Fallen Crest Home

by Tijan

  Mason and I were tiptoeing in when the kitchen light turned on. Logan stood in the hallway that led to the bedrooms and raised an eyebrow.

  “Where have you two been?” He pointed to the front of the house. “I know you didn’t just get here, because I didn’t see any headlights.”

  Mason straightened up, holding my hand behind his back. “What we were doing and where we were is none of your business.”

  Logan crossed his arms over his chest. “I was worried.”

  “I texted you that we were fine.”

  “Sam runs off, literally, and you take off four hours later to pick her up. I get one text from you an hour ago saying you were fine.” Logan shook his head, tsking at us. “Not cool, bro. I’m a part of your relationship. I don’t get where you think I’m not. It’s not just the two of you. There are other people to consider—”

  “Do you really want me to say all this same shit about you and Taylor?”

  Logan grinned, his arms dropping. “Touché.” He saluted. “Hope the two of you made sweet, sweet love wherever you were. I’m off to bed.”

  “Since you’re up…” Mason stopped him, crossing to the fridge and opening it. He pulled out some leftover pizza and tossed a water bottle to me. “Cop a squat. We’ve got some stuff to talk about.”

  Logan looked back over his shoulder, a yearning look on his face. “I could wake Taylor up right now. You know how good middle of the night sex can be, right? You’re aware of what you’re making me miss?”

  “Sit down.” Mason motioned to the kitchen table. “It’s not like you can’t wake her up when we’re done.”

  “True.” Logan grabbed the pizza box, pulling out a few pieces and putting them on a plate. He warmed them in the microwave before sitting down.

  My stomach growled, loudly.

  Mason smiled. “Hungry?”

  I groaned, opening my water. “I don’t know if I dare eat. I could get cramps.”

  He warmed a couple pieces for me before doing his own plate. Logan waved his pizza at me. “Don’t say my brother never feeds you.”

  I frowned. “When would I ever say that?”

  He shrugged, biting off half of his slice. “You never know.”

  “Is everyone else asleep?” Mason asked.

  “Matteo broke it off with that chick, and he came back a while ago. We all had a few beers together before he passed out in his room downstairs. Taylor went to bed a little before that, and Nate knocked off the same time as Matteo. Me, I’ve been up and waiting for you two lovebirds to stop doing the mating dance in the garage.” He winked, wiggling his eyebrows. “Didn’t think I’d figured it out, did you?”

  “It’s the only place we could’ve been if we’d already arrived. You checked the pool house, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Logan picked up his second piece. “I saw you pull up, and I went searching when you didn’t come in. I knew you guys wanted privacy, but my inner Harriet the Spy was nagging me. I got curious.” He frowned to himself. “Just now remembered we have a garage. Why don’t we ever use the garage?”

  “Because it’s only three slots wide. We could park six cars in there, but someone would always have to be moving their car out of the way. It’d be too much of a hassle.”

  “Thank God Mom’s got a huge-ass driveway.” Logan looked at the pizza on my plate and nudged it closer to me. “The only way it gets to your stomach is if you eat it, Sam.”

  “I know, dumbass.”

  He smirked. “You’re calling me the dumbass when you’re the one who needs to be reminded how to eat. Put it in and chew—unless it’s Mason’s dick. Don’t chew then. Please, don’t chew. I don’t want to take my brother to the emergency room for that.”

  “Logan.” Mason glared. “Stop talking about my dick.”

  “What else is there to talk about? You haven’t brought up what you wanted to talk about, and I keep thinking about what I could be doing with my dick while I’m sitting here waiting.”

  Logan spoke as if that made perfect sense. I shook my head and picked up my pizza. He was right. I needed something in my stomach. I’d done too much physical activity over the last twenty-four hours.

  As if both had been waiting for me to start eating, as soon as I took my first bite, Mason said, “We need to figure out what to do about Caldron.”

  “What do you mean?” Logan was all business now.

  “I wanted something on Quinn first before asking Dad to help deal with Caldron.” Mason grimaced. “That didn’t happen.”

  “Yet,” Logan corrected. “It didn’t happen yet. We can still trade it in when we find something. What were you going to ask Dad to do?”

  “Promote him.”

  “Say what?” Logan pretended to clean his ear out. “I heard that wrong, right?”

  “We have to deal with things differently. Your girlfriend’s right. We can’t keep doing the shit we’re doing. My football career is another reason besides Sam’s safety—well, our safety, too. I get caught doing anything, I could not have a football career. One video, and I’m fucked.”

