Free I Swear by Lane Davis Page B

Wolinsky. Is Bradley Wyst here?”
    “Sure thing,” I said, holding open the glass storm door. “I’m Jake. C’mon in. I’ll get him.”
    Brad was coming up the stairs in the foyer behind me. In his boxers. “Hey, Pau—”
    “Dude.” I cut him off.
    At the sight of Lauren Wolinsky, Brad let out a long whoosh of air with a frown, then folded his arms over his bare chest and leaned against the door to the stairway.
    “You’re . . . definitely not the housekeeper.”
    Lauren Wolinsky pursed her lips in a smirk and shook her head as she reached into a black leather attaché case that hung from the shoulder of her navy suit jacket. “No, no I am not,” she said. Then she turned back to me. “Jake . . . as in Jacob Walker?”
    “Yes?” I said. Confused but pleased. She knows my name?
    “Bradley Wyst?”
    “You got it,” said Brad, extending his hand with the grin he refers to as “the Dazzler.”
    Lauren offered each of us an envelope and smiled kindly as we took them from her. “Gentlemen, I’m Lauren Wolinsky with Latham, Dirkson, and Soloway. You’ve been served.”
    Then she turned on the heel of her red-soled shoe and left us standing there wide awake.

13. JILLIAN
    “Jake, I need you to be here,” I said again.
    I was begging now. The Merricks were due here in fifteen minutes, but he wasn’t listening. He pulled on a tank top and bent over to lace up his running shoes.
    “Please?” I tried again. He grabbed his Nano and untangled the earbuds. He heard me, but he wasn’t listening. He’d barely said a word to me since Saturday, when we met up at Marv’s after Leslie’s memorial. He stayed at Brad’s that night and Sunday night, and today, by the time he got home from practice, we all knew that nothing had blown over with the Gatlins and their lawyers.
    “Please, Jake?” I asked again. He finished with his shoes and then reached for his iPod.
    I grabbed a pillow off his bed and threw it at his head. “Argh! Jake! I hate it when you give me the silent treatment. Say something!”
    Slowly he bent down and put the pillow neatly back onto the bed, then walked to the door. He paused in the hallway, looked back at me, and shook his head.
    “There’s nothing left to say, Jills. You got yourself into this mess.”
    “But you’re a part of this story too,” I said, panic rising in my throat.
    “Maybe,” he said quietly, looking down at his shoes. “But I didn’t write the ending. You and Macie did that. You’re on your own.”
    And then he was gone.
    •  •  •
    Thirty minutes later, Macie had arrived with her mom and dad and we were all upstairs, waiting on Jake.
    “Where’s your brother?” Macie’s voice was clipped and her jaw was clenched.
    “Yeah, Jillian,” said Josh with a smirk. “Macie needs some eye candy. She’s bored with Brad’s ugly mug.”
    Brad laughed and punched him in the shoulder. “Shut up, asshole.”
    Josh got a subpoena the same time that Krista and I did. We were on our way to lunch off campus today.
    “We have to strategize about this,” Macie said from her perch on the arm of the couch, next to Brad. She had her legs crossed and her dangling foot was shaking up and down a million times a second like it does when she’s figuring things out.
    “Calm down, babe.” Brad rested his hand gently on Macie’s back.
    Our parents were downstairs discussing the subpoenas. Katherine’s dad had an associate named Patrick who was going to handle the case for all of us. Mr. Merrick just wanted it kept off the Action News at eleven. Beth’s mom wanted it kept off the prayer chain at her church Bible study.
    Brad was trying to keep us all off the ceiling. I felt relieved somehow that he was in the room, even though he’d put his hand on Macie’s back and not mine. He made me feel settled on the inside, but somehow he made Macie more riled up.
    “Don’t tell me to calm down, Brad.” She shrugged his hand off her back, stood up, and paced over to