In Her Sights (The Thousand Words Series Book 2) by Tori Brooks Page B

Dev for a moment while Jess took another drink of his beer. He didn’t look good.
    “What were they even doing in New York? Cassie’s supposed to be at Berkley and Tiff was at Harvard,” Jess demanded.
    “Cass flies out every now and again. It’s summer. They were probably shopping,” Bryan answered quietly. “I’ll tell Bren, assuming she doesn’t know already. She can grab Lindsay, maybe Sophie, and spend some time with Cassie. I assume she’ll be at home for a while. Doing the girl-thing at the mall or whatever might help.”
    “Good idea, Bryan. It’ll distract her a bit from the fact that we won’t be there,” Kenny agreed.
    “What? We aren’t going home for the funeral? Tiffany was Cassie’s best friend. She’ll need our support,” Jess protested.
    Kenny looked him in the eye and let one eyebrow twitch upward in amusement.
    “Oh,” Jess said. He laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
    “Yeah. So, no, we won’t be able to make it. Sorry. I talked to Flynn, he knows the timing is just too tight and he understands. Dev will call Cassie back later tonight and break it to her.
    “Tiff meant a lot to all of us. She was right there with us through some tough times. Sometimes we fought, sometimes she cheered us on. In a way she was like a sister maybe. It feels a little weird not to be there, but it won’t help her. It’s not really about her anymore. Now it’s about the people she left behind.
    “Dev, how much sleep did you get? You look like hell.” Normally Dev was a poster-boy for how to be fashionable and well-dressed. At the moment he looked like he spent the night in a subway.
    Dev didn’t answer. He just shook his head and gave a weary shrug.
    “Right. Bryan, escort him back to his room, your room, wherever. Make him get some rest. Actually, first, Dev, are you going to make it tonight? Alec has this big ‘the show must go on’ spiel, but if we’re not up to it, I’d rather not disappoint our fans with a half-assed attempt to fake our way through it.”
    Kenny wouldn’t have bet on it, but Dev actually made eye contact. “Yeah. Sure. Maybe pick out a song for Tiff.”
    “She liked Everything For You, ” Bryan said.
    “We’ll run through it a couple of times before the show,” Kenny nodded. “I’ll talk to Alec about where we can work it in. I assume we all still know it? We’ve played it enough.” He looked around and everyone nodded.
    “All right. Dev, to bed with you. Bryan, enforce it. Jess, sit tight, drink your beer.”
    “I love German beer,” Jess said, sitting up and finishing his glass as they watched Dev and Bryan leave.
    “Thought you’d need that,” Kenny nodded. He walked over to the phone and called down for room service to send up another.
    “This is going to be that bad?” Jess asked when he hung up. Kenny held up a finger to indicate that he should wait. A couple of minutes later a knock on the door indicated Jess’s refill had arrived. Kenny signed for it and tipped generously.
    “I told Dev,” Kenny said, handing Jess the fresh glass of dark beer.
    Jess took a drink then set it on the nightstand. “It was inevitable, I suppose. So how’d the kid take it that I’m not talking to his sister?”
    “Concerned. He agreed we couldn’t go home under the circumstances. That shows the depth of his concern, I think. He’s siding with your mental health over supporting Cassie in her grief.”
    Jess shook his head. “That’s wrong. She’s his sister.”
    “You’re his friend. He acknowledges it’d be too easy to tip off Cassie something’s wrong and that would make it worse for her too. When you get right down to it, Dev’s practical.”
    “He can’t be happy about this. I fought with Tiff almost constantly and I don’t feel right about missing her funeral.”
    “I didn’t say he was happy, I said he was practical. Cassie has other people there who care about her. She’ll miss us, him mostly, but Sophie and Bren have our