Page 245 of Things We Never Got Over (Knockemout)
“Did you mean it about the dresses?” she asked as we walked toward my brother.
I released her hand and pulled her into my side with an arm around her shoulders. “Sure did, kid.”
“Did you mean it about what you said to Aunt Naomi? About loving her and stuff?”
I stopped us and turned her to face me. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life,” I assured her.
“So you’re not going to leave us again?”
I gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Never. I was miserable without you two.”
“Me too?” she asked.
I saw the spark of hope that she just as quickly pushed aside.
“Way, you’re smart. You’re brave. You’re gorgeous. And I’m gonna hate it when you start dating. I fucking love you. And not just because you’re part of a package deal.”
She looked so solemn it almost crushed my heart.
“Will you still maybe love me if I tell you something? Something bad?”
If Duncan Hugo put his hands on Waylay, I was going to hunt him down, chop them off, and feed them to him.
“Kid, there is nothing you can tell me that’s going to make me not love you.”
“Promise?”
“I swear to you on your kick-ass sneakers.”
She looked down at them, then back at me, the corner of her mouth turned up. “Maybe I kind of fucking love you too.”
I hauled her in for a hug, holding her face against my sternum. When she wrapped her arms around my waist, I felt like my heart was suddenly too big for my fucking chest.
“But don’t tell Aunt Naomi I said it that way.”
“Deal.”
She pulled back. “Okay. So here’s the thing…”
Two minutes later, I escorted Waylay over to Nash and Lucian. An EMT had closed Nash’s stitches. Both men had butterfly bandages over various visible cuts and scrapes. The three of us were going to be hurting tomorrow. And the next day. And probably the next.
“Naomi said Tina and Hugo were looking for a flash drive with some kind of information on it,” Nash explained. “No one seems to know what information was on it or what happened to the drive.”
“Waylay, why don’t you go see if your aunt needs anything,” Lucian suggested.
I tracked the direction of his gaze and saw it was pinned on Sloane, who was hovering near Naomi, her parents, and Stef.
“Actually, Way has some information she wants to share,” I said. I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Go ahead, kid.”
She took a breath and then bent down to untie her shoe.
“They were looking for this,” she said, straightening with the heart charm now in her hand.”
Nash took it from her. He held the charm between his fingers, then frowned. Carefully, he pulled it apart at the middle. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“It’s a flash drive,” Waylay explained. “Mom was all worked up about this drive that she brought home. Kept saying she was finally gettin’ her payday and that soon she’d be driving a big-ass SUV and eatin’ steak for every meal. I got curious and I peeked. It was just a list of names and addresses. I thought maybe it was important. So I copied the file onto my drive just in case. She’s always losing sh— I mean things.”
I nodded at her to go on.
