Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers 1)

“That’s a hard way to go,” he says.

“It was,” I say.

We’re quiet for a long time. What do you say after that?

“How are your brothers?” I finally ask, just to change the subject.

“Mostly staying out of trouble,” he says, making the right turn onto White Oak, trees flashing in his headlights. He sounds relieved.

“Mostly?”

“Mostly’s about all you can ask for,” he says, a smile in his voice. “Besides, I imagine you know better than I do.”

He’s probably right. The five Loveless boys are beloved by the Sprucevale rumor mill, who have deemed them simultaneously handsome, eligible, and unsuitable.

Levi, the eldest, is brown-haired and brown-eyed, has an impressive beard, and lives in a cabin he built himself up on a mountain. He’s the chief arborist for our part of the Cumberland National Forest, a vegetarian, a slow talker but a quick thinker, and knows more about lichen than I do about anything.

Eli’s younger by two years. He’s an argumentative asshole who’s vexed me since we were in the same kindergarten class. Enough about him.

Daniel’s only a year younger than Eli. He’s got light brown hair, crystal-blue eyes, and a six-year-old daughter named Rusty with a woman who, when she bothers to show up in her daughter’s life, is at best a shrieking hell-banshee and at worst, a drain on society. He’s the master brewer at Loveless Brewing, which he owns with Seth.

Seth, the fourth, has dark hair and gray-green eyes, and he’s unsuitable because he’s never going to settle down. At least, he’s too charming and too flirtatious for the Sprucevale gossip machine to approve of him. He’s likely to show you a fantastic time and then never call again, which got him labeled ungentlemanly — and worse — but he doesn’t seem to mind. He runs the business side of the brewery he owns with Daniel.

The youngest, Caleb, has dark hair and blue eyes, and last I heard he was in grad school up in Charlottesville getting his doctorate in some kind of theoretical mathematics. If I remember correctly, he’s spending his summer break hiking some long-haul trail out west.

“Levi’s wrestling bears or climbing trees or whatever he does up there. Daniel’s making beer and ferrying Rusty to ballet class. Seth’s doing the paperwork and trying to stay out of trouble. Caleb’s in California, hiking part of the Pacific Crest Trail before he starts working on his dissertation this fall.”

“And your mom’s still teaching at the college?”

“Still teaching,” he confirms. “Still trying to figure out if the universe is getting bigger or smaller.”

There’s another long pause. I take a deep breath. I relax a little, even though the air in here is still humming.

Maybe the past can be behind us. Maybe Eli and I can peacefully co-exist as adults.

But then he glances over at me again, smiling that half-smile he’s always had, only now it’s handsome and it hits me in that soft spot right below my sternum.

Something’s coming and I’m not gonna like it.

“So, what did you say to that guy?” he asks.

I slouch against the passenger seat, face in the wind again, ankles still crossed. The nice thing about the giant Bronco is that Eli’s about ten feet away from me, so it’s not too hard to avoid looking at him.

I sigh.

“He was a dick,” I say, resigned.

Eli laughs.

“If that’s what you said, I’m not surprised he bailed.”

“He bailed because I wouldn’t sleep with him.”

“My cooking didn’t get you in the mood?” Eli asks.

A quick tightness knots in my stomach. I look over and he’s half-smiling, watching the road.

“It wasn’t that good,” I say.

“I was voted the panty-droppingest chef west of the Mississippi two years running,” he says.

There’s that knot again, along with the fervent wish that I had a harder time believing it.

“Too bad we’re east of the Mississippi.”

“I must have had less competition in Sonoma,” he says with a smirk that says I know full well I didn’t.

“I imagine it’s against the editorial standards of the Journal-Bulletin to print the word panty, so I doubt you’ll get that particular honor while you’re here.”

“Too bad, because meanwhile I’m ruining dates left and right.”

“You’re giving yourself entirely too much credit.”

“You don’t believe in the power of a good meal?”

I turn my head and look at Eli, his face glowing in the reflection of the dashboard lights, blue and green shining off his dark wild hair. My stomach flutters. I cross my ankles a little tighter.

I wonder why he’s so interested in how my date went wrong. I wonder how we haven’t managed to strangle each other yet, though we came close in the kitchen.

“He snapped at the waitress,” I finally say. “There’s no meal powerful enough to make up for that.”

Eli just whistles low.

“Bad, right?”

“I’d hate to be the man trying to impress you,” he says, shaking his head.