“You have to go see her. Talk to her. Make sure she’s okay.”
Chayton watched his brother pace across the length of the living room. “What? You can’t do it?” He flicked his wrist and cast Aikido’s pole, tossing the fuzz that drove the cat crazy. Hunkered in the middle of the floor, Aikido glanced back and forth from the fuzz to Garret’s shoes.
“No, she’s pissed at me.”
Chayton wished the cat would attack Garret. He stopped moving the pole so the fuzz would no longer be an attractant. “She found out.” It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact. “Which wouldn’t be a problem if you’d told her in the first place.”
Garret was an honest, straight shooting guy, and Chayton hated to see him hurt. He meant well, always thinking no one but he could handle the truth, always wanting to protect people from pain and heartache, always acting like he was operating under one big secret. He didn’t realize if he’d just be forthright, he wouldn’t have these problems.
“You have no idea what you’re saying,” Garret said, proving to Chayton his earlier conclusion was right. Garret believed he was the only one who understood the human mind. “If I’d told her and she was involved with Kyle, what is the first thing you think would have happened?” He stopped pacing and faced Chayton. Aikido eyed his prey, shaking his rear. Definite attack mode. Garret paced again. “She’d call the bastard and tell him the FBI is investigating him. I didn’t know her well enough to know what she’d do.”
Aikido elected that moment to lunge at Garret’s leg and attached himself firmly onto his pants. Garret yelled, Chayton laughed, and Aikido disentangled himself and ran.