Page 109 of Chaos at Westbrook High

“I don’t know,” he says defensively. “It’s not my fault you won’t let housekeeping there.”

“You can’t pick up after yourself?”

“Why would I do that when I have people to do it for me?”

“You’re a spoiled little shit, you know that?” I mutter, but there’s no real bite to it.

He grins and wraps his arm around my shoulders. I tense for a couple beats before I relax like he told me to, my fingers wrapping around the iced coffee he slides toward me.

After what feels like ages, Elijah passes a check to one of the officers and shakes their hands before leading them to the elevator. As soon as they’re gone, without my—Kai in handcuffs, I breathe a sigh of relief.

Kai comes over to us and cuts his eyes between me and his twin, his lips twitching as he sits down on my other side and presses his lips to my ear. “You were worried about me.”

I huff. No point denying it.

“What happened on the beach?” Elijah asks as he stands in front of us.

We all say nothing, thank God. Even Derek, who looks like he wants to tear me a new one before locking me in my bedroom until I’m thirty.

“How many times do I have to say it?” Elijah says slowly, his nostrils flaring as his gaze travels over the seven of us. “No…fucking…fighting.”

Silence follows for a moment before Wren lets out a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand as Kai starts laughing too.

Elijah glares at them. “What?”

“You sound like Tommy Shelby,” they say at the same time.

Elijah’s eyes darken with fury. “Who?”

“He’s the guy from Peaky Blinders. Cillian Murphy.”

“You kind of look like him too,” Kai squints at his dad. “I never saw that before.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Do you see it?”

“I do now.”

“I hope we look like that when we’re old?—”

Elijah bangs his hand against the marble.

“Older,” Kai says. “I was going to say older.”

Elijah pinches the bridge of his nose.

As if approaching a wild animal, Callie carefully slides the tray of brownies she made earlier toward her father-in-law. He looks at the tray, then her, his eyes narrowing.

“What? There’s no weed in them this time,” Callie says. She doesn’t say why there’s no weed in them, but we all know. I don’t miss the way Derek drops his eyes.

Elijah blinks at her. Picking up one of the brownies, he takes a bite and looks at Kai. “You were right about the boy from the coffee shop. Wyatt.”

My head snaps up at that. “What about Wyatt?”

“James had one of the guards follow him from Valerie’s tonight. He ended up at Kingston Manor.” Maverick’s house.

Kai seethes. “Motherfucker.”

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