Page 18 of Watch Your Back (Devil’s Backbone #2)

Paige desperately wants to get back together.

She’s persistent to the point of stalking, so yeah…

I took advantage of what she was offering.

I know full fucking well she thinks it meant I’m softening toward her, but she couldn’t be more wrong.

Letting her suck my dick was nothing more than stress relief.

Something I have been needing a whole lot more since Ashley joined Nevaeh.

The girl is going to put me in an early grave.

C arter and Nate beat us back to the apartment, and Carter was deep into his task of Lady’s belly scratches when we arrived with the dark cloud of new speculations hanging over our heads.

Nate arched a brow in question and Royce made a beeline for the kitchen.

“I’m getting a drink. Anyone else want one?” He yanked the fridge door open, and the clink of glass bottles confirmed he didn’t mean soda water.

“Yes,” Heath agreed with a grimace, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Royce grabbed a second beer, then glanced over his shoulder at me where I still stood near the door. “Squirrel?”

I jerked a nod. “Yeah. Whatever you’ve got is fine.” Not that I was a fan of beer, but after mentally acknowledging the extent of this hypnosis violation? I’d drink it and love it.

“What happened?” Nate asked, his eyes narrowed with worry as he looked between the three of us. “What did you discover in the office?”

Heath gestured for me to join him on the sofa, and I forced my feet to carry me over there while Royce deposited beers for everyone—Nate and Carter included—on the coffee table.

“It wasn’t what we discovered in the office,” Heath said with a small sigh, “which was a suspicious lack of evidence. It was the discovery that Ashes just stumbled over after we ran into your psycho ex, Nate.”

His brows rose. “Paige?”

That brought a small smile to my lips. “You have more than one? Why doesn’t that shock me?”

“She wanted to let us know that you guys are getting back together,” Royce announced, clapping Nate on the shoulder sarcastically. “Congrats, man. When can we expect baby Essex to arrive?”

Nate jerked like he’d been struck, his startled eyes flicking to me before glowering at Royce.

“Chill, bro,” Royce drawled, flopping onto the sofa on my other side and draping his arm behind me. Not on my shoulders, but if I leaned back, I could rest my head on his forearm. “Ash already knows about Paige’s lies.”

Carter cleared his throat, his bottle held between two elegant fingers as he met my eyes. “In somewhat of Nate’s defense, Spark, he gave her the benefit of the doubt up until very recently. She was very convincing with her so-called miscarriage.”

“Do we keep any secrets anymore?” Nate demanded, glaring daggers my way. “My business is none of your business, Layne, so I don’t need your opinions.”

I held up my hands defensively, shaking my head. “I hadn’t said a damn word, and didn’t intend to.” At least…not to him. Paige deserved whatever came her way.

Royce gave a short laugh, probably thinking the same as I was, about how Paige looked like she’d seen a ghost when I called her on her bullshit. Then he covered the sound by guzzling half his beer in one go.

“After we exchanged some…polite words with your ex, we stumbled over the idea that Royce’s, uh, misstep with her wasn’t entirely of his own free will.

” Heath said it as delicately as possible, without calling it what it was.

Royce fucked Nate’s girlfriend behind his back.

But our new suspicion that it was a hypnosis-planted idea…

it felt more authentic. The idea that Royce cared so little for his friend? It wasn’t him.

Stunned silence filled the room, and I watched Nate’s expression intently. What was he thinking? That it was all bullshit made up to save face for Royce? Or…

“So…you guys think that hypnosis made Royce sleep with Paige? And without that…he wouldn’t have been interested?” His expression was thoughtful, slightly shrewd, and his voice carefully even.

Royce finished his beer, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Not even the slightest bit. She always irritated me, and seeing her today made my skin crawl. Uh, no offense and shit?”

His skin crawled? That wasn’t a normal reaction to seeing a consensual one-night stand.

Nate ignored the insult to his ex and shifted his eyes to me and Heath, then tipped his head to the side.

“So to be clear, you’re suggesting hypnosis could be somehow faking attraction between otherwise unattracted individuals?

How interesting.” His gaze turned mean as he locked eyes with me.

“How confident are you, Layne, that Heath and Carter both wanted to fuck you?”

My initial reaction was that I wanted to throw my beer at him. But that knee jerk was closely followed by the ice-water dousing of uncertainty. If it was possible for Royce to be manipulated in that way, what proof did I have that Carter and Heath hadn’t been similarly influenced?

The blood drained from my head, leaving me dizzy and my mouth dry. Nate’s brow furrowed, no doubt seeing his words hit home in their intended way, and his lips parted like he wanted to say something more.

“It’s not the same,” Royce growled, interrupting before things could get any more out of hand. “No one here is being manipulated into their attraction to Ash and you fucking well know it. You’re just so choked up on jealousy that you’re grasping at straws.”

I blinked at my usually lighthearted friend. Since running into Paige, his mood had turned dark, and there was no joking in his tone as he took swipes at Nate.

“Okay, this is getting out of control,” I said quietly, trying to diffuse the fire we’d somehow lit. “And we’re burying the lede. Heath, show them what we found in the files. Do you have a pencil somewhere? I want to try the notepaper thing.”

He directed me to his desk, and I went to find it while he showed Nate and Carter the photos we’d taken of all the files. We’d made sure to photograph every society member’s file that we could find, and some non-society members to offer a comparison.

