Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers 1)

“What’s the cake status?” she asks, her voice even higher-pitched than usual.

I look at Eli, covered to the elbow in white, blue, and purple frosting.

“I’ll let you judge,” he says.

I get off the ladder and come around the front of the cake, silently praying to the cake gods that it’s not a complete and utter disaster.

Please look okay. Please look okay.

I hold my breath and turn, looking up at twelve feet of wedding cake.

It’s okay.

It’s not good. Before the tree incident, the cake was a master craft of baking design. Now it’s a perfectly adequate wedding cake. Not fancy. Not art. Definitely not worth twenty thousand dollars.

But it’s fine, not a total disaster, and that’s more than good enough.

The air leaves my lungs in a rush, and I try to run a hand through my hair. It sticks halfway through, because both my hair and my hand are coated with frosting.

“Thank fuck,” I say.

“I’ve seen worse,” Eli says behind me as I grab the radio from my belt, smearing it with frosting.

Before I can speak into it, it squawks.

“Violet?” Lydia’s voice says. “How’s the cake? It’s nearly nine-fifteen and I can’t hold the groom’s grandmother back for much longer.”

Her voice lowers, like she’s telling me something in confidence.

“She is feisty, Violet,” she says, her voice tinged with panic. She’s completely serious.

For a long second, I stare at the radio. Any rational response flies out of my brain, and I’m totally speechless.

My arms are so tired they’re floppy. I’m covered in frosting and totally wrung out from the adrenaline of our emergency wedding cake surgery.

I start giggling. I don’t mean to. I know giggling isn’t helping anything right now, but it’s coming from somewhere deep inside me that’s not obeying my brain, and I can’t stop.

“Violet?” Lydia hisses.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp, trying to control myself. I bite my lip, trying to stop the laughter.

Then I make the mistake of glancing over at Eli. A grin spreads across his frosting-streaked face.

I snort, dissolving into giggles again so hard that I have to sit down, on the grass.

“Violet,” Lydia says, the radio crackling. “Are you okay? Are you hysterical?”

I inhale with another snort, eyes closed so I can’t see Eli also laughing, and I finally get a hold of myself.

“The cake is go,” I tell her, taking a deep breath. “I repeat, the cake is go!”

“Thanks,” she says, then pulls the radio away from her mouth. I can still hear her as she speaks to someone else. “Okay, she’s lost her mind but…”

A tear runs down my cheek, flowing over more frosting as I look at Eli again. He’s laughing too, his arms clasped over his chest, and that only makes me laugh more.

Which makes him laugh harder, which makes me laugh harder until my ribs hurt and I’m lightheaded. We laugh until we’re both borderline hysterical, standing in front of this perfectly fine enormous wedding cake.

“You’re a damn mess,” he finally says, still laughing.

“So are you,” I point out.

He holds out his hand. I take it, and he locks his strong, firm grip around my wrist, both of us slippery with frosting, then pulls me up.

“I’m always a mess,” he says, slowly letting my hand go. “You, on the other hand…”

He half-smiles, and even though we’re right outside a four-hundred person wedding and there are plenty of people around, I feel like we’re alone.

Then he reaches out with his thumb, swipes a glob of frosting from my cheek, and licks his thumb.

I hold my breath for a beat too long. I watch his thumb disappear into his mouth, his lips closing around it, his mouth working as he sucks the sugar off. I look back into his eyes, mossy in the low light and teasing as always.

“Delicious,” he says, just as Lydia comes out of the barn.

“Oh, thank God,” she says.Chapter ThirteenVioletI lean forward into the sink, bending in half at the waist until my head is fully under the faucet as I rake my fingers through my hair.

Slowly, the globs of frosting start to come loose. They’ve hardened on the outside, so I massage them until the sugar melts and the fat softens between my fingers, then work them through the strands and down the drain.

It’s not my favorite thing to have in my hair, but at least I’m washing it.

“I think that’s a health code violation,” Eli’s voice says behind me, the door to the kitchen closing.

“You gonna narc on me?” I ask, working another frosting chunk out.

He comes in, tossing something onto the counter behind us. There are still people in the kitchen, washing dishes and stacking plates, wrapping leftovers in plastic wrap, but they’re across the kitchen from where I’m standing over an industrial sink, rinsing sugar out of my hair.

I can see him out of the corner of my eye, standing off to the side, hip leaning against the counter, upside down and perfectly casual. He’s still wearing his black pants but he’s taken off his chef’s jacket, wearing nothing but a black t-shirt that has a few frosting streaks on it.