Craft (The Gibson Boys 2)

“How do you do that without flinching?” I ask.

“Practice. Lots and lots of practice,” he says, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “Wanna talk about that or your problem?”

Pulling out a chair, I sit at the table. Peck follows suit.

“Fine,” I say, wishing I would’ve brought the tequila to the table with me. “I have this … what word do I want to use? This … discomfort,” I say, not happy with the word selection but going with it to hurry this along.

“Um, I think this is a discussion to have with Nana. Or your doctor.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I laugh. “It’s not like that, asshole.”

“Good because I love you and all but I don’t love you enough to hear about excretions and shit.”

I reach as far as I can to the side and grab the bottle of tequila. One more time and I have the shot glass too.

As I’m pouring another swallow of fire, I ignore Peck’s curiosity. I pretend like he’s not there until the shot has settled in my stomach and I feel the tinge of numbness only a good tequila can bring.

“Okay,” I say, licking the bitterness of the drink from my lips. “I think I’m experiencing feelings, Peck.”

His laughter is unexpected. It bounces off the walls of my kitchen, the sound amplifying as it rattles around me.

“If I hadn’t drunken this shit, I’d be knocking you off that chair.” I laugh, not able to keep a straight face.

“You’d be trying, lover boy.”

“Have I ever told you I hate you?”

“Not in a while,” he grins. “Good to know you haven’t lost all of your damn mind.”

The tequila sloshes in the bottle as I spin it around and around. “I might’ve. Or I might be. Fuck this shit.”

“All right. Slow down. What’s happening? Or who is happening?” His eyes light up. “The nurse. It’s the nurse, isn’t it?”

“She’s not a nurse.”

Peck leans back in his chair. “Okay.”

“It was the nurse, only she wasn’t a nurse. I actually know her in my real life. Not that the app isn’t real life, but you know what I mean.”

His smarmy smile from the other side of the table makes me pour another shot.

“I do know what you mean,” he says. “Continue on.”

“I told myself I’d just fuck her. But that was before I knew who she was. When she was just the librarian—”

“Wait.” Peck shoots up, leaning forward on the table. “The nurse is the librarian? The one you’re always talking about who bakes cupcakes and stuff?”

“That,” I say, pointing a wobbly finger his way, “is true.”

He motions in a circle and laughs. “Keep going.”

“So now I’m in this Catch-22, right? I mean, as the librarian, I like her as a person, but I totally want to fuck her. And as the nurse, I totally want to fuck her, but I kind of like her too. Now they’re the same person and I like her and want to fuck her and I did fuck her at her mom’s house today and now I have all these weird thoughts in my head that I can’t get rid of and I think …” I down the shot.

Peck takes the tequila bottle and places it in front of him. “I think you got more than a little pussy today, cousin. I think you went and got yourself fucked.”

My forehead hits the table. The room spins but I’m ninety-nine percent sure that it’s just my imagination, just like I hope the rest of this fuckery is my imagination too.

I was this close to not taking her home. It would’ve been so easy to just drive to my house or to Bluebird and spend a few more hours together.

Why do I want to spend actual time out of bed with a woman?

I don’t want to want this. I don’t want any fucking part of this but it doesn’t seem like I have a voice in the matter.

I love touching her, feeling her light up as our bodies connect. It doesn’t even have to include my cock, which is a new thing for me. I can control my dick. Plenty of practice there. But the rest of this? Wanting to hold her hand? Touch her face? Fucking talk to her about cupcakes and books and family stuff? What the hell do I do with that? Who am I?

And since when does thinking about a woman screwing another man bother me? It’s a given. People aren’t monogamous. Having to interface with Eric today and knowing he had her before me, that somewhere in her beautiful little mind she remembers what his cock felt like, made me want to knock him out. I want to erase that from her brain and fill it only with memories of me.

Fuck. This.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here. I’m not saying this for your ego,” Peck says, “because we all know that isn’t an issue.”