“Noooo, we cannot tell them that!”
Stella doesn’t take her hand away. She runs a fingertip over my bare skin, and goosebumps rise on my skin in response. “I guess I found it in myself to change my mind, search my soul, and figure out what I really wanted. Maybe I had wanted it for a good long while, and I needed to give it an honest change instead of burying it under mounds and mounds of dirt. I took the taboo and made it possible. I went for it. You might have asked me to dinner, but it’s true that I kissed you.”
“Noooooooo. Don’t say any of that!”
She rolls her eyes, which are as blue as the sea this morning, at me before she runs her fingers down to my nipple and twists it. As I grunt at the shockwaves of pain and the twinge of pleasure that comes after, she finds her smile again. “We’ll figure it out.”
We spend the rest of the morning in bed, which is pretty traditional for a Saturday morning. It’s a new tradition, one I very much enjoy. The rest of the world might be out jogging or doing yoga or whatever, but this kind of workout is far more preferable. Stella might have wanted to distract me from what was coming, but I can’t say I complain about her methods.
“I’m starving,” Stella announces while I drive us to her brother’s place in one of my classic cars. It’s a route I’ve traced over a million times, but I’ve never been so disgustingly nervous.
“It’s good that at least one of us has an appetite.”
She turns to me, her expression guarded and curiously unreadable. “It’s going to be fine. My brother is not going to kill you.”
Stella is usually right about most things, I have to admit, but she’s not so spot on with this one. As soon as Sam opens the door to let us in, he rakes his eyes over me like hot raging coals and announces—lowly under his breath—something about killing me.
I shoot Stella a there, there you have it look, but she just rolls her eyes as she takes my hand and drags me to the living room. Sam moves with us, his eyes glued suspiciously to us the whole time like we’re a pair of bank robbers come to hold him up. None of us sit as none of us are comfortable enough to sit.
Eventually, Stella sniffs the air. “I don’t smell food. You promised us lunch!” She gives her brother, who is standing across from us with the wariest of wary expressions I’ve ever seen him wear, a hard look. “This is an ambush! And an outrage!” Stella crosses her arms and starts to pout, but Sam is hardly moved.
Her hair is still wet from the shower we had together at my place before we left, and I can see Sam’s eyes scraping over her. I can see him taking in the facts, noticing, and getting a little bit redder.
“Don’t even think about stealing my cheese,” Sam grinds out. “This isn’t about food. It’s about you two. Arriving together.”
Stella rolls her eyes so hard that it’s like a shout. “You shitbag,” she hisses at her brother. “I’m super hungry! You better have some bologna in the fridge at the very least. And duh, we arrived together. You knew we were going to do that. We came here together because I’ve been sleeping at his house.”
While I cringe outwardly because that’s probably the worst thing she could say at the moment, I have to admire her fearlessness and the straight line of her back. Sam also crosses his arms in an almost identical pose as his sister’s. I’m glad we’re not having this conversation near any sharp objects, but Sam could probably find it in himself to break the brotherly code just this once and teabag me with an appendage all the same. “You had better tell me how long you two have been…ugh.” He shudders. “I can’t even say it.”
“Bumping uglies?” Stella supplies unhelpfully. Sam hates to be tickled, and right now, she’s looking at him like she might try it, just to get between him and the fridge. “Or would you prefer some other more flavorful term?”
Sam looks like he’s going to barf, but I have to admit he doesn’t look as hostile as I thought he would. I opted not to go with Stella’s ‘jock-can thingy,’ and I somewhat regret it because my nuts have zero protection beyond my jeans at the moment.
“No!” Sam shouts. “No!” He gives his sister a hard look. “You were supposed to fend him off with your dislike for him! Stella! How could you! I was counting on you. Why do you have to torture me like this?”
Stella groans, but it’s one of those groans that says her brother is being super dramatic, and she needs it to stop because she came here with the intention of lunch and a serious conversation, not just the serious conversation. And now, she’s peeved because it isn’t both.