bells at the moment.
With my mind made up about the Cami thing, my brain was in full mission mode and I didn’t want to stop to deal with some bullshit that would hold me up for even a second.
At the same time, I knew curiosity would only kill me. So, I nodded and walked out front to where B-ry had pointed. As soon as I stepped out into the mid-day sun, I saw a tall, willowy, blonde standing there, shading her eyes with her hand even though she had on the largest sunglasses I’d ever seen. And that hand held a humongous ring that caught the light and sparkled so much it nearly blinded me. Jesus, how the hell did her dainty hand even hold up such a big rock?
“You looking for me?” I asked and tried to hold the bark back from my question.
“Brand? Wow, I can see why…” Her words trailed off as she pulled her sunglasses off and shoved them into her hair.
That was when it hit me. Those eyes. There was no mistaking those eyes. The same as Cami’s only slightly less vivid. My eyes zipped around the other features of her face, cataloging other similarities. The lips had the same bow to them, but Cami’s tipped up a bit more in the corners. The nose was the same, only Cami had this cute little freckle on the left side.
“I’m Laurel, Cami’s sister.”
Yes, between the practically cut-out features and the huge rock, I’d figured out this was the one that had sent her those pictures of the bridesmaid’s dresses. Then it hit me, that was where I’d seen the name, in the top of the text box on Cami’s phone.
“Where is she?” I asked not trying to keep the gruff demand out of my tone.
“Okay, first,” she said, straightening as if her spine was suddenly made of steel and holding up a finger to me. “Lose the macho man stuff. I came here on her behalf, even if she is not aware of it. Take it down a notch and let me talk.”
I had to hold back my chuckle. I could admit, the fact that she had come here alone was respectable, but then to stand up to me like that, well I almost wanted to bow down in appreciation. If she was on Cami’s side then I was happy, because Cami deserved people like this in her corner. However, I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going to go and I feared for the worst.
B-ry, though, could not hold his laugh back. The sound behind me almost made me cringe and what was worse, Laurel heard it and leaned to the side slightly so she could glare at him with slitted eyes. His laughter quickly came to a halt.
