Rough Edge (Tannen Boys 2)

He kisses my cheek—and I mourn that it’s not my lips—before his forehead lands on the top of my head. “Can you call her now or something? I was hoping to be balls deep in you already.”

He’s teasing, I think. It’s hard to tell, but I laugh anyway as I push him back. “I was planning on being full of cock myself. You can deliver that, right, Cowboy?”

He groans and pushes his hips against me, proving that he can definitely deliver.

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

His answering sigh is ragged. “Shit.”

Yep, that about sums it up.

“You should go. I’ll call you after I talk to her, one way or another.” I don’t think about what I’m going to do if Emily says she’s got some claim on Brody. Don’t think about that option at all. I’m a fighter, but not against my sister. I won’t let anything come between us, sisters before misters and all that rah-rah.

He grabs a pen off my desk and carefully writes his number down on a piece of paper. Mr. Nguyen will just have to understand why there are extra notes on his invoice. “Call me, Erica.” The order both bristles and excites me, contrary sensations but there all the same.

Brody looks me up and down once more, and I can feel that magnetic pull yanking us together, but he holds strong and moves toward the door instead of me. He gives in and glances back once, though, and I can see the hungry fire still burning in his eyes.

I’m almost pissed that Bessie starts up easily this time, even though I knew she would because I did the work. But if she’d stalled out again, Brody would’ve come back in and we could’ve . . .

No, it’s a good thing, I think as she roars into the night, taking Brody away from me. But I’m left feeling cold and horny.

Shit.

Chapter 7

Erica

I can do this. I’m such a raging bitch of a sister, but I can do this at least. I knock on the door with my free hand and take a fortifying breath as I hear the footsteps on the other side.

The door swings open and I see the surprise on Emily’s face a split second before she exclaims, “Rix? What are you doing here?”

Back ramrod straight, I stare her down like she’s the firing squad tasked with my execution. “We need to talk. I brought wine and ice cream.” I hold up the brown paper bag as proof. And bribery. Not that I have to bribe her to talk to me, but maybe to not kill me.

“Okaaay, everything okay?” She shakes her head. “Obviously not, because you’re here with wine, which I know you hate with the flames of a thousand suns. So get in here and break it to me.”

She ushers me in, taking the bag of goodies. “Em, I—”

“Nope, not yet.” She gives me her back to grab two glasses from the cabinet and a wine opener. The pop of the cork on the pinot noir the lady at the liquor store recommended when I told her I hate wine sounds like a gunshot to my jumpy nerves.

Emily takes a healthy swig from her glass and holds mine out to me. I take it but don’t drink. I don’t deserve for the alcohol to soften the sharp edges of what I’m about to confess. I need to be fully present and feel every bite of the guilt.

“So . . . are Mom and Dad okay?”

I blink. “What? Yeah, they’re fine. I mean, they were when I talked to Dad a few days ago. This is something else.”

I don’t know where to start . . . when Cowboy brought Bessie in? When I introduced him to Emily? Last night when he kissed the shit outta me?

“Did you re-enlist? I’m going to kill you before Uncle Sam gets his hands on you again, girl.” Emily growls the threat and I know she means it.

I hate that of the two worst-case scenarios she defaults to, one is that something’s wrong with our parents and the other is that I’m leaving again. But I know why.

We’d been so close, always telling each other everything back then. But I hadn’t told her I was even considering enlisting and certainly hadn’t told her I’d done it until it was almost time for me to go. And that had been the worst betrayal of our sisterhood, putting a wedge between us I still haven’t been able to fully repair. But I’m trying now like she’d tried to understand then.

“What do you mean you’re going into the Army?” Emily laughs like I just told her a hilarious joke. When I don’t laugh along, she sobers. “Wait, are you serious?”

I nod, grabbing her hands in mine as I stare into eyes I know so well, begging her to understand. “Look around, Em. We’re on the verge of freedom, and you get to go to school and have all these adventures. You’ll probably go to frat parties, meet some popped collar trust-fund bro, and he’ll whisk you to his family’s summer house in the Hamptons. Or you’ll fall for a leather-clad bad boy who spouts poetry and draws Sharpie tattoos on your back after you have dirty sex in a bed he hasn’t changed the sheets in for way too long.”