I looked over at Copper’s best friend.
I’d talked with Webber a lot over the last two months. He was Copper’s best friend and showed up at random times throughout the day and night. Sometimes it was at Copper’s place. Sometimes it was at Copper’s office.
Other times he would just pop up at the restaurant that we were eating at.
I liked Webber a lot, and I was fairly sure the man had Copper’s location on his phone. I secretly wondered if they all had Life 360 on each other or something, because how else would the man know when and where to show up for dinner without calling or sending a single text?
I’d gotten to know Webber well, even better than I knew Copper’s family—though I felt like I knew them pretty well now, too.
The Claybornes weren’t shy about family and sharing their love with each other.
Though Copper never talked about his time in prison, I knew that his family was trying to make up for lost time, so they showed up almost as much as Webber did.
Honestly, I think the only reason they didn’t show up more was because they all were married now with kids, or kids on the way. It was hard to just leave when you had a whole ass family to think about—something I understood more than most.
Tonight, I’d had to have my dad come to Copper’s place to watch Holt for the night so I could get out of the house—something he’d been more than glad to do.
“What look?” I hedged.
We both knew what look it was.
I had the hots for his best friend.
“The one that says you’re eye fucking my best friend,” Webber snorted. “Don’t play dumb, darlin’, it’s unbecoming.”
“I have a six-month-old,” I said as I turned my back on Copper when a woman came up to him and placed her hand on his arm. A hand that he didn’t remove. Not that he should, or anything. It wasn’t like we were together or anything. But still, that fucking hand on his arm felt like it was actually wrapped around my heart and squeezing it to death. “I don’t think those thoughts.”
Webber’s eyes called me a liar, and I pushed at him with my shoulder and turned away before saying, “Anything more on Reign?”
“Not much,” he admitted, giving me the out by also turning his shoulders away from Copper and the random woman. “She was moved from the psychiatric facility in town to a new one in Des Moines because they specialize in her specific brand of crazy.”
Her brand of crazy.
That was hilarious, to be honest.
Webber had been such a good sport about it all. He’d even made himself a friend in the older couple that Reign had stolen the baby from.
My lips twitched. “I guess that’s good, not to have to worry about her coming around anymore. I saw her apartment got packed up finally.”
“She wasn’t paying the rent, and Copper got her evicted,” Webber said casually. So casually, in fact, that it shocked me. “He didn’t tell you he owned the apartment, I guess?”
No, he hadn’t.
Though, if I was being honest with myself, Copper may share his home, his office, and the workload when it came to Holt, but he didn’t share his feelings, or any of the things that were happening in his life. I didn’t know anything about his business, his work life, or his family unless someone else told me about it. Like now, for instance.
“I didn’t know that Copper owned the apartments,” I admitted.
The sheer amount of money involved in owning an apartment complex seemed astronomical.
I’d actually been looking at apartments lately, thinking that I would eventually have to get out of Copper’s hair, and had noticed a listing in his building go up a couple of weeks ago—though I hadn’t realized it was Reign’s old apartment.
The rent had been just under five thousand dollars a month, something I had no hope in ever making in a month, let alone being able to blow it all on an apartment in the middle of the city.
I lifted my root beer—non-alcoholic so it wouldn’t mix poorly with my antidepressants—and found it empty.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Do you want anything?”
Webber shook his head and lifted his drink while saying, “I’m full up, babe.”
