slid open with a soft hiss, he heard the music and the erratic noises of a party. Laughter, voices, all coming from their apartment.
Fucking hell.
“Tanner,” he growled, fists clenched.
So the partying tonight was in, not out.
Jared contemplated turning around and finding a hotel, or worse, calling Shana. No, bad idea. They’d dated on and off during law school and after, but they’d never been exclusive. Currently he and Shana were off. Definitely off.
Lousy timing for Tanner to throw a damn party.
That was the main problem with letting his twenty-four-year-old brother live with him. He’d thought it would be nice to spend some time with his little brother, but with his work schedule he barely saw Tanner. The one night they might have hung out, he was too tired to care. He was not in the mood to dodge drunken graduate students all night and try to drown out all the racket they were making. Luck wasn’t with him tonight. Fuck, he was turning into a crotchety old man if he was going to let a party piss him off.
The door to their place was unlocked, and when he swung the door open, a wave of fresh sound engulfed him. His eardrums throbbed, and he winced at the explosion of the music that drilled into his skull like nails. Scantily-dressed girls bounced about to the pounding rhythm of the music along with guys who were watching with giddy-schoolboy expressions. Some of them cheered and smiled, drunkenly overjoyed that a new person had shown up to the party. Several familiar faces, Tanner’s friends, waved at him or nodded as he walked past them.
“Jared! I thought you weren’t coming home till tomorrow?” A zombie stripper stepped in front of him, hands on her hips. Through the gory makeup he thought he recognized her.
“Layla?”
Tanner’s girlfriend was dressed as a zombie stripper. Only Layla could manage to pull off that look.
“Layla, what the hell is going on?” he demanded, gesturing to the insanity. A girl in a sexy Lara Croft costume was singing a bad karaoke cover of “Somebody’s Watching Me.” Holy fuck. He was going to need some noise-cancelling headphones to survive this shit. For a brief second he considered tossing everyone out on their damn asses, but this place was half Tanner’s and he’d told Tanner he wouldn’t be here tonight. Brother code demanded he suffer through this bullshit.
Layla didn’t look chagrined in the least. “It’s Halloween. Oh, and Felicity’s birthday, obviously.”
“Who is Felicity?” He’d never met anyone named Felicity. Not that it was surprising, because he was never around when his brother was hanging out with Layla and their friends. He didn’t really remember what it was like to be that carefree. Law school and work had a way of consuming a person’s good memories.
“Scratch that, I don’t care. Is this thing”—he waved a hand around—“ending anytime soon?” He shifted his briefcase strap over his shoulder. His suit was starting to suffocate him, and as much as he liked the particular steel-gray tie he wore at the moment, he was desperate enough to cut it right off his neck if he couldn’t get to his room fast enough.
“Uh…” She licked her lips. “Don’t know. But you said you weren’t coming back until Sunday.”
“Well, here I am and tired as fuck. So I’m going to bed. Try to keep it down,” he growled.
“Uh, Jared.” She dodged around him, trying to prevent him from getting past her.
“What did you do?” He arched a brow, sensing by the way her eyes widened and she shifted in her stilettos that something was wrong.
“I might have given your bed away.” Layla bit her lip, yet she was brave enough to still meet his eyes.
“What do you mean you gave my bed away?”
She attempted to smile. “You were supposed to be gone until Sunday, and Felicity needed a place to stay tonight. It’s late, and I didn’t want her to go home alone. She lives in a sketchy part of town—so I told her she could crash in your bed since you weren’t going to be here.” She glared at him, accusing him of something he wasn’t entirely sure was his fault. “So she’s in your room tonight.” She ended with a finality that did not entirely make sense to his tired brain.
“Let me get this straight. Some girl is in my bed…right now?”
Layla swallowed, her eyes darting away before coming back to him. “Um…yeah?”
“No,” he stated and stalked toward his room, Layla at his heels. Whoever this