Page 75 of Broken Pieces
“What’s up, Brooks?” she asks as she pauses the TV.
“Have you seen Raelynn?”
She licks her spoon before setting it back in the bowl. “Not for a couple hours. She finished up here around six and headed out. Is she not home?”
I must look panicked. Summer straightens up in her spot and sets the bowl on the table. “What’s wrong?”
I worry about the kind of mood Rae could have been in to cause her to leave. Maybe she just needed some space and went for a walk on the grounds, which isn’t completely out of the ordinary. But with the rain coming down I don’t want her to be stuck outside in it somewhere.
I really hope she didn’t call those damn losers she was with from that time I found her at Sawyer’s. Especially because she doesn’t have her phone with her. Fuck, I need to find her.
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, but I feel Summer’s hand on my shoulder. “Hey, do you want me to get Brett? He’s upstairs changing sheets on the beds. We can go look for her.”
I shake my head. “I’ll find her.”
“Maybe she is with her brother.”
I grip my hair as I think about that option. “Maybe. But she left her phone on the coffee table.”
Summer walks over to the couch and picks her phone up off the couch. “Let’s call Easton.”
I nod as I grab her phone after she places the call.
I swallow, knowing Easton isn’t going to be happy when he hears me on the other end of the line.
“Hey Summer,” he says when he answers the phone.
“It’s Brooks.”
The change in his tone is instant. “What do you want?”
I rub the back of my neck. “Have you seen Rae?”
“Why would I have seen her?”
“She isn’t here. I thought she would in the cottage when I got home, but she wasn’t there. I checked the house and she’s not here either. Summer hasn’t seen her in a few hours.” I realize my mistake the second I shut my mouth.
I glance up at Summer and her eyes are wide.
“And why the hell would she be in your cottage? Are you fucking my sister?” he growls into the phone.
Fuck.
I need an explanation. I don’t think the word no will work.
Summer rips the phone from my hand, she clearly heard the words Easton yelled.
She puts the phone on speaker. “For Pete’s sake Easton, that doesn’t matter. And I am one hundred percent sure it ain’t true. Those two can barely stand to be around each other.”
“It didn’t seem like that at her birthday party.”
“I think you’re hallucinating.”
Real smooth Summer.
“But for your information, yes, they live in the cottage and before you open your big grumpy mouth, you should know it was my idea. Both were against it. But my business started booming and I needed the extra room.”
Easton’s anger hasn’t cooled. “Then she could have moved back in here with me.”