Page 73 of The Trophy

CHAPTER 14

FAMILY TIES

LAKYN

I’m a stalker. And a psycho bitch girlfriend. I’m sure of it.

I can’t shake that realization the second Bay parks her car in front of Cash’s place.

“What now?” I ask, looking at the modest home a stone throw away from the public beach.

“Now we wait.” Bay says.

My skin is prickling with awareness, as if I knew that I’m doing something wrong.

Probably because I am doing something wrong.

“Look, we tried. There’s no one home. Cash’s truck isn’t here. So I guess we could go back?—”

“Nu-uh,” Bay silences me. “When I receive a 911 message from my favorite sister, I act on it. Now, stay down. We’re here incognito,” she scolds me, adjusting her black beanie over her blonde hair and pushing her gigantic black sunglasses up her nose.

“Don’t you think you’ve gone a little overboard with the all black ensembles?” I ask her, fidgeting with my own black hoodie but ducking down for good measure.

“Absolutely not. If Cash keeps canceling and disappearing on you to go ‘home’ and he acts all secretive, we need to find out what’s up. One cheating dipshit in your past is more than enough. And if he is cheating on you, I’ll cut his balls off and use them as hockey pucks.”

I flinch at the violent edge of her tone. “Yikes. Are you alright, Bay?” I ask, unable to look her in the eyes behind her black glasses.

“Peachy. Why?”

I tread carefully, she looks a little hyper today, as if she had been downing shots of espresso all night.

“I don’t know, you look… tense. I hope I didn’t ruin your big date with Topher. Maybe I should have waited until the morning to text you?—”

Bay shushes me. “Nonsense. I’m glad you did. I sensed that neither of us was getting laid last night. I actually was about to check in with you when your text came.”

I don’t comment on her supposed twin sixth sense, on that we agree to disagree. “You didn’t get laid? I thought Topher had booked a fancy hotel room for the two of you.”

Bay shrugs, her tone falsely breezy. “He did. That’s why I didn’t come out last night. Thank for understanding anyway, Lakey-Lake.”

I’m not mollified by her use of her childhood nickname for me. “Did you and Topher have a fight?”

“Nope,” she says, stretching over to open the glovebox and extracting two small sets of binoculars. “Here, these should help us keep an eye out for him.”

I ignore the binoculars, because seriously. Maybe I’m just a psycho bitch, not a stalker. Bay has obviously inherited whatever stalking gene must be running in our family. I don’t let that distract me from what she’s hiding anyway.

“If you didn’t have a fight and he took you to a fancy hotel,” I say, sliding my own black sunglasses down my nose to try and look at her. “How come you didn’t get laid?”

Bay rolls her eyes.

I can’t see her doing that because of those sunglasses, but I know she is. I can feel the eye roll. And that isn’t my twin sixth sense, that’s because I know her better than she knows herself. I also know when she’s hiding something.

“Bay?” I insist.

“Oh my God.”

This time she does lower her sunglasses to glare at me.

“I wish you worked on our connection a little more, so I wouldn’t need to explain certain things.”

---