My Brother’s Best Friends

***Reagan***

Ittookanotherfive minutes for me to get out of the Stovall’s house, and when I finally did, I had leftovers and half a pie with me. I stopped myself from running because I didn’t want to look insane to the people hiring me, but it took everything in me. I needed to be away from Jenny and Theo as fast as possible. My stomach was rolling painfully and I wasn’t convinced that I wasn’t going to throw up.

I carefully sat the food boxes down in the passenger seat and then walked around to my door, feeling slightly more unhinged the longer it took. When I grabbed the door handle and tried to open the door, just to find it held closed by a massive hand braced over my head, I nearly screamed.

“Can we talk?” Theo’s voice was just as low as when he’d been talking to Jenny and it made me want to punch him in the throat.

Without looking at him, because I wasn’t sure I could, I shook my head. “I’ve got to get home to the girls.”

“I know for a fact that Piper and Posie will be awake for another three hours. Russ is shit at bedtimes.” Theo blew out a heavy sigh that ruffled the hairs at the back of my neck. “I’m not with Jenny. I didn’t cheat. I don’t cheat. Last night wasn’t that.”

I cringed away from him, not wanting to hear anything. “It’s fine. I just need to get home.”

“We’ve been divorced for almost four years. Nearly all of Iris’ life.”

I swallowed the desire to vomit. “When did you get married?”

His hand balled into a fist in front of my face, where it rested on my car. “A few months after graduation.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see any part of him. Whether it made sense or not, a heavy feeling of betrayal slammed through me. He’d married the girl who’d done everything in her power to ruin my life. Tears burned my eyes and I sank my teeth into my lip hard to stop them. I was not going to cry over milk that’d spilled ten years ago. No matter how much that spilled milk stung.

Jenny’s voice called out from the front of the house. “Theo? Come in, hon.”

He swore and lightly touched my back. “I want to talk, Rea.”

The second he gave me space, I pulled the door open and slipped into the car. Shutting and locking the door, I didn’t look back to see if he was still standing there as I drove away.

I sped on the highway back into town, desperate to get away from Theo and the weirdly happy divorced family I’d just been with. If I hadn’t been feeling awful enough about sleeping with the guys, Theo had just put the final nail in the coffin. He’d married Jenny Bokker months after she’d spread vicious stories about me.

That night we’d spent together, the night I’d lost all of my virginities to them, I’d been hopeful. I’d thought maybe they liked me. When Jenny amped up her campaign against me, they hadn’t spoken up for me. They’d denied that they’d ever touched me and made me feel like absolute shit, like I was a pathetic loser. Jenny had sent me running from Lunar as fast as possible, before I was supposed to go. I’d missed an entire summer with my parents that I was never able to get back.

The fact that Theo knew all of that and married her? It hurt. Russ not telling me hurt, too. He was so protective of his friends after that night. He didn’t tell me anything about them. After the way he’d willingly left me with them the night before, I assumed he was over his weirdness, but if I didn’t get a hold on my anger, I was going to give him all the reasons in the world to be paranoid again.

A sudden image of my brother, Lisa, and the girls at the lake house Russ shared with the other guys struck me then and my brain included Theo with Jenny and Iris. I could so easily picture Jenny and Lisa hanging out on the dock while the girls played and the guys stood around drinking. I had no idea if that was something they did, but it was all too easy for my brain to assault me with it.

I couldn’t believe I’d slept with him again. All of them! They all knew. The slow realization that I knew nothing about the guys settled over me and I nearly hyperventilated when I thought about who they might’ve married. Were they still married? Did they have kids? Was I repeating the same mistake that had sent me running from LA, in an even worse fashion?

Unfortunately, it was only the sound of a police siren and the bright flashing lights behind me that snapped me back to the present and kept me from completely coming unhinged. I glanced down at my speed and groaned as I slowed down and pulled over on the side of the highway. Swearing under my breath, I grabbed my license and registration and pressed my head back into the headrest, contemplating the fact that maybe I was just having such an emotional response because I was hungover and tired and coming out of a bad relationship. It was a lot.

When I saw movement at my window, I rolled it down and sat up straighter. “Sorry, officer. I didn’t realize I was speeding until I saw your—”

Leaning down with one hand on my window, a snug uniform stretched across his chest and arms, August stared in at me with his eyebrows raised. “In a hurry, Rea?”

I opened my mouth and then snapped it shut because I didn’t know what to say. It was whiplash to go from silently ranting about Theo to looking at August in a tight police uniform. My tongue felt heavy and way too wet for me to speak in that moment. I’d let him do really explicit things to me the night before and I hadn’t prepared for what to say when I saw him next.

He reached in and took my license and registration from me before standing up and tapping the roof of my car. “Give me just a minute.”

I frowned as I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see him walk back to his Bronco and get inside. He did something for a couple of minutes and then slowly walked back towards me, his strut too powerful and sexy for anyone’s good.

Back at my side, he bent over until we were eye to eye and handed me back my things. “Is there a reason you were driving like a bat out of hell?”

I noticed again how deep the green of his eyes was. Frustrated at myself, I looked away and sighed. “I didn’t realize I was speeding that much. I’m just heading back to Russ’.”

“I feel like I may need to keep an eye on you, Reagan. Speeding, stealing clothes in the middle of the night, sneaking out. You seem to have picked up some bad habits in the big city.”

My face betrayed me, turning hot under his gaze. I gripped the steering wheel tighter and shook my head. Before I could think of what to say, his phone rang and he glanced down at it, a smirk twisting his mouth. I bit back the need to ask if it was his wife or girlfriend. I didn’t want to sound insane, despite feeling that way.

August held my gaze as he brought the phone up to his ear. “What’s up, Theo?”

I gritted my teeth and looked away.

“Funny. I’m looking at her right now. She’s in the middle of getting a speeding ticket.” August laughed, the sound giving the same sensation as a velvet blanket over freshly shaved legs. It felt indulgent. “Oh, yeah, like a fucking getaway driver.”

Forcing myself to meet his amused eyes, I frowned. “Can I go?”

He ripped a ticket out of a notepad and grinned while he handed it to me. “Now you can. Drive safe, Rea.”

I stared at the ticket and shook my head, shocked that he was really going to ticket me.

“You can come see me at the station if you want to talk about that.” With a wink, he straightened and walked back to his truck, still talking to Theo.