Deep Waters

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"I promise I'm not lying," my brother claimed. "I was half asleep and wasn't even thinking. It just happened." Gavin's eyes looked exhausted as he pleaded a case with Hazel.

Kason and I walked into the living room. "Why are you being weird?" he asked Gavin.

With a sigh, my brother ran his fingers through his brown hair and met eyes with us. "She knocked on my bedroom door this morning and I accidentally opened the door without pants on, and the embarrassment is going to haunt me for the rest of my existence, and after," he ranted.

I scrunched my eyebrows and looked uncomfortable at my brother. "Why didn't you put on pants before you opened the door?"

"I was half asleep!"

A loud ring filled the air right before Kason pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and excused himself out of the room.

"Why were you even knocking on my door in the first place?" Gavin complained, wiping his tired eyes. "It's before noon, I should still be asleep."

Hazel rolled her eyes at him. "I was making rounds to tell everyone that my parents are coming back from their trip early. They will be here tomorrow," she told us.

That made me really nervous for some reason. We had finally developed a routine here and gotten comfortable enough with Sam and Hazel, where I didn't have to feel on edge twenty-four-seven. But now two more people were about to join the party.

I just nodded at Hazel and slipped her a polite smile before excusing myself into the kitchen to get a vase for my Miss Delilah flowers. I walked to a bottom cabinet where I knew there was a tall glass I could use when something caught my eye. On top of the counter, there was a picture in a frame, up against the wall. It was Sam and his ex-girlfriend. Why would he put that picture back out? Shaking my head in an attempt to shake the weird thoughts away, I put water in the glass and left it on the dining table to display the flowers.

I found Kason back in the living room. "That was my dad on the phone," he informed us. "Apparently someone is trying to sue him."

"For what?" we all asked.

"For interrogating him about something he wasn't even a part of."

"How are they even pulling a case out of that?" Gavin asked. "Cops have the right to interrogate people."

The Wesley boy shrugged and scratched the back of his neck. "I don't know but apparently the guy has a really good lawyer, so I don't know what's going to happen."

"Your dad couldn't lose his job because of it, could he?" Hazel questioned.

"I don't know."

I groaned. "As if we really needed to add this to our list of things going on in our lives," I blurted. "...It'll work out," I comforted him. "Daniel will be just fine."

He sighed and kissed the top of my head. "I hope so."

#

I have looked everywhere. The letter was nowhere to be found. I checked every inch of my room and my empty suitcases, every single book on that bookcase, the dirty laundry, the vehicles...everywhere. It was as if the piece of paper had miraculously burned up and left this world without even ashes to prove my memory of it.

"Looking for this?"

My attention jerked to the man standing in my bedroom doorframe, holding the very letter that I had spent weeks on end hiding from existence. Sam just stared at me, the letter settled in between his pointer and middle finger.