  “Yeah.” Logan sighed. “Those were the good old days, when we didn’t give a shit. Growing up sucks. Okay. So you want to promote him?”

  “He’ll have more incentive not to do anything then. If he goes after any of us, but Sam most of all, he loses the extra money he will have been making.”

  “It’s a good idea, but do you really want Caldron to have more responsibility? What factory does he work at?”

  “I think he’s at one of dad’s landscaping companies. Manual labor.”

  “Got you.” Logan nodded, his forehead wrinkling. “He could go up a notch and still not have access to anything real that could hurt Dad. So the question is, how are you going to proposition Dad to do this for us?” His eyes slid to mine. “Last time he countered by making us be his groomsmen.”

  “I know.” Mason sighed.

  “What?” I looked between the two.

  Mason frowned, and it only deepened as he pushed his empty plate away. “You might have to agree to do something for him again.”

  Logan jumped in, “But that’ll go away once we use whatever we find on Quinn. We’ll leverage that against what James will want you to do. The favors will all be wiped clean.”

  Yeah. That sounded great. It sounded logical even, but James Kade was a millionaire businessman, if not a billionaire. If he wanted something, I had a hard time imagining him taking it off the table once Mason and Logan found whatever they could on Steven Quinn.

  But I nodded. I ate the rest of my pizza. I said and did what they wanted me to, but I had my doubts.

  “When’s this going down?” Logan asked as we all stood, done for the night.

  Mason looked to me. “You’re working a shift tomorrow night—well, later today?”

  I nodded. “I have Tuesday and Wednesday off. I’m working next weekend, though.”

  “Dad asked me to give him an update on Wednesday, so if you two show up with me, he won’t be prepared. That’ll be the best time.”

  Logan clapped his hands together. “Wednesday it is. Mission ‘to deal with Caldron and bamboozle James Kade’ is in progress.” He pretended to rub his hands in an evil manner, snickering.

  Mason shook his head. “Don’t do that, and don’t say bamboozle again.”

  “Why not?” Logan followed us down the hallway. “I like it. It reminds me of boobies. Who doesn’t like boobies?”

  “Don’t.” Mason shot him a look as we reached our room.

  Logan had stopped at his door and shrugged, grinning. “You’re the boss. But wait. Do you know what you’re the boss of?”

  “Don’t—” Mason started.

  “Of boobies!” Logan laughed, heading inside his room.

  We laughed, too. For once, I was thankful for the long run I’d taken, for seeing my mom, and for knowing the plan against James Kade. Because once I hit that pillow, I fell asleep immediately, my worries about marriage forgotten—at le
ast for now.

  A few days later, James Kade sat behind his desk, squared off against Mason, Logan, and myself. Logan and I sat in the chairs, and Mason stood to the side. At the moment, however, James Kade only had eyes for his eldest son.

  He leaned back in his chair, his fingers tented. “Let’s hear it. What’s the reason you brought an audience to this meeting, Mason?”

  Mason dropped a file on the desk.

  “And what’s this?” James leaned forward, bringing it in front of him.

  “That’s a file on one of your employees.”

  “Jared Caldron?” James skimmed through the papers. “He’s a laborer for my landscaping company.” His eyes lifted back to Mason. “Why am I reading about him?”

  “Because he was best friends with Budd Broudou in high school, and what you don’t know is that we had a hand in getting Broudou sent to prison.”

  James didn’t seem to react. His face remained passive for a full fifteen seconds before he shot to his feet, sending his chair flying into the bookshelves behind him. “What did you do?”

  I stood up. “They didn’t do anything. I mean, not really.”

  Mason said over me, “She’s lying for me. I did do something.”

  Logan stood up, too. Everyone paused and looked at him, and he held up his hands. “I wanted to fit in. Everyone’s standing.”

  Mason cursed, rolling his eyes.

  James’ attention went right back to Mason. “You’re going to explain everything to me.”

  “Budd Broudou and his brother were our rivals in high school. They did shitty things to us. We retaliated—“

  “Of course you did. Why would my sons ever not get revenge?”

  Mason kept going, ignoring his father’s sarcasm. “Brett turned to our side—or kind of on our side.”

  I felt Mason’s eyes linger on me.

  “And Budd got pissed. He said he’d been waiting for me to get a girlfriend so he could destroy something I cared about.”

  “Oh, God.” James swung his gaze to me. “Samantha…”

  “So I pretended to be dating someone else.”

