“Jace Rice and I…” What? She didn’t know what to say. They were over before they began. It was better that way. The longer she let herself believe there was a chance the two of them could make something work between them, the more she opened herself up for hurt when it didn’t.
“I don’t know how you can resist him. He’s so damn hot.”
Lyric wasn’t wrong about that either. He was hot. If she closed her eyes, she could see his sweet smile and those green eyes that seemed to look straight into her soul.
“The things that take you down seem so beautiful from a distance,” she murmured.
“What’s that?” Bullet sat across from her in the kitchen.
“Nothing, really,” she answered. “Just that sometimes it’s better to resist, no matter how intriguing the temptation.”
“I heard that,” he grinned, shaking his head.
“Words you should live by,” said Lyric, smacking him upside the head.
“Yeah, yeah,” he glared at her.
“Lyric mentioned you had a wife and a baby.” Actually two babies, but Bree didn’t want to open that can of worms. “Aren’t they with you?”
“My wife didn’t wanna come.”
Oh. Bree didn’t know what to say to that.
“She’s like that. Ain’t nothin’ in it for her, and she isn’t interested.”
“Well, uh—”
“You don’t have to come up with nothin’ polite to say. I’m sure Lyric told you all about me and my screw-ups.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way, Bullet.” Bree looked to Lyric to rescue her from the very awkward conversation she was having with her brother.
“Yes, you would. And yes, I did. Poster boy, over there, for why you should pay attention in health class when they’re tryin’ to teach you the importance of condoms.”
Bullet turned as red as Bree knew she was. It was too early in the morning for such an embarrassing conversation.
“When did you say you were leaving?”
Lyric laughed. “Let’s get on the road, Bullet. We embarrassed Miss Priss, here, enough for one morning.”
Bree started to say something in her own defense, and then thought better of it. Lyric was right, this conversation was making her very uncomfortable.
“Nice to meet you.” Bullet leaned over and looked a little too deeply into her eyes.
Bree fanned her face. “Oh, my goodness. Your sister isn’t kidding. You are something.”
The smile he gave her was no less devastating than the look before it.
“Warn me next time he’s staying over,” Bree said to Lyric. “I’ll stay with my parents.”
Lyric slapped Bullet upside the head again. “You’re walkin’, talkin’ testosterone, bro. You hear ads on the radio for low ‘tee’—think they got anythin’ for high ‘tee?’”
Liv came out the front door of the house and joined Jace where he sat in one of the Adirondack chairs.
“I heard you wanted to talk to me.”
“I do. About Bree, if you don’t mind.”
“She’s so much like me,” sighed Liv later, when Jace finished giving her the short version of their relationship.