and that’s the end of it. He went missing a whole three months after that point, and it had nothing to do with you.”
“Hey, Bubbles?” He lifts a brow and studies my face. “You remember that time they took me in for questioning, and I said all those things already?”
“Yeah.” I roll my eyes and turn away from the counter. “You wanna know what I think?”
“Probably not.”
“I think that there’s a cop involved in all this. There has to be, like…” I hesitate on the lingo. “A rat or something. An inside guy. There’s a reason they wanna pin this on you. Real cops can’t arrest a guy just because they feel like it, they need proof. They need evidence.”
“They have a witness.”
“They have a liar!” I burst out. “Dammit, Will. He’s obviously lying, because I was on the damn phone with you during the period in which Nate died.”
“Disappeared.”
“Whatever!” I throw my hands up and accidentally splash Will’s files with mandarin juice. “They have zero proof, they have no witnesses, they have a liar whose identity they won’t share with the public, they have a missing body, and let’s not forget the warrant is out for ‘Jake Williams’. That ain’t even your name!”
“It’s the name I was using when Nate died.”
“Disappeared!”
He snorts.
It’s not funny. Really, truly it’s not. But there comes a point after years and years of running and staring at the same file filled with the same sheets of paper that, if you don’t laugh, you’re gonna cry.
“I’ve been watching the Kincaids on TV, Bubbles.” Will flips the file closed and crosses his ankles. He folds his arms, and studies me with shrewd eyes beneath a heavy brow. “He tore that tournament up last year.”
“I don’t wanna talk about him.”
“He got new ink too. Did you see?”
“Nope.” I leave the kitchen and make my way to the living room. “And I’m gonna reiterate that thing about not wanting to talk about him.”
“He tattooed you onto his fucking body, Bubbles! Every single year, the cameras zoom in on him while he’s whaling on a guy in the cage, and what do we see when they lift his arm in victory?”
“No clue.” I drop down into Will’s recliner and flick the footrest up. “And I feel like a broken record with the ‘I-don’t-wanna-talk-about-it’ thing.”
“He’s looking for you, Bubbles! He hasn’t forgotten you. And I don’t know if you know, but you are not a wanted felon. You could go to him, let him keep you safe. And then, when I know you’re not getting your ass into trouble back here, I could be taking care of my shit.”
“For the record, since I ran with you, and I know a wanted felon’s whereabouts, I’m pretty sure that makes me a criminal too. Also, I’m not going anywhere without you, Will. So you’re gonna have to get the hell over it.”
“My name isn’t even Will! You’re holding onto this make-believe thing, Bubbles.”
“My name isn’t Bubbles, and yet you call me that three thousand times a day!”
“Bubbles is a nickname,” he snarls. “Will is a fabricated name. Will is a felon.”
“Will has been your name for a long friggin’ time. So sue me for getting attached to it! Would you prefer the name our deadbeat dad gave you?”
“No, I—”
“That’s what I thought. Now shush. I said I don’t wanna talk about the Kincaids, and I’d really like you to respect my wishes on that.”
“He hasn’t forgotten you.” Will drops down onto the couch beside my chair. “If you wanted to go back there for a bit, know a life of normalcy, I would be okay with it.”
“Since when, huh? Last I remember, you hit him.”
“He had sex with you! It’s my right as your brother to hit him. Doesn’t mean I hate the guy. It literally means he did something bad, so I slammed him for it.”
“But now you’d be okay with marrying me off to him?” I turn and meet his blue eyes. “Marriage means sex. I’d have filthy, nasty, slurping-sounds sex with him at least once a week. Lord knows he ain’t ugly, so I probably wouldn’t be able to help myself once he smiled for the first time.”
“You disgust me.” He pushes back to his feet and leaves the room to head back to the kitchen. “Slurping sounds,” he grumbles. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Sex deprivation, maybe. I bet if you sold me to Jamie Kincaid, he’d fix that right up.”
“Filth!” He glides back into the room