The Fight In Us: A Brother's Best Friend College Romance (The Four Book 4) by Becca Steele (little readers .txt) 📕

we were a safe distance away, Cassius flopped against the red brick wall of the building next to us. “Fuck me, that was close.”

“Why did we suddenly need to leave?” I didn’t get it.

“I saw Z’s dad,” he explained. “There was no way… We could have lied our way through most situations, but he would’ve seen straight through us.”

“I didn’t even see him.”

He grinned, patting my shoulder. “That’s what you have me for. We’re a team. I watched out for shit like that, while you kept an eye on Martin Smith, right?”

“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. When he put it that way, it didn’t seem so bad. Maybe my video would help us. Whatever, we already knew he was involved, and now we had solid video evidence.

We made our way back to Cass’ SUV and waited for the others inside, reclining our seats and talking about nothing and everything. I was relieved that my best mate wasn’t someone to hold a grudge, and he was acting like he normally would with me.

The time stretched.

“Where are the others?” My heart rate picked up. Surely they should’ve been back by now.

He glanced at the clock on his dashboard. “Good question. We should probably…” His words trailed off as his eyes went to something in front of us, and I followed his gaze to see the others running in our direction.

“Go! Go!” Winter collapsed breathlessly into the back seat, closely followed by Lena, and Cassius wasted no time in starting up the engine. As he spun the car away from the kerb, I saw Zayde’s bike shoot past us, Caiden on the back.

“What happened?” Twisting in my seat, I stared at the girls.

“We’ll tell you when we get home” was all Winter said, and I had to be satisfied with that. Turning up the music on the radio because it was clear that no one felt like talking, I settled back in my seat and stared out at the road with unseeing eyes.

We were all together and accounted for. We had video footage. I just hoped that we could work this shit out and put it all behind us.

THIRTY-THREE

The house was quiet, sombre almost. We’d assembled in the kitchen, seated around the dining table. Weston was next to me, his hand finding mine under the table.

He’d dragged me aside the second we’d got home.

“Are you okay?” He gripped my chin in his hands, staring down at me with a look of concern.

I blew out a shaky breath. “Yeah, I’m okay. I promise.”

He studied me intently, his other hand sliding around my back and pulling me closer to him. I felt the heat of his body against mine, and I reached up to thread my arms around his neck.

“I’m fine,” I repeated. “How are you?”

His eyes widened.

“What, you didn’t think I wouldn’t worry about you?” I whispered the words against his lips.

He shook his head slowly. “I thought…I guess I thought you’d be focused on your own thing.”

“Never.” With effort, I untangled myself from him. “This isn’t us keeping our distance, is it? We’re doomed.”

A small smile crossed his face. “It’s just two friends showing concern for each other.”

“Yeah, buddy.” I punched his arm playfully.

“Do me a favour? Never call me ‘buddy’ again.”

“You don’t like it?” I teased, grinning at him.

He didn’t reply but instead leaned back against the wall, keeping his distance this time. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I really am.”

“Good.”

Now, he squeezed my hand before letting me go, his fingers releasing me one by one, as if he didn’t want to relinquish his grip on me.

“Okay. Who wants to go first?” Caiden spoke up, looking around at us all.

“I will.” Cassius detailed his and West’s experience, including the fact that the figure on the podium was Martin Smith, something we hadn’t been able to tell from our position. As he spoke, he kept glancing over at Zayde.

“What is it?” Zayde eventually asked.

“Uh…I saw your dad there. Sorry, mate.”

Zayde looked down at the table, saying nothing, and Cassius rushed to fill the sudden silence. “I panicked, had to get us out of there before he saw us. There was no way we would have been able to stay under the radar with him there.”

“I think we got what we came for anyway. Plenty of video footage.” Weston tapped his phone. “I haven’t had time to go through it yet, but I’m sure it’ll throw up some interesting shit.”

“So there was another guy going around collecting bets? Any ideas who that was?” I asked the table in general.

“No fucking clue,” Caiden said. “I didn’t get a good look at him, either.” He glanced over at Zayde, who shrugged.

“I was too busy fending off Lena’s attack.”

That made me laugh. “Sorry, but if someone comes up behind me and slams their hand over my mouth, what am I supposed to do? Just sit there and let it happen? You could’ve been anyone.”

“No. You did good. You’ve got decent moves.”

From my side, Weston gave a low growl at Zayde’s words of praise, and my eyes flew to his in time to catch his frown. Guess this new possessive streak was as much a surprise to him as it was to me.

I noticed Cassius watching us both from across the table, so I shuffled a bit further away from Weston. Just to make it clear that we were taking the whole just being friends thing seriously. He raised a brow, then smirked at me. I hate you, I mouthed, and a laugh burst from his lips.

“Something funny?”

Cassius turned to Caiden. “Nope.”

“Okay, if you’re finished, I’ll go through what I discovered with Zayde.” Caiden detailed how he and Zayde had circled the wider area around the waste ground, documenting car number plates as they searched for the vehicle that had transported the dogs. “We hit the jackpot. There was a lorry parked under the motorway bridge. Totally nondescript, just a usual haulier’s truck, but the fact that there were no distinctive markings made me stop.