Page 41 of The Venom We Bleed

I gesture outward. “Three guys and one girl?” I say. “You think that’s a good plan? Or are you planning on getting your own place with her? Are you gonna leave Nolan and me and go start your life elsewhere with your fallen rich girl?”

For the longest second of my life, Lex doesn’t say anything and then he shocks me. “Why can’t we just be together?”

“Together?” My brow puckers. He can’t mean… “Like …togethertogether?” I clarify.

He stares back at me. “Yes.”

“You wantusto have a relationship with her?” I shake my head. “Dude, you’ve been in love with her for years. Why the hell would you want to share her with Nolan and me?”

Not that I can’t see the benefits. I’ve done a lot of shit in the bedroom and I’ve done it with a lot of people. Nameless,faceless people. I’ve played with threesomes before. I’ve fucked a girl’s ass. I’ve done what seems like it all. Sharing with my best friends though? I don’t hate the idea.

It would be one way to keep us all grounded, to keep us all together. Friends aren’t meant to last forever. Friends grow up. They move on. I’ve heard that all too fucking much over the last year. The closer we get to graduation, the more I fear what leaving Silverwood would do to us.

We may not be blood-related, but the three of us are bound in something stronger. One girl … between the three of us? What better way to bind us all together and keep us from drifting apart when we escape this godforsaken town?

Lex puts his phone away and pulls a laptop out of one of his bags. “There’s another thing I need to talk to you and Nolan about,” he says, switching topics as he turns on the machine and his fingers speed over the keys.

“What’s that?”

“Her father called me a while back to look into his case.”

I blink. “Wait. Allen Donovan? Allen Donovan called you? To look into his case?”

“He called Scorpion.”

Holy … fuck. “You took the job.” It’s not a question. The girl he’s been in love with for over ten years’ father asks for his assistance? Yeah, there ain’t no way Lex has the kind of impulse control to say no.

“Yes, and I found something.”

I lean closer, looking down at the laptop screen, but it’s all a dark background with code appearing and jolting through various boxes that pop up and disappear too fast for me to even read them. Damn. I don’t know how he figures anything out on the damn thing.

“Let me guess,” I say. “Donovan claims he’s innocent and he wanted your help to prove it.” I roll my eyes. “Dumbass. All you’ll do is pull up the truth and then he’ll be shit out of?—”

“I think he might be innocent.” If it were possible for my jaw to unlatch completely from my skull and tumble to the floor it would do so.

“What?” There’s no way.

Lex continues to type, pulling up box after box—only these show a series of documents, some scanned and some digitally created. “I went back into his banking history—through all of the income and profits of Donovan-Calloway enterprises.”

“You’re not going to tell me that the money isn’t gone,” I snap. “A lot of our friends lost their college savings because their parents couldn’t afford to make ends meet. Silverwood is still recovering?—”

“No, the money was definitely embezzled and stolen, but whether or not it was done by Allen Donovan is still a question.”

“You’re going to try and prove that it wasn’t him, aren’t you?”

Lex glances over at me. “I’m going to find the truth. If it was him, well he’s fine out of Juliet’s life then, but if it wasn’t…”

“You know helping him and finding out that he was innocent might mean she’ll have another option than going away with you when the time comes,” I point out.

“She’ll choose us.” His gaze sharpens and I’m not sure if he’s trying to convince himself or me.

I open my mouth to say as much when the front door opens. Lex has his computer shut and stowed back in his bag before I can blink and turn my head. When my brain catches up to the fact that he’s back in his seat and the person walking in the door is Mama, I practically leap off the couch.

Carrying two plastic bags marked with the local grocery store’s logo, she glances up as I hurry towards her, reachingfor the bags before she can stop me. “Oh, amore mio,” she murmurs, her Italian accent lilting, “you’re home.”

The sound of her accent soothes my anger. For a moment, I think it’s too damn bad I never picked it up, but my papino had beaten it out of me every year as I aged. Though my mother is a proud Italian, the mixture of my father’s Spaniard roots and the discrimination he’s faced since immigrating to America made him ensure that his son would never pick up those small quirks from their homelands. Even if I do know some of the language, using it outside of the house is a disrespect he’d never stand for. Vile old bastard.

Mama doesn’t fight me as I lift the heavy bags out of her hands and bend to place a kiss to the top of her head. As short as she is, I’m able to look over her and peer through the grimy storm door to the street beyond. With trash littering the sidewalks and overgrown weeds in the yards of the other millhouses in the neighborhood, the only thing out of place is the pristine black sedan sitting at the curb.

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