I found a pencil in the top drawer of Heath’s desk and carefully rubbed the lead over the notepaper page to reveal any indentations from a ballpoint pen writing on the page above. For a moment, I was disappointed. It seemed totally blank…or maybe I was doing the trick wrong?

Then, toward the bottom of the page, I struck gold.

Just one word: Hyperion.

“Does this word mean anything to anyone?” I asked, returning to the living room. “Hyperion? That’s what was on the notepaper.”

Royce grinned from where he was fetching another beer. “Nice work, Nancy Drew. I’m impressed.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t fight my satisfied smile. I liked when he was impressed. “Thanks. But it might just be the name of his erectile dysfunction medication or something equally useless.”

“‘Hyperion: Greek titan of heavenly light and watchfulness,’” Carter read aloud from his phone. “Why would a psychology professor be researching Greek myths?”

It didn’t make sense. Then again, for all we knew, it could be a code word or a business name or…anything really. Nate muttered something about doing some research into the incorporated company database later when he was at his computer, and I remembered he had some skill with hacking.

The conversation started to go in circles about Dr. Fox and his objectives, until Nate’s phone dinged and he groaned. “Shit, I totally forgot that was today,” he grumbled under his breath. “Heath, come for a drive?”

Heath’s brows hitched in question while he took a sip of his beer. “Where to?”

Nate tossed his phone down and ruffled his hair with his fingers. “Airport. Mom’s flight arrives in half an hour, and I’m supposed to pick her up. You know how she is, dude, and she fucking loves you…”

Nate’s mom? I’d never met her… Hell, I don’t think I could even remember Max ever mentioning her. I sort of figured she was around but she wasn’t active in Nate’s life since the divorce.

Heath’s nose wrinkled, and he shook his head. “Do I have to?”

Nate’s response was a dark glare. “After the shit you pulled this morning? Yeah. You do.”

Carter glanced between his friends, then suspiciously my way. “What’d Heath do this morning, Nathaniel? Did it have anything to do with the pair of Spark’s panties I found under the couch cushion?”

Crap. That’s where they’d been hiding. I’d had to give up when we were already running late to meet up with the guys at lunchtime.

“Fine,” Heath groaned. “But I’m using the opportunity to ask your mom about hypnosis. She could have some really good insight, and god knows we can’t trust anyone else on campus.”

I blinked, confused as I looked at Nate with curiosity. “Your mom? Why…?” Why would she have insight on this matter?

Nate nodded with a shrug. “It’s a good idea. She’s a research psychologist,” he explained for my benefit. “Spends most of her time working with some think-tank shit out in Silicon Valley but technically has tenure here as a professor, even though she’s rarely ever here.”

“She wouldn’t…um, she wouldn’t have anything to do with this, though…right?” I asked, uneasy for some reason. Coincidences didn’t sit well with me. Or was I reading way too hard into this and Nate’s mom could be a really valuable asset in our research?

Nate’s brows rose, but he didn’t seem to take offense to my implication.

“No. She wouldn’t. For one thing, she doesn’t have any student face-time when she’s here on campus.

For another, she fucking hates Dr. Fox. He tried to have her fired for some ethics shit a few years back, simply because he wanted her job.

” Then he paused, his jaw tightening and his gaze darkening.

“Not to mention the fact that she’s my mother.

Regardless of what poison Carina has told you about her, she’s still my mom and would never hurt me. Or any of us.”

My jaw flapped a couple of times before I managed to squeeze an apology out. “Sorry, I didn’t… My mom has never even mentioned her. I just… Everyone feels like a suspect. That’s all.”

Heath rubbed my back reassuringly. “That’s valid, Ashes. Nate’s mom is a bit cold, but she’s not a psychopath. Promise.”

As I glanced around at the other guys, they all seemed to be in agreement, so I shrugged.

“Okay, you all know her. Yeah, maybe see if she can offer any insight into what this is all about. Just…I don’t know.

Be careful not to say too much? Not that she’s involved, but what if she says something to the wrong person and it comes back to bite us in the ass later? ”

To my surprise, it was Nate who nodded his agreement. “That’s valid. We will keep it vague. Got it, Heathcliff?”

Heath offered a mock salute. “Understood, boss. Are we leaving now? I’d better get changed.”

Nate grinned, rolling his eyes. “You’re such a suck-up, Briggs, you know that?”

Heath only took a few minutes to change into a collared shirt, then kissed me and promised to call me later before leaving with Nate. I frowned after them, chewing my lip as I worried about all the what-ifs of involving someone else in our little investigation.

“This is good,” Royce said, shaking me out of my spiraling thoughts.

“Nate’s mom is supersmart and well connected in the academic space.

Even if she doesn’t know, she’ll know someone we can ask.

Come on, Squirrel, let’s head back to your dorm.

” He pushed up from the couch and carried our bottles to the kitchen to trash.

I shook my head, giving him a narrow-eyed look. “For one thing, that was your third beer. For another, don’t you have a date tonight? Willa, right?”

Royce winced and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Right. Willa.”

Carter scoffed. “Go shower, bro. I’ll keep Spark company.”

For a moment, Royce stared at his friend with an unreadable expression on his face. Then he sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Cool.” Then he disappeared down the hall toward his room, looking like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Alone with Carter all of a sudden, I felt my pulse start to race. Was this what a lamb felt like under the watch of a wolf?

“Oh, gosh, look at the time. I promised I’d meet Carly for dinner. See ya!” I quickly scooped up my car keys and made a beeline for the door while Carter laughed behind me.

“Coward!” he teased, but I was already out of their apartment with the door closing firmly between us.