Read Online Silas by V. J. Chambers - Free Book Online

that you’re laying down
ground rules while you’re trying to get in their pants.” She got
out of the car.
    I sighed.
    She peered down at me. “Is
it because of Sylvia?”
    I got out of the car and
slammed the door. “It has nothing to do with Sylvia.”
    “ Okay,” she said, shutting
her own door. “Does it have to do with Jolene French?”
    I rubbed my forehead. “Do we
have to talk about this?”
    “ Fine,” she said. “But I
think you should really work through your issues.”
    “ I think I should go home
and let you stay at this party.”
    “ You’re my ride,” she said,
walking towards Griffin’s and Leigh’s apartment.
    “ I’ll come pick you up
later,” I said. “You can call me.”
    “ No. You’re the best man.
You need to be here.”
    I sighed. I followed her.
    * * *
    I came out of the
bathroom. “Okay, who’s up for
shots?”
    It was quiet.
    Christa looked up at me from
the couch. Sloane was passed out next to her. Griffin and Leigh
were nowhere in sight. “Oliver and Jordan left.”
    “ For real?” I said. “It’s
like 12:30.”
    “ Yeah, Griffin’s friends are
pathetic.”
    I looked around. “I guess
Griffin and Leigh went to bed.”
    She nodded. “They’re
pathetic too.”
    “ You know it,” I
said.
    “ I remember when I used to
think that Griffin was so cool,” she said. “He was my big brother,
and I thought everything he did was just the most awesome thing
ever.” She shook her head. “And now…”
    I laughed. “Hey, he’s still
pretty cool, right?”
    She shrugged. “I know he’s
your friend and all, but sometimes... I guess I don’t know him very
well. I mean, he was in that coma for all those years, and we
thought he was dead.”
    Coma? Oh, yeah. That was
right. Griffin had told his family that he’d been in a coma and
that the hospital had a paperwork snafu, leading to his being
labeled as someone else and his family mistakenly being told he was
dead. The truth was that Op Wraith had faked his death when they’d
busted him out of prison. His family had no idea that he’d been an
assassin.
    Luckily, Sloane and I didn’t
have any family to worry about besides each other, so we didn’t
have to worry about spinning stories like that.
    “ Yeah, that must have been
strange for you,” I said. “It must have been like he came back to
life.”
    She nodded. “Yeah. Pretty
much exactly like that. But he’s so different now. He used to be
fun, you know? Now, whenever I look at him, he just looks like he’s
been through hell or something. There’s all this pain in his eyes.
It’s like he’s years older than he actually is.”
    I wasn’t sure what to say.
Christa was more insightful than she actually knew. But it wasn’t
my place to tell her Griffin’s secrets.
    She got up off the couch.
“Fuck. Why am I telling you this?”
    “ Because I’m here,” I said.
“Because I’m a good listener?”
    She snorted. “You are the
opposite of a good listener, Silas.”
    “ Hey, you don’t even know
me,” I said. “You’re basing all of your information on that one
night when we hung out. You give me a chance, I might surprise
you.”
    She cocked her head at me.
“Okay, fine. I’ll give you a chance. Let’s be friends, Silas.” She
offered me her hand.
    I took it. “You know,
friends was not exactly what I had in mind.”
    “ What did you have in
mind?”
    “ Hot, sweaty sex, of
course.”
    She pulled her hand away.
“You don’t give up, do you?”
    “ No,” I said.
    She sighed, going around me and into
the kitchen.
    I followed her. “Hey, I was
joking. Mostly, I mean. You are wicked hot, and I can’t be around you without
thinking nasty thoughts, but I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to be
friends.”
    She looked up from the
refrigerator. “You know that there’s all the stuff for Irish car
bombs in here?”
    I raised an eyebrow. “You
don’t say.”
    “ I do say,” she said,
pulling two bottles of Guinness out of the refrigerator.