Always Crew - Tijan Page 0,89

Normal. We’re not fighting or searching for a drug dealer I want to kill, or your drug dealer ex. No one’s being taken to the hospital. You know, normal. Quiet.”

“You like the quiet?”

He nodded, his eyes shifting to the floor for a beat. “Yeah. I feel settled. I’m not worried that someone I love is going to be taken away from me.”

Right.

I was rocked, rocked, but right.

That made sense.

“Okay,” I whispered. “You like the normalcy.”

Another nod from him. “I like it when you’re next to me.”

Well.

Then.

Warmth spread through me at that last statement.

My throat swelled up, but I didn’t know why, and I didn’t have the words, so I went back to studying. Normal. Quiet.

Guess I’d be studying more from now on.

And those nights when it was just Cross and me at the house, I felt the quiet. I was okay with the quiet. And knowing how Cross felt about it, I was really okay with it now. I could do that.

That was the goal until Jordan came home. Two out of the four nights, he had a girl with him.

I saw both of his guests. I didn’t know either of them.

The other two nights, Jordan had people come over. They were from a couple of his classes. One was the psych class he shared with Cross, so for those nights, the peace wasn’t so peaceful. A couple of the guys wanted to talk with Cross. A few of the girls wanted to flirt with him. He was polite to the guys, shot the girls down, and took my hand, leading me upstairs to my room those nights just to escape.

Jordan shot me an apologetic grin each time.

It was Friday now, and tonight was when the quiet stopped being quiet.

BREN

My phone was ringing, and it took a hot second for me to realize that it wasn’t the alarm.

Cross lifted his head up, looking, and he reached over me. Checking the screen, he moved back and sat up on his side of the bed. “There a reason you’re calling thirty minutes before she needs to wake up?”

I frowned, but I wasn’t frowning enough to sit up because he was right. I had thirty more sleeping minutes to go.

I heard murmuring from the other end, then Cross looked at me. His face tightened, even with his hair sticking up, and he still looked good. He had stopped shaving very recently, so he had a nice patch of gruff hair there, enough that it was distracting me that he was on my phone and not looking happy about it.

“Fine. I’ll tell her.”

He hung up, tossing the phone onto his nightstand.

I waited.

He shook his head. “Not yet.” He wasn’t the only one checking the other out. His voice came out rough, “Sleep or something else before I have to tell you who was on the phone?”

There’d be no sleeping now, so I smiled and pulled down the bedsheet.

A wolfish smile took over his face and he was over and on top of me within seconds.

We went two rounds, long past my alarm, and Cross was just coming out from the shower. I was tugging my shirt down and met his gaze in the mirror. “You have to tell me now.”

His whole face tightened, but he sighed. Reaching for a towel, he raked it over his head. “That was your brother.”

I don’t want to say my heart stopped. That would’ve been an exaggeration, but it paused. My chest tightened. That was more accurate because Channing calling that early in the morning was never a good sign.

I had my hair pick in my hand, but I set it back down and flattened my palm against the counter. I needed that foundation to stop the shaking. I looked down at it, too. “No one died, or you would’ve told me that right away.”

“No.”

I waited, breath suspended.

He was silent, and that fact alone told me it was still bad.

I closed my eyes, still waiting.

“You know your brother. You know how he is when it comes to you and… Your dad is here again.”

“What?”

“He’s already here.”

“What?”

Cross sighed before moving into the bedroom. He went to the closet, and I followed, his voice trailing out to where I waited by the bed. “Channing got the call by a cop buddy of his. Your dad’s in Cain. Channing thought the Red Demons had put him up somewhere. He didn’t want you to be caught by surprise, so he called for the heads-up.”

My dad was here.

Okay, then.

He hadn’t called. He’d probably call,