I throw my head back. “Fuck.”
“What is going on, Deke?” She stands.
“Stay here.” I growl and then spin around to run out after him. I walk out to see Cole shove Shane backward. “Cole, don’t—”
“No,” he interrupts me. “If he wants to be a part of this group, then he’s going to fucking tell me.”
“Group? What group?” Shane demands, throwing his arms out wide. “You guys have completely lost your fucking minds.”
Cole fists his busted knuckles. “No! Kellan lost his mind the moment he decided to want what was mine!”
He throws his head back, letting out a loud laugh. When his eyes meet Cole’s again, his laughter dies. “She was never yours. His plan all along was to make her his.”
Cole goes to jump him, but I wrap my arm around him and haul him back. “Cut it out!” I growl in his ear. “You’re causing a scene!” I whisper, “He could be lying just to get you wound up.” At this point, my friends have all taken sides. And Shane is obviously not on Cole’s. Who knows what he is gonna say or do to push Cole to make a move? It won’t take much. It never has when it comes to Cole.
He shakes me off, and I choose to let him go with every intention to jump him if he lunges for Shane again.
Bennett comes to stand beside Shane. “He remembered her,” Shane spits out. “He wanted her! He was only fucking Celeste for his own revenge on Bruce!”
“What did Bruce do to him?” I ask and wonder why in the hell Shane knows this information but not us? One look at Bennett and I know he too knows that secret.
I turn my attention back to Shane. He laughs, shaking his head. “It doesn’t fucking matter. None of it fucking matters anymore.” Then he turns and walks away, and Cole allows it.
Cole jumps out of the passenger car door, bringing me out of that memory, and I get out as well, though much slower. I pop the hatch to my Range Rover when the guys near us.
Shane looks at me and then at Cole, narrowing his eyes, and I hold in a sigh. I don’t even think they’ve spoken to one another since that day at the hospital five months ago.
“Why did you bring him?” Cole asks, not even bothering to hide his hatred for Shane.
Bennett opens his mouth to speak, but Shane is the one who answers. “I got a message too.”
I scratch the back of my head. This can’t be happening. “From—”
“Evan Scott,” he interrupts me. “It was in a three-way chat with Bennett.”
“You didn’t mention he was in the chat.” I look at Bennett.
“Yeah, well, my mind wasn’t completely alert when I was woken up in the middle of the night.” He glares at Cole. “After I was hung up on, I looked at it again and saw where Shane was also involved in the message, and I called him. Told him the same thing I was ordered to do, which was ‘pack a bag and get his ass to the airport.’”
I grab their luggage and place them in the back and then slam it shut before we all crawl into the SUV. Silence fills the inside of the car, and I can’t take it, so I turn up the radio. “Can’t Go to Hell” by Sin Shake Sin plays.
“So, what …?” Shane begins to ask, but Cole reaches forward and turns it up louder to drown him out.
I take a quick look at Shane in the rearview mirror, and his eyes are glaring holes into the back of Cole’s head.
This should be fun.
We walk into Cole and Austin’s house. “You’re at the end of the hall.” Cole gestures to Bennett. “You’re on the couch,” he tells Shane, not bothering to look at him.
“Don’t you have four bedrooms?” he asks.
“I’m in the other one upstairs,” I answer him. It’s been months since I’ve spoken to Shane. The last time was the night he got into it with Cole at the hospital.
He frowns. “You’re living here?”
“Isn’t that what he just said?” Cole snaps.
Shane drops his duffle bag to the tile floor in the entryway. The motion makes Austin’s damn Halloween ghost go off.
Here we go.
“What is your problem?” he snaps at Cole.
Cole takes it as an invitation and doesn’t waste a second. He’s just waiting to beat the shit out of someone. “You are my problem!” He growls, getting in his face. They’re nose to nose. “I don’t trust you here! Around Austin.”
Shane snorts. “That’s rich. Out of the four of us in this room, you and Deke are the ones whose body count are the highest when it comes to our dead friends. And he’s fucking living here!”
“I trust him.” Cole growls.
“He’d kill Austin without a thought if you told him to.”