Rolling his eyes, he said, “You’re a smartass, you know that?”

She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.

With a grunt, he shrugged. “And I’m an asshole. Would it surprise you to know you aren’t the first to mention it?”

“Well…”

“That was rhetorical.” He set down the knife and closed the gap between them. “Ok, I’m officially done.” He held out his hand. “No more judgment without facts. Okay?”

Michaela looked him straight in the eye. “I wouldn’t—”

“I know.” He thrust his hand closer. “Truce?”

She’d been about to say she would never have allowed the moment between them to progress to a near kiss if she’d been interested in her brother. Thankfully, he’d stopped her because the words would have made her wince. She’d done that and worse in the past when drunk and high on illicit substances, fame, and fortune.

“Truce.” She slipped her hand in his. This time, she expected the jolt of electricity that shot up her arm, but preparation did nothing to diminish the strength of the shock. The man was like a live wire, and she a can of gasoline. Getting too close was not wise.

Especially while she still had so much work to do on herself. Her therapist had told her countless times over the past six months that she wouldn’t make a lick of progress if she couldn’t forgive herself for past transgressions. She’d learned a million lessons from her catastrophic mistakes, which was great and would keep her from repeating them but forgiving herself had proven to be a substantial challenge. Her behavior had not only been an embarrassment to herself and others, but she knew for a fact she’d hurt people.

Now, sober and living with her feet planted on the ground, shame and guilt were a daily occurrence. She’d yet to master leaving those negative emotions in the past where they belonged. Apologies had been made where they could be, and true repentance occurred.

Too bad forgiving others was simpler than forgiving oneself.

CHAPTER TEN

“OH, MY GOD, stop!” Mickie said as she wiped her eyes. “You guys are killing me.”

JP shrugged. “It wasn’t my fault she decided to lose her virginity outside in December, in Vermont. If you ask me, I taught them a good lesson about preventing hypothermia.”

Ronnie threw a tortilla chip across the table at her smirking brother. “What you did was make my first time a one and done because Donavan Carmichael wouldn’t come near me after that.”

JP snorted. “Like that asshat was gonna be the love of your life?”

“No.” Ronnie huffed, folding her arms across her chest. “But a girl likes to think she’s good enough for a boy to hang around for a while. Especially when she’s sixteen. Right, Mickie? You know what I’m talking about. You’re a female.”

“I was a bit of a late bloomer. Didn’t lose my virginity until my twenty-second birthday.” But she’d sure as hell made up for it after that. The night she cashed in her V-card also happened to be the night she received her first seven-digit check from a production company. And the first time she’d snorted coke. Not exactly one for the memory books. “But I can honestly say that I’d have been scarred for life if someone dumped a bucket of snow on me mid-deed.”

“Thank you,” Ronnie said, sticking her tongue out at her brother.

With a laugh Mickie patted her new friend’s hand.

“Yeah, but…” JP leaned across the oval table and jabbed his fork for emphasis. “Wouldn’t you have also learned a valuable lesson about when and where to go bare?” He waggled his eyebrows as he sat back in his seat. “See what I did there?”

With a snort, Ronnie shook her head. “What? Made a rhyme? Oh, congrats, you’ve finally mastered kindergarten.”

Coughing to cover her laugh, Michaela could only stare wide-eyed when JP gave her the double finger. Sibling banter was a world she knew nothing about. The closest she had to a relationship like the one these four seemed to share was with Ralph, though they didn’t have the benefit of the blood bond.

“You’ll get used to the children’s behavior,” Jagger broke in. “I thought about putting them at a kiddie table, but I figured with you living so close, you’d see their true colors eventually. No point in sugar-coating shit.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ronnie broke in before taking a sip of her locally brewed IPA. “Because you’re the picture of maturity. One time, when he and Keith shared a room, Jagger filled the bottle of lotion Keith used for, uh, personal purposes with icy-hot.” She shot her brother a so there look and lifted her beer in a toast.

“Holy fucking shit, I forgot about that.” JP cracked up, slapping his palm on the table. “Ian called nine-one-one because Keith was writing on the floor, screaming. Damn, that was some funny shit. Remember how he kept crying in the ER because he thought they were going to have to amputate his little wee-wee?”

Tags: Lilly Atlas Blue Collar Bensons Romance
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