  “What?”

  “For a weekend, I was with someone else.”

  “You cheated on Sam?”

  I’d been staring at the desk, reliving the past, but looked back up now. “No,” I said fiercely. “He did not cheat on me.”

  Logan slid his hands into his pockets. “He set up his ex to take the fall for Sam.”

  “I didn’t enjoy touching someone else, but I had to, and I had to do it where Budd Broudou would see me. I only touched her when he could see. He had to buy the lie.”

  “And let me guess.” James’ disapproval was thick. “He tried to hurt this girl?”

  I cleared my throat. It was my turn now. “He was going to rape her, but I came running by. I poured gasoline on his truck and set it on fire to distract him. Someone called the cops, and he was arrested. The girl testified against him.”

  “That’s what put him away, and this guy wants payback now that you guys are back in Fallen Crest.”

  Logan gave him a half-grin. “Look at Pops here. All smart and catching on quick.”

  James shot him a look as he sat back down. “Not now, Logan Nathan.”

  Logan’s eyes widened, but he shut his mouth and sat down, as did I.

  Mason leaned against the wall beside us, crossing his arms over his chest. “Now you know the details. We need your help dealing with him.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  All three of us shared a look.

  “I can’t discipline him if I don’t have a reason to,” James said. “I need a reason.”

  “I don’t want you to discipline him. I want you to promote him,” Mason explained.

  James fell quiet, staring for a beat. “You want him to have incentive not to do something. Give him something to lose, and he’ll work even harder to keep it. Something like that?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  Logan snorted. “Something exactly like that.”

  “It’s a good plan,” James said. “Except it won’t work.”

  “What?” Mason stepped away from the wall. “What do you mean?”

  James pointed at the file. “Reading his history and last review comments, I’d say he’s got a chip on his shoulder. You give him power, he’ll want more. He won’t be content to stay where he is, even if it does mean he’ll lose a significant raise if he acts up. I don’t know what he’s been doing—” His hands shot up when Logan jerked forward in his seat. “And I don’t want to know. What I do know is that this is not a kid you can bribe or threaten.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mason’s tone was quiet, eerily quiet. I looked over to him, but he was watching his dad with rapt attention.

  “Is it within reason that this kid is doing something illegal?”

  Mason shrugged. “You mean besides assaulting people?”

  “You can charge him with that?” James frowned.

  Logan snorted again.

  Mason sighed. “Nothing he can’t charge us with, too.”

  “My sons,” James bit out, standing up again. He gestured to both of them. “Such saintly examples.” He turned to Mason, his neck becoming red. “You’re fighting again?!”

  And the pleasantries were over.

  Mason jerked forward, but Logan was on his feet as well. He said, “Dad.”

  “Will you never learn? You’re almost a senior in college, Mason! You’re doing the same shit you were doing when you were a freshman in high school!” James’ voice rose louder and louder. His hand curled in a fist, and he shook it in the air. “What’s your excuse this time? You blamed me for the divorce back then. Well, you can’t anymore. I’m not whoring around, as you like to say. I’ve been faithful to the same woman since—” He glanced over, and his eyes found mine.

  In an instant I was back there, back to the first time Analise told me we were leaving my father. I felt the same emotion I had then. Nothing, because it was all too much.

  His voice quieted. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

  I closed my eyes, hanging my head.

  She had been on the floor, sitting in between boxes already. Two empty bottles of wine had lay next to her, and I knew she was only starting.

  I barely heard myself as I said, “I remember feeling like I was suffocating when she told me we were leaving him.” I’d never known it, but there were words I needed to say to this man, and right now he was listening.

  Now was the time.

  I took a calming breath. “You were the catalyst for all of it. I mostly blamed my mom. I knew she was the one who went after you. And I knew I’d find out Jeff was cheating on me, and I should’ve lost my two best friends, because it turns out they’re really shady assholes. But I blamed you for ripping apart my family because you were stupid.” I frowned, biting the inside of my lip for a moment. “I still think you’re stupid.”

  Logan covered a laugh.

  James’ gaze had fallen to the desk.

  I felt Mason next to me. He was right there, if I needed him.

  But I was okay on my own. “She cheated during her entire marriage. You cheated during your entire marriage. How am I supposed to believe both of you won’t cheat when you marry each other? How am I supposed to know that cheating’s not a part of every marriage?”

  Now I really felt Mason watching me, but I couldn’t look. There was no way, because he’d know.