Page 146 of Unforgettable

Her keys tumbled to the floor, bouncing off the concrete. Josh and I flanked her, and she promptly shrugged off the soothing touch Josh offered while I retrieved her keys. She continued pounding on the wood, and I was sure every single one of her neighbors was awake at that point.

Finally, the door swung open. A disheveled and exhausted Adam stood just past the threshold.

From around the corner, CJ, my least favorite maintenance guy, called out to Amanda.

“Everything okay?” he asked, mock concern plastered over his face. He wanted in her pants—that’s the conclusion both Josh and I had come to. We both took up a similar defensive posture around her and stared the prick down. He didn’t tear his eyes away from her, and I wanted to remove them from his face.

“Yes, thanks for the heads-up. I’ll see you later.” Her voice was steady, but an edge of anger bubbled just beneath the surface.

She didn’t wait for the dude to respond, rather, she pushed past Adam and stomped into her apartment.

But CJ paced forward like he was going to insert himself into the situation. Josh and I held our position in front of her door. “We’ve got it from here,” I warned. “And honestly, you should just leave her the fuck alone. I’d prefer not to see your face again.”

The guy wasn’t completely stupid and stopped his approach in the middle of the hallway. But he smirked and glanced back and forth between us.

“I understand your position, but that’s not going to happen.” His smirk turned into a smile as he turned and paced back down the hallway. Then he added over his shoulder, “You boys have fun cleaning that up.”

We didn’t move until he disappeared around the corner, and neither of us said a word about his cryptic bullshit. We headed into Amanda’s apartment and nearly ran her over in the process.

She’d stopped only a few feet inside the door.

“What. The. Fuck,” she mumbled, peering around the room and surveying the damage.

So much fucking damage.

The first thing I noticed was the patio window was smashed and glass covered the laminate floor in a white powder littered with larger shards of glass. Every inch of the apartment had been destroyed.

The barstools were overturned, and all of the cabinets flung open, their contents strewn across the space. In the living room, the couch cushions were misplaced, some ripped, and the TV was almost as shattered as the patio window.

“What happened?” Josh was the first of us to say anything more. Amanda and I continued to stare, gobsmacked at the state of the place.

“I… uh… this…” Adam stuttered. His eyes bounced between the three of us, and I threw him my best, most intimidating stare. His lack of panic was proof enough that he had something to do with the state of Amanda’s apartment.

“I was going to handle it!” he tried to defend himself when he saw the threat in my eyes. “Y’all weren’t supposed to be back for another few days. I would have had it cleaned up before then.”

Amanda scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “How the fuck were you going to do that? Everything is destroyed, Adam. You don’t have enough money to buy me new plates, let alone replace the damn TV!” Her voice rose until she was yelling at him and waving her arms at her sides, motioning to the disaster.

Josh swallowed next to me, and I briefly brushed his fingers with my own. A fierce protectiveness swept over me.

“You were going to have it cleaned up? How do you think that’s the best way to handle this? You should have already called the cops. This is a fucking crime scene,” I seethed. There was a broom in the corner and the vacuum cleaner was in the middle of the room. It looked like he’d already attempted to clean up what he could but hadn’t gotten far.

Adam made a face but didn’t get a chance to say anything else because Amanda cut off all arguments he may have begun to make.

She stormed forward, stepping around a stray, broken lamp, and shoved him in the chest. He stumbled back a foot or two and righted himself only just before he fell into what was left of the TV. She was small and not necessarily powerful, but she had the element of surprise on her side. I’d never seen Amanda use physical force, and the look on her face was downright scary.

“Don’t even fucking begin to lie to me. You have to tell me the truth. How else are we supposed to fucking fix anything if you keep lying to me? You promised it wouldn’t come to this. We talked about this.”

Something changed in Adam’s demeanor. The defensive walls he’d raised the moment we walked into the door seemed to come crashing down as his sister spoke. The seriousness in her voice and the levity of her words did the trick.

I was glad because I thought Josh and I would have had to hold her back otherwise.

“Okay,” Adam conceded, and we all cumulatively sighed in relief. Amanda stepped back over the broken lamp and dodged a stray couch cushion while Adam scrubbed his hands through his hair. She stopped in front of Josh but turned back to watch her brother. Josh cautiously ran his hands over her shoulders and down her arms. Thankfully, she didn’t shake off his comfort for a second time. It was short-lived, but there was a second look of relief that washed over her features.

“I came home this morning to it like this. But… I know who did this,” Adam began.

“Good, so we can tell the cops that—”

“No,” he quickly cut me off, shaking his head vehemently. “We can’t call the cops.”

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