Leo said, shoving open the door to the room right next to Thea’s. It was the only guest room remaining, but I was still kind of surprised Leo hadn’t shown him to the media room instead. Or, hell, a closet. “The bathroom is across the hall.”
Tobias dumped his bag on the bed then looked back at me and Leo. “Is this the part where you tie me to a chair and interrogate me until I break?”
He said it with a slight smirk, and I had to give the guy credit. He wasn’t intimidated by us. That was rare.
“Nah,” Leo said with his usual charming smile. “We wouldn’t do that on Thanksgiving.”
I had to bite back my own grin. A few weeks ago—before Thea’s accident, to be exact—the flippant response would have caused an internal eye roll. But, somewhat miraculously, my feelings about Leo had finally changed.
Thea had been right about a lot of things. Most of all, she’d been right when she told me that the brotherly relationship between me and Leo and Hayle meant something. I’d been able to pretend like it didn’t for years. It had been easier that way. I’d planned to leave Moss Harbor and never look back, after all.
I’d been an idiot.
“Guess I arrived on the right day, then,” Tobias replied dryly.
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms loosely over my chest. “Speaking of your arrival, what brought on this surprise visit?”
“Maybe I just wanted to see for myself that Thea was all right, after the two of you stood there and watched while she got hit by a car.”
I saw Leo’s fist clench in my peripheral vision, so I spoke again before he had a chance. “We feel terrible about what happened, which is why we’ve been taking care of her day and night ever since.”
“Very good care of her,” Leo added with a suggestive tone.
Seriously? Didn’t he see that I was trying to defuse this situation?
Tobias’s pleasant expression fell, but he didn’t respond. Fortunately.
“You should have let us know you were coming,” I said with a friendly tone. “A last-minute ticket over the holiday must have cost a fortune, and we could have covered it for you.”
“Actually, it wasn’t last minute, and Harbor University athletics paid for it.”
There was that smirk again. And for good reason, because, what the hell was he talking about?
“What are you talking about?” Leo asked, echoing my internal query.
“I’ve been accepted to Harbor U for next semester, and I’m meeting with the head baseball coach this weekend for a formal tryout.”
I turned to my brother, and given the dazed look on his face, he must have been as shocked as I was.
Keeping my voice unaffected, I asked, “So, you’re moving to Moss Harbor?”
Tobias shrugged. “Depends.”
“On?”
“On whether Thea wants to stay in Washington with you assholes.”
Leo moved forward. “Listen here, you—”
I quickly stepped in front of him and cut him off. “And, if she wants to stay?”
Tobias smiled, and for the first time since we’d left Thea in the foyer, it reached his eyes. “Then, I’ll transfer and do everything in my power to protect her.”
The words “from you” were left unspoken, but that didn’t keep them from hanging in the air between us.
He skirted around me and Leo and walked out into the hall. “I think I’ll go see if there’s anything I can help with in the kitchen. That’s how we poor Kansas boys do Thanksgiving, in case you were wondering.”
After he was gone, silence fell between me and Leo. Probably because we both needed time to process this new information.
Although, for my part, I wasn’t so much processing as contemplating how to convince Thea that her friend was an arrogant jackass. Which wouldn’t be very convincing coming from me, of all people. Maybe Hayle could do it.
Leo hung his head. “This is bad.”
“Yes.”
“What if she would be better off with him?”
I stared at my brother as though he’d transformed into Tyson, Percy Jackson’s cyclops half-brother. “Are you kidding me right now?” After everything he’d done to win Thea, he was going to give up at the first sign of real competition?
He sat on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I wish.”
“Why would you even suggest such a thing?”
“Because I’m pretty sure she’s going to break up with me tomorrow.”
My gut twisted, and not because the idea made me happy. Which made no damn sense. I was supposed to want them to break up. “What makes you think that?”
“She’s