Trusting Liam(68)

“Huh, well, that’s fun—wait! How did you get to the dealership?”

Both Kira and Rhys laughed, and after a quick look back at Kira, Rhys’s eyes were on me. “They have these cars called taxis now. You call the number, they pick you up, you pay them to drive you somewhere. They’re pretty cool.”

“Shut up,” I said on a laugh, and rolled my eyes. “You could’ve just said you called a cab, jerk.”

“But then you might have asked, ‘How?’ ”

This time I was laughing with them, but my laugh died and I blurted, “Wait! How did you call a cab?”

“Rhys asked if he could use my phone today, I left it with him when we went to work.”

For a second, I wondered why he’d asked Kira instead of me, but figured he probably didn’t feel comfortable asking me seeing as I was always either at work or at the beach, and if I was home, I was locked in my bedroom. And he and Kira had become friends over the last month, so I just nodded. “Okay, I swear I’m done with the hows.”

“Good,” Rhys said with a wink. “You girls hungry? I just finished getting everything ready about a minute before you walked in.”

“Yes!” Kira and I said in unison, and helped him carry all the dishes over to the table.

“THAT WAS SO good.” I placed a hand on my too-full stomach, and groaned. “I can’t remember the last time I ate that much.”

“Or had a home-cooked meal,” Kira added, and I agreed.

“Very true.” I looked over at Rhys and nudged him. “Did you cook while you were undercover? Or were you just still good at it when you came back?”

He laughed and shook his head once. “Definitely didn’t cook while there. I’m glad I still know how to boil water after being gone for that long.”

“Poor guy,” Kira said with an apologetic look. “You only ate takeout for four years, and then you come here and we’re too lazy to cook anything, so we force you to have more of it. Good job, us.”

“No, nothing like that. There was an older woman at the house I was in. She did all the laundry and cooked every meal except breakfast.”

“Huh,” I huffed. “Well, that’s nice, I guess.”

“No!” Rhys disagreed with a laugh. “Definitely not nice either. The way she did laundry, everything still came out dirty. She never cleaned the house with anything more than a paper towel, and would yell at us if we tried to. And her cooking? It was okay. I mean, it wasn’t horrible, but she only made three different meals. There was always a soup, but only lentil, vegetable, or cabbage. Then there would be fried chicken, enchiladas, or pasta with this red sauce that you had to choke down. And then there would be mashed potatoes, rice, or garlic bread. Everything was seasoned beyond the point of being edible, and if you’d already eaten before you got to the house, she’d still make you eat everything she gave you. So after four years of that, takeout was the most amazing thing.”

Kira and I were laughing, and I asked, “Well, why didn’t they just get someone else to cook and clean?”

“She was the leader’s mom. He cherished that woman. If you said anything negative about her, the cooking, or the house . . . it was over for you.”

“Oh my God, are you serious?” Kira asked with wide eyes.

“Very.” Rhys sighed. “You didn’t mess with that guy’s mom.”

“Apparently not,” I murmured. “Can you tell us anything about your time undercover? We’ve heard stories from Dad and Uncle Mason. But we obviously heard the stories years after anything happened.”

“Uh,” Rhys began, and his dark eyes got a faraway look. “We dealt, mostly. That was the big thing. Well, we didn’t. We were the suppliers.”

“Did you have to use?” I asked.

“Did your dad?” he shot back.

Kira and I nodded, and Rhys raised his eyebrows in confirmation.

“Not often, thank God. Getting in . . .” He trailed off. “Getting in, there was a lot I had to do that I hated—including a lot of using. But once I was in, it was easy to just act like I’d been using, and my stash would always be gone since I was handing it over to the department. There would only be a handful of times a year when they’d wait and watch you use. But there was always other stuff there was no way out of, as I’m sure you can imagine from hearing your dad’s stories.”

“Yeah,” Kira breathed. “He said he and Mason were obsessive about getting tested because of what they had to do.”

Rhys agreed, “Yep. I was lucky; but none of the test results ever stopped me from being terrified. Just never knew what could happen before the next test.”