Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers 1)

Levi makes a sympathetic noise. Across the room, Violet takes a sip of her beer, leaning against the bar-height table, one leg cocked under her. Adeline says something and Violet laughs, spreads her fingers, then says something back.

She cocks the other leg, shifting her hips. It’s perfectly casual, just a girl standing around, talking to her friend, but I have to tear my gaze away before I get any further down this rabbit hole.

“ — Can’t just tell her that, though, you know how June is. Besides, she’ll just think I hate him because I’m her big brother —”

“I gotta take a leak,” I say, standing and putting my nearly-finished beer on the table.

“Do you?” Daniel asks.

As I walk away, I turn and give the table a winning grin.

“Of course,” I say, and leave.Chapter TenVioletThe dart bounces off the board and falls to the ground.

“ — Last time I ever take Cash’s suggestions, I swear,” Adeline says.

I’m silent for a moment, focusing as I throw the last dart.

It sticks in the sixteen wedge of the dartboard. Good enough.

“I should have known when I saw the truck nuts,” I say. “I’m pretty sure their existence makes it my own fault. Like, if I somehow took this to court, the judge would throw it out on the basis that I should have known he was terrible because his vehicle had testicles.”

I walk to the dartboard, yank my darts out and pick the final one up from the ground.

“No,” Adeline says. “How are you supposed to find someone to date who doesn’t have truck nuts around here? You make a ‘no truck nuts’ rule and there goes at least fifty percent of the eligible population. Maybe sixty.”

I sigh and lean on the table.

“Adeline,” I say. “I think I’m ready.”

She’s got a dart between her fingers, about to throw, when she looks over at me.

“For truck nuts?”

“For spinsterdom.”

“Oh, good Lord,” she says, and throws a dart. It lands on the twenty.

“It doesn’t seem so bad any more,” I say. “Yes, sure, a life companion sounds nice, but at what expense, Adeline? At what expense?”

She throws another dart. Seventeen. She’s absolutely smoking me at this game.

“Statistically speaking, there have to be at least a few guys with truck nuts who are also perfectly decent people,” she says, readying the third dart. “Maybe some of them just think truck nuts are funny.”

She pauses, considers the dart board, then looks over at me.

“I mean, they’re kind of funny,” she says, and throws her final dart.

It’s a bullseye. I have no chance of winning.

“No, they’re not,” I call after her as she retrieves the darts.

“Yes, they are,” she shouts, grabbing the darts, then returning and putting them in my outstretched hand. “Violet, that’s, like, rule number one. Testicles are always funny. Unless they’re abscessed or something, that’s not really funny.”

I give her a horrified stare, and she wrinkles her nose.

“Everything okay at work?” I ask. Adeline’s works the night shift at the county hospital, so abscessed testes are, unfortunately, a possibility in her workplace.

“Oh, that was a couple of years ago,” she says, waving one hand. “It just stuck with me. Anyway.”

I walk to the line for the dartboard, weighing the darts in one hand as I try to visualize the perfect throw and also not think about abscessed testicles.

“Anyway,” I echo, “Todd was a jerk who both had truck nuts and had opinions on wine vintages, which should be illegal, and then he left without paying and screwed me over. And I had to get a ride home from Eli Loveless, and now I’m just going to embrace hairy legs and microwave dinners for one,” I say, and unleash a dart.

It sticks in the cork right outside the dartboard.

“At least Eli was there,” she says, as if that helps.

“I didn’t even know he was back,” I say, throwing another dart.

“I’d have told you but I didn’t know you cared,” Adeline says.

“I don’t care,” I say, and throw the last dart, which hits the number seventeen. Finally. “I just like to know when evil is lurking.”

Adeline and I went to high school together, but we were barely acquaintances at the time: I was in the National Honor Society and co-captained the debate team; she was on the cheerleading squad and got invited to parties. A couple years ago we reunited at the DMV — the number-giving system was down, and we took it upon ourselves to prevent total chaos in the line — and have been friends ever since.

“He used to help me with my trigonometry homework,” she says. “I’m pretty sure I only passed because of him.”

“Did you have to pay him in blood?”

“No, but I invited him to one of Tony’s field parties once,” she says. “I don’t remember whether he came.”

Field parties are, as the name suggests, parties that take place way out in a field. There’s usually a bonfire, lots of pickup trucks, and beer.