Rocking Kin (Lucy & Harris, #3) - Terri Anne Browning Page 0,87
flooded back to me. The tea. The tea in the fridge had tasted bitter, but I’d thought it was just because Jenna had messed up one of her batches of iced tea. Now I realized that it had been something else entirely.
Fucking hell.
This was her revenge for Jenna breaking up with her, but had she really hated me so much she had tried to kill me? I hadn’t gotten a ‘killer’ vibe from her in all the months I’d lived under the same roof with her and Jenna, but then again I didn’t know Tessa very well at all.
“Is Jenna okay?” Did Tessa do something to her too? Was she okay? Was she still clean?
“Jenna is fine,” Lucy assured me, but the hesitation in her voice had me taking another look at her. Seeing the question in my eyes, Lucy grimaced. “Everyone knows about Jenna now, Harris. They are blaming her for what happened—not that I can honestly blame them, but that doesn’t matter right now. Natalie wants her to go back to Ohio to live with their mother and father. Drake wants to try and help her. Shane is still on the fence about what he wants to do, so until he makes his decision Jenna has been condemned to her room in your apartment.”
I tried to sit up in the bed, but my stomach and head both protested and I fell helplessly back against the mattress. “This wasn’t Jenna’s fault, Lu. She had nothing to do with what Tessa did. Fuck, she broke up with Tessa, was going to put as much distance between the two of them as humanly possible.”
Those soft hands pushed at my chest, keeping me on my back. “Calm down. I didn’t say I blamed her, I’m just saying I can understand why everyone else would. Don’t worry about her right now. Just focus on getting back to your old self. Okay?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay.” I covered one of her hands on my chest and gave it a squeeze. “Thanks for being here, sweetness.”
If I hadn’t been holding on to her, I might have missed the way she flinched and jerked away when I called her ‘sweetness’. But it only lasted a second before her hand relaxed against my chest. When she smiled down at me I could see how forced it was. That earlier instinct to hold on to her and never let go filled me again and I tightened my hold on her hand.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded, taking a closer look at her eyes. Her lashes were damp, her eyes swollen and bloodshot. There were twin trails down her cheeks that told me she must have been crying for a long time. “What happened while I was out, Lu?”
“It’s nothing,” she told me with another tight smile, but didn’t meet my gaze and I knew she was lying.
“Don’t.” I threaded my fingers through hers and watched as her eyes dropped to watch our hands. “Tell me what happened. Please.”
She swallowed hard and shook her head. “No. Not yet. You should rest. I promised your dad I would sit with you while he and Natalie got some coffee.”
My dread only escalated. “Tell me. Now.”
“No.” She stubbornly shook her head, but the look in her dark eyes made it hard to suck in my next breath. “I took care of it. There’s nothing for you to worry about now.”
“What was there to worry about in the first place?” I demanded. “Stop this, Lu. Tell me what the fuck I missed. I can’t fix that damn haunted look in your eyes if you don’t tell me.”
Instead of answering me she turned her head away, blocking me out. Fuck no. I couldn’t deal with this shit. Something had happened and I knew it was bad from the way she was acting. She was there, but she wasn’t. She was my loving Lucy, yet she was a cold robotic version of her too. I wanted—needed—to fix whatever Tessa had fucked up because it felt like I was losing the only person I couldn’t live without.
Desperation clutched at me and I glanced around, hoping there was someone else who could tell me what was going on. I needed answers. The room was empty though and I was desperate to know.
“Sweetness,” I started, but she jerked in my hold again, making my stomach hollow out. “Fuck this. Tell me. Now.”
The door opened behind her and I turned my eyes reluctantly away from her to see