Page 52 of Time to Bounce

The move did not go unnoticed by any of the brothers.

All of them were smiling.

Then there was Gable, scowling.

Why did I like it when he scowled so much?

“Well,” I started, “since a lot of things happened that day, and I was so young, my brain skewed everything. That night is kind of a blur to me. My brain tried to protect me, I guess. I don’t personally know what happened. From that night on, my brain warped everything, and I had dreams that changed my perspective. I don’t know what’s real or what’s not anymore. My age is different in each nightmare I have. But one thing that was real. My parents were shot that night. Both of them. They were severely hurt. Later on, Gavrel and my mother told me about the kidnapping. Pretty much, we were outside playing.”

I drew a deep breath and shook my head while the others stayed silent, waiting.

“Dad was angry because he’d already told us not to be out there alone, but Mom was talking to another senator’s wife, and apparently we went out there. One second, she said, we were there. And the next, both of us were gone. They later found me in the ocean clinging to a rock, and they believed my sister to be dead in the water. It was found out later, though, that a little girl matching my sister’s description was found getting on a commercial flight. Landing in Dallas. Then spotted one more time getting onto a bus. From there, she was never spotted again.” I shook my head. “They believed it to be politically motivated due to the nature of their visit to Hawaii in the first place. They think that I escaped kidnapping by jumping into the water. But my sister was taken.”

“Wow,” Atlas murmured. “I would’ve never guessed.”

“So you were both almost taken,” Gable said. “And y’all never found even a hint of who did it?”

“Not a single hint,” I said. “Why do you think I tried so hard to find her using my program?”

“Did I tell you how much I appreciate you working on that program?” Auden chuckled.

“Only a half dozen times,” I teased. “But I don’t mind you saying it as much as you want to.”

He winked at me.

Lunch was fast seeing as all of the brothers but one—Gable—had somewhere to be.

It was as we were leaving, and a certain someone still had my hand, that Quaid asked, “So you’re taking over the neighborhood watch thing. What else are you doing?”

I chuckled at the obvious probe.

Quaid needed help.

“I could cover a few shifts,” Gable admitted.

“What about joining the SWAT team?” Atlas asked.

Gable sighed. “I don’t want to be on call twenty-four-seven.”

“What about just when you’re on shift?” he suggested. “I’m implementing something new in the program.”

“I mean, as long as you don’t wake me up at two in the morning on my day off, I might be okay with it,” Gable admitted.

I went to pull away from Gable, but he tightened his hand.

“When do you go back to work?” Garrett asked me.

I looked at my watch. “In nineteen hours and forty-seven minutes.”

“So tomorrow.” Garrett laughed. “Got it. I’ll run by Pie Hard and pick you up a muffin. You want your usual?”

I felt Gable stiffen beside me.

“Uh, sure,” I said, wondering why Gable was acting the way he was.

Gable scowled at Garrett, who didn’t give a fuck.

One by one they all left, leaving Gable and I standing alone.

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