“Keep your f**king hands off my girl,” he growls. But then he opens his arms, and Sam falls into them. They hug the way men do, with lots of backslapping and murmured words. “I’m glad you’re here,” Pete says.
“You called. I came. Like a good big brother.”
“Eight minutes,” Pete growls playfully. He drops an arm around my shoulders. “He was born eight minutes before me and he thinks he’s the shit because he’s older.”
He coughs into his fist. “Excuse me. I am the shit.” He grins. He looks so much like Pete that it’s almost disturbing.
“I think you’re both shits,” Paul says as he goes to fridge and gets a beer.
“You want something to drink?” Pete asks me quietly.
I shake my head.
He cups my face with his hand. “You look a little tired. You want to go to bed?”
I nod. “We probably should.”
He grins. I think he likes the we part.
“Do you think it would be okay if I take a shower first?” I ask. I’ve been in the car for hours, and I feel kind of grimy. I’d kind of like to be clean when I snuggle naked with Pete for the first time.
He nods and leads me toward the bathroom, where he flips the light on. He takes out towels and lays them on the counter for me. “You need some help taking your clothes off?” he asks. He waggles his eyebrows at me playfully.
“Yeah,” I say, and I close the door behind us.
Pete
Shit. She said yes.
She shoves the door closed behind me, and I freeze. I want to reach for her, but my family is about ten feet away from us on the other side of the door. “Do you need some shampoo or something?” I ask again. I reach behind her and shift the shower curtain. There’s still girly-smelling stuff in there from when Emily lived with us.
“I like your family,” she says, and then her arms wrap around my waist. She lays her head on my chest and nuzzles me with her nose, and my heart melts like it does every time she touches me.
“I’m glad.” I hold her close. I was a little worried they would scare her. It’s a lot of testosterone in one room. Luckily, Emily was here, too.
Finally, she pulls back from me. “Okay,” she breathes. “You can go.” She shoos me toward the door with a wave of her hands.
I kiss her, lingering a little too long on her lips, but she doesn’t pull away from me. I groan, pull back from her, and adjust my junk. I slip out the door and close it behind me, and then I hear the thumb lock click behind me. I lean my head against the door and breathe for a minute. But then I turn around and see Sam standing there. “Is that who I think it is?” he asks quietly. He has his shoulder hitched against the wall and his feet crossed.
“Who do you think it is?” I ask as I walk to the linen closet and take out clean sheets to put on the double bed in Logan’s old room.
“That’s the girl from that night,” he says quietly. He obviously doesn’t want anyone else to hear him. I asked my brothers to keep an eye on her. Of course he knows who she is. Paul or Matt would have told him.
I nod. He follows me into the bedroom and helps me strip the bed, and we start to put the clean sheets on.
“How did you end up with her?” he asks.
“She came looking for me when I got out,” I say. I can’t explain it any better than that. She’s the reason I was at the camp, after all. It’s true.
“You like her?” he asks as he tucks in a corner of the sheet.
I nod. “A lot,” I admit.
“Uh oh,” he breathes. His brow arches. “You’re in love with her.”
I nod, and a grin steals across my face. “A lot,” I say again.
Maggie walks into the room and lies down at my feet. “Cute dog,” he says.
“She’s a trained killer,” I say.
He laughs. “Tell me another one.”
“Try to get close to Reagan and see what happens,” I warn. I’m not kidding. That dog almost made me piss my pants that one night.
“I’d rather not,” he says. “So, you doing okay?” he asks.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. He looks up, shocked.
“For what?” His brow furrows.
“For ignoring you. For not answering your letters. For being mad at you when I told you to run.”
His mouth falls open, like he doesn’t know what to say next. “I should have stayed.”
“I didn’t want you to stay.” I heave in a deep breath. “I was jealous,” I admit. It hurts like f**king hell, but it’s the truth. “You went off to college and started living the dream. And I wasn’t there.” We’d never, ever been separated before that.
He sits down on the edge of the bed. “We were pretty stupid to work with Bone when we knew it was wrong.”
I nod. “Fucking idiots.”
“We should have known better,” he says.
“Yep.” I sit down beside him.
“Do you want to kiss and make up now?” he says, grinning.
I reach over and hug him, knocking him to the bed in the process, and he wraps his arms around me. His grappling quickly becomes wrestling, and he pins me for a minute on the sheets. But we’re pretty evenly matched. I wiggle out of his hold and flip him over, and it’s my turn to be on top. He makes a noise because he knows I have him, and then he flips me over his head. I live for this shit, but then I hear Maggie. Sam freezes on top of me and looks down.