Page 77 of Bad For A Weekend

“You’re not coming back at all?”

“No.”

Her head shakes, and her lip quivers. I plead with her with my eyes to not cause a scene. For all I know, Brandy is still in the dark about us, and I’d like to keep it that way.

“I’ll talk to him. This isn’t right. No one can keep me as safe as you can, and you know it.”

I do know it. But I also know Hudson will never go back on his decision.

“You quit?” Brandy asks.

“No, he was fired because Ziggy and I ran away from him last night to have a little fun.”

“You did what?” she gasps. “Why didn’t anyone call me?”

“We weren’t gone long, and we were very careful,” Baylor explains.

“We’ll be talking about this later,” she scolds.

“Can I have a minute to say goodbye to Baylor alone?” I interject.

“Yeah, of course. I’m sad to see you go. You’re better eye candy than your brother. He’s too pretty.” Brandy swats me on the ass and leads the others to the car, reprimanding Ziggy the whole way.

“You didn’t have to tell her,” I say, wanting to eat up the ten feet between us but knowing it’s not smart.

“What other reason could we give her?”

I shrug. “You know she’ll tell your dad.”

“I know.” She rolls her eyes. “There’s a lot of being yelled at in my future.”

“I’m sorry things ended up this way.”

“I know, but hey. I can still call you if I need you, right?”

This is where I’m going to piss her off. I predict the reason she isn’t losing her mind right now is that she doesn’t intend for this to be the end. She thinks she’ll be able to reach me whenever and is banking on me not being strong enough to tell her no.

“The cell belongs to Hudson’s company, so I’ll be giving it back.”

“Okay, well, when you get a new one, shoot me a text with your new number.”

I blow out a breath, preparing to lie to her for the first time. “I will.”

“Good. Then I guess this is see you later.”

“Yeah, Bay. I’ll see you later.” I tuck my hands in my pockets to stop myself from yanking her to me and kissing the shit out of her. My fingers brush against a velvet box. “I almost forgot. I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

I pull out the box and hand it to her. “It’s an early birthday present.”

She opens it and runs her fingers along the moonstone beads in bezels of silver. “It’s so pretty.”

I lift it up and point to the clasp. “It looks like a bracelet, but this clasp has a safety device. If you pinch it for more than ten seconds, it’ll send me an alert with your location. It’s waterproof, sweat-proof, everything proof so you never have to take it off.”

She grins. “None of that surprises me in the least.”

“Just don’t press it unless there’s an emergency because it’ll make me lose my mind.”

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