I look over my shoulder, half-expecting a bear to emerge from the forest.
“Your back,” he explains.
“Yeah, I’ve been working out,” I deadpan, because I have no idea what he’s talking about.
Now he’s grinning. I don’t like it.
“Hip thrusts?” he asks.
I hoist, heave, split, and my heart thumps a little harder while my mind races because Seth is definitely getting at something and I don’t plan on giving up any information.
“What exactly are you trying to say, Seth?” I ask, tossing the wood onto piles.
Now he’s got both eyebrows raised, still smiling like he’s been given an early Christmas present.
“Really?” he asks, and Caleb sighs.
“There are fingernail marks on your back, Levi,” he says.
Shit.
I have a brief, one-second memory from a few nights ago, June shouting my name as she arched underneath me, a flash of pain along my shoulder blades that I forgot almost immediately.
“I ran into a tree,” I tell them, backing toward my shirt, tugging it off the branch.
Caleb just sighs, but I swear Seth’s about to start giggling.
“Were you running backwards?” he asks.
I don’t answer.
“Were you running backwards, and then when you hit it, you kinda rubbed back and forth on it like a bear?” he asks. “And the tree just so happened to have branches shaped in perfect half-moons like fingernails?”
I clear my throat as I pull my shirt back on.
“Yes,” I say.
“Levi.”
I grab more wood.
“Who?”
Say nothing.
“Levi. Who?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Levi Beauford Love—"
“Who do you think?” Caleb finally says as I bring the axe down, splitting the wood.
Seth drops a piece of wood onto the block, then looks at Caleb, eyes wide.
“You’re kidding,” he says, voice hushed, sounding so scandalized that if he had pearls, I think he’d be clutching them.
Caleb just shrugs stoically, and I level a glare at him.
“Seriously?” says Seth, and then looks at me. “Does he know?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I maintain, shooting another glare at Caleb the Traitor, just for good measure.
“All I said was who do you think,” he says. “You’re the one who showed up here looking like you’d just gotten finished at the BDSM dungeon.”
“Sounds like I came at the right time,” Eli’s voice says.
I look up. My younger brothers turn to see Eli standing there, next to the woodpile.
Great. Another one.
“How’s the dungeon?” he asks Seth, who just grins.
“I don’t know, he does,” Seth says, pointing at me and looking absolutely gleeful.
Eli’s eyebrows just about fly off his forehead. I do my best to ignore him, splitting another hunk of wood down the middle.
“You’re shitting me,” he says.
“Nope,” says Seth.
“I have no information whatsoever on the existence of a dungeon, kinky or otherwise,” I grumble.
“Do they still make other dungeons?” Caleb asks. “Seems like there’s only the one kind anymore. You never hear about a regular prison dungeon.”
“Again,” I say, as Eli and Seth both give him looks, “this is not a topic on which I am knowledgeable.”
“Mind if we back up to why we think Levi was in a dungeon, BDSM or not?” Eli asks, already taking off his shirt and then reaching for an axe.
“I ran into a tree and they’re making wild assumptions,” I say.
I know there’s a zero percent chance of being believed, but I have to try.
“Show him your back,” Seth challenges me, laughing. “See if Eli believes you, either.”
“You ran into a tree with your back?” Eli asks.
“A tree with fingernails,” Seth supplies.
I split another piece of wood, toss it onto the finished woodpile.
“A tree with — holy shit, no way!” he says.
I contemplate simply turning around and walking into the woods. I think I could make my way home eventually.
“Levi, you fucked a tree?” Eli asks, faux-astonished. “Congratulations, I really thought you’d never get up the nerve to approach one.”
I point my axe at them, one by one.
“You’re all dead to me,” I tell them. “I don’t have brothers anymore. Except Daniel.”
“Should I go tell him you lost your tree virginity?” Eli asks. “I think he’s inside. I’m sure he’d be proud. You used protection, right?”
Seth is nearly giggling, Eli’s grinning like a shithead, and even Caleb is looking far more amused than I’d like.
Eli grabs a hunk of wood, tosses it onto a chopping block.
“Remember the time you delighted in harassing me about the fact that everyone knew I was sleeping with Violet?” he asks, rhetorically, bringing the axe down. “I do.”
“You mean when I provided you with the service of telling you that your secret was not, in fact, any such thing?” I counter.
“Who is it?” Eli says to Seth, ignoring my very good point.
Seth points at Caleb. Caleb sighs.
“Who do you think?” he says, for the second time.
“It’s ma’am, right?” Eli asks. “Please don’t tell me it’s someone else. If I have to tell Violet that Levi’s sleeping with someone and it’s not June, she might kill me just for being the messenger.”