Page 63 of Sin With Me

Luckily, this one won’t have any of his high-class, weird as fuck, influencer, wannabe model friends. This one’s for Kon’s birthday. The man that my best friend has most definitely fucked.

“Speaking of Oli,” Chase starts, murmuring quietly, which can only mean one of two things: something bad happened to his little sister, or his next statement involves her.

I swallow thickly, showing nothing on the outside, even while my insides are turning into liquid.

“Uh-huh?” I grunt.

I force my entire existence to focus on the burn and stretch caused by the heavy weight in my left hand. I pay attention to the way my veins bulge every time I flex my muscles. The way my fingers ache from how tightly I’m gripping the harsh metal.

“She got into some trouble the other night.” I say nothing, waiting for him to continue. “She broke into the pet shop and caused the death of over two hundred feeder mice, broke a bunch of shit I had to pay for on the down-low, and caused a python named Bunny to go into some sort of catatonic hibernation that has Willy McTavish worried sick.”

I freeze up at that. My mouth drops open, but snaps shut before a sound can come out. Not for the first time, I find myself speechless where Olive Tanner is concerned. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a sweet girl, but she’s…different.

“Is she okay?” I finally ask. It seems like a reasonable response.

“Shaken up. As she should be.” He groans, palming his face. “God, she’s going to be beside herself when she realizes all those mice are dead.”

I finish my rep and stand, dropping the weight back onto the rack. I move to the pull-up bar Chase abandoned and start the next set of exercises.

“She already knows what she did.”

“No, she doesn’t.” He shakes his head rapidly. “And if it’s up to me, she’ll never find out. Hopefully, people will keep up the story that they all got the medical attention they needed and wound up in a rehab facility in California, where they’ll spend the rest of their million years of existence frolicking under the warm sun and swimming in the ocean.”

My chest rumbles with laughter.

“If she doesn't know they’re dead, how did you find out? Still subscribing to the Divinity Falls newspaper or what?”

Pulling myself up, I drop back down quickly before repeating the rep again and again. Without much time, I’ll have to do supersets to get the same muscle fatigue I need in order to sleep.

Chase makes a garbled sound and rubs the back of his neck. “Eve called me.” I freeze. “Twice.” I drop down, my workout completely forgotten with those words.

“The fuck?” My heart hammers in my chest as I wipe the sweat from my upper lip with the back of my hand.

I grab my water bottle and give Chase my back while I try to get my shit together. Why would she call him? I know they talk, but from what Chase has said over the last couple of years, it’s only when he contacts her.

Once a month, on Mondays, he calls Olive to check in. After he talks to her, he calls Eve. They speak for a few minutes. She’s apparently tight-lipped, but kind. Then, he tells me in the vaguest of terms what’s going on back home, weaving her in where he can without seeming obvious.

I always nod, feigning indifference, while soaking up his words like a lovesick fucking sponge. Chase always prattles on, acting like a town gossip, when really, we both know what he’s doing. And we both know I need it.

But—she called him.

“Well, the first time she called,” he starts, seeming way more uncomfortable than usual.

Normally, he’s practically gloating about their conversations, knowing it drives me nuts.

“She was home alone.”

I hate it.

“And drunk.”

My eye twitches.

“She also mentioned something about spicy Chinese.”

My brows furrow.

That’s an oddly specific thing to say.

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