Secrets and High Spirits: Secrets, Book 4 by Lou Harper

met.”
    “How did you meet?”
    “Ah, now that’s my deep, dark secret. You’d have to buy me something much stronger than a cappuccino to get it out of me. Next question?”
    “Family?”
    “Parents divorced. Mom moved to San Diego. Dad remarried. He and Teag don’t get along well. Probably has something to do with the fact that Mr. Connell married Teag’s high school teacher. Apparently, they were having an affair.” Dylan scowled. “And there’s Teag’s sister, Helen of Troy.”
    “According to the legends, she was the most beautiful woman of her time.”
    “And caused a war. I saw the movie. Brad Pitt with long hair and in a skirt looks weird, don’t you think? I didn’t mind the view, but I was thinking of him as Brad Pitt in a skirt, and not as Achilles. You know what I mean?”
    “Ehrm…sure. You don’t like Helen? She seemed nice to me.”
    Dylan shrugged. “She’s all right, I guess, more like she doesn’t like me. She probably thinks I’m corrupting her little brother. She and Teag are both headstrong and bossy as hell. I’m surprised they haven’t killed each other yet.”
    “I noticed it about Teag,” Bruce said with calculatedly offhandedness.
    “With you too? Don’t take it badly, he can’t help it. He means well.”
    “Teag seems a bit tightly wound to me. Is he always like this?”
    For the first time in the conversation, Dylan hesitated before giving a reply. “Nnno… I mean, maybe a little, but he’s been much worse since Charlie.”
    “Charlie?”
    “Yeah, Teag and Charlie had a big, ugly thing. Charlie was a charmer, fooled me too, at first, but turned out to be a total phony. First of all, he pretended to be a big-shot lawyer, but he was only a legal assistant—a perfectly fine job, if you ask me, and it wouldn’t have made any difference for Teag. But Charlie was all about head games.”
    “What kind of head games?”
    “Well, like he was always late. Every time they had a date, Charlie arrived late. He always had an excuse, naturally, but they were all lies.”
    “You lost me.”
    “Don’t you see? It’s about control. Proving he was in charge. He was like that with everything—they always went where he wanted to go, did what he wanted to do. If Teag wanted something, you could bet Charlie would want something else, and get it. But it was always in some roundabout way. He’d first go along with Teag, but in the end, they’d do what he wanted all along. It sucked, because Teag fell for the asshole hard.” Dylan leaned forward. “If you want to get on Teag’s good side, be straight with him.” He sat back, grinning. “Well, not too straight, if you know what I mean.”
    “How did they break up?”
    “I dunno. One day, Teag came home, announced that Charlie was history and I’d stop asking questions if I knew what was good for me. But the breakup must’ve been epic, because for a week at least, if Olly or I just sneezed the wrong way, Teag jumped down our throats. It was like living with a rabid badger.”
    They sat in silence for a while, sipping their coffees, Bruce digesting the fresh information.
    Dylan, however, wasn’t the kind of person who did silence well—he had an innate urge to fill it with chatter. “I feel bad for Teag—it’s kinda my fault he’s living with his sister now,” he said.
    “Oh, really?”
    “Yeah…our place got broken into, and it had to do with me, though I was totally innocent. All I did was go home with a guy and watch some porn. I didn’t even get to blow him. Anyhoo, I can’t talk about that stuff—I signed papers—but the landlord wanted us to be gone very bad. I was moving in with Simon anyway, and Olly decided to shack up with Rich, and there was poor Teag with nobody but his sister.”
    The young man’s prattle had Bruce’s head swimming, and he deemed it better not to ask for details. So he made agreeable noises and let it go.
    Undaunted, Dylan went on. “Can I ask you