Collide (The Barker Triplets 2)

By ten a.m. Shane was in a foul mood and for the tenth time in as many minutes he pulled out his cell phone and glanced down at Bobbi’s text message.

Hey. I’m tired. Gonna crash here. C U tomorrow around 4. B.

Tired? What the hell.

Bobbi was never tired. The girl had more energy than she knew what to do with. Shit, just last week he caught her organizing his tools because she had an extra ten minutes before going to work. She couldn’t spend a half an hour reading a book without fidgeting or chewing on her fingernails, or tapping her feet like she was an Irish dancer.

Bobbi Jo Barker didn’t get tired and she especially didn’t get tired on a Saturday night when she should have been home with him. In his bed. In his arms.

He thought about their conversation the day before and ran his hands through the mess of hair on his head. It was a goddamn mess because he’d slept like shit.

Pia whined and he glanced down at her. “She told me she loved me, you know.” It should be enough.

But it wasn’t. And though he refused to be that guy—the pussy-whipped asshole who couldn’t function without his woman around—he needed to find out what the hell was going on without calling Bobbi like a pathetic loser.

Absently rubbing Pia, he decided to do what any other sane adult would do.

Shane grabbed his leather jacket from the table where he’d flung the night before and pulled it on. He shoved his bare feet into his work boots and took the stairs two at a time, hitting the pavement running once he was outside.

The sun was shining, the temperature on the warm side—which was a good thing considering he was half naked. Birds chirped in the trees around him, buds were beginning to spring forward and damned if a robin didn’t fly into the huge oak tree behind the carriage house.

He ignored all of it and marched through melting snow and mud, toward Logan’s house, which was about a fifty feet straight ahead, just beyond the garage. An old home, it had been built by a rich landowner back in the eighteenth century and Logan was slowly restoring it to its former glory.

Shane hopped up onto the porch and without hesitating rang the doorbell. It chimed. Loud and clear.

He waited a few moments. He rolled his shoulders and peered into the window to his right.

He rang the doorbell again. And still he waited. This time with his jaw clenched tightly and his brows so low he looked like a fucking Neanderthal.

That heavy feeling in his gut churned and he winced, his frown deepening just as the door flew open. Billie, clad in a pair of pink track pants and a T-shirt that was not only backwards, but inside out, stared up at him in surprise. She moved an inch and glanced around him, her gaze slowly returning to his face and then down to the bottom of his boots.

Her hair was mussed, her lips swollen like they’d just been kissed, and Shane groaned inwardly. Shit.

“I’m sorry, Billie. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Really? You rang the doorbell for nearly five minutes.”

God, he felt like an idiot. He was the pathetic guy that he swore he would never be. The one who mooned over a woman. The one who all of a sudden couldn’t sleep by himself anymore. When the hell had that happened?

Shane went to shove his hands into the pockets of his jeans and…fuck, he wasn’t wearing any. Instead, his fisted hands hung stiffly at his side.

“Do you want to come in?” Billie shivered and stepped back. “Logan is putting on a pot of coffee.”

He wasn’t sure what he should do. Christ, he wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

“Or you could stand on the porch in your boxers. I don’t care.”

Shane glanced down, a half-hearted smile on his face. “I ran out of the house without, ah, getting dressed.”

“I see that,” Billie said softly. “It’s okay. I’m not complaining. That tattoos are really hot.”

“What tattoo’s? Who’s complaining?” Logan slipped his arms around Billie from behind, and looked over her head at Shane as if Shane had lost his mind. “What the hell is going on, Gallagher? And where the hell are your clothes?”

“He seems to have forgotten them,” Billie said, wriggling out of Logan’s arms. “Are you coming in or what?”

Shane glanced at Logan and shrugged. Why the hell not? It wasn’t as if he had anyone waiting for him back at his place.

He followed them inside, shucked his boots, though he kept his jacket on, and headed toward the kitchen. He had just grabbed a coffee and sat at the kitchen table, when Billie slid down across from him.