Change of Heart (Fostering Love 2)

I’d successfully avoided having any type of conversation with Dan since he’d lost it on me at family dinner, and I’d timed my arrival perfectly so that I wouldn’t be alone with him before Katie and Shane showed up with the kids. I was kind of a genius that way.

“Language,” Katie sang as I wrapped my arms around her and Iris, leaning down to give Iris a kiss on the back of her head. The one-year-old hadn’t seen me in months and had no idea who I was, so she was hiding her face in Katie’s neck.

“You look good, dude!” I said, taking a step back so I could look at her.

She was wearing a pair of brightly colored leggings with flip-flops and a tunic, her hair in a bun on top of her head and long, dangly earrings hanging from her ears. Comfortable but gorgeous¸ as usual.

“Yeah, yeah,” she griped, shaking her head. “My ass is still huge.”

“Turn around,” I ordered.

She turned her back toward me and shook her booty as she looked at me over her shoulder. “See? Huge.”

“It is pretty massive,” I replied, nodding my head while she scoffed. “But dudes dig chicks with ass. No joke. Tits and ass is a thing. Fat-bottomed girls and all that.”

“You’re lucky that’s a Queen song or I’d punch you,” she laughed as she turned toward the driveway. “Oh! Bram’s here!”

I swallowed hard as she began to wave at the truck pulling up the driveway.

I’d barely seen Bram except to fuck him for the last week. After his confusing signals the day we’d worked on the living room floor, I’d been keeping my distance. I wasn’t sure what to make of his sweet words followed by his standoffishness. It kept happening, so I decided to pull back a bit so he could figure his shit out.

We were circling each other, Bram and I. Pushing together and then, when things got a little too serious, pulling apart again.

“That mother-effer!” Katie hissed beside me, covering Iris’s ear with her palm.

“What?” I turned toward the truck, and my heart turned over in my chest.

Bram was climbing out the driver’s side, and Alex was dropping down from the passenger seat.

“Alex!” I screamed, jumping off the porch and running full tilt toward him.

“Surprise,” he called with a huge-ass smile on his face just as I jumped him.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were coming!” I yelled, hitting his arm before hugging him tightly.

It was an odd thing, hugging your lover’s twin. His body was really similar to Bram’s, though their muscles were made from different kinds of work and were shaped differently as a result. His voice was really close to Bram’s, and Alex’s smile was almost identical even without the beard.

I’d never mix the two of them up though, even with the physical similarities.

Alex didn’t smell the same. He wore cologne. He didn’t smell like deodorant and sawdust and the outdoors like Bram did. He didn’t breathe in the same cadence as Bram, or move his hands the same way.

He’d never made my heart race or my nipples pebble.

As much as I loved Alex, he just didn’t do it for me.

“You asshole!” Katie screeched, making me turn my head as she charged toward us. She must have set Iris inside because the baby wasn’t with her as she ran down the steps. “You stole my thunder!”

Alex set me down and pushed me to the side since it seemed as though Kate wasn’t going to stop running at us.

Bram caught me as I stumbled, squeezing my hips hard before quickly letting go. Yeah, we were going to have to be careful while everyone was home because that small touch had lit me up in a way that I knew would be easy to notice.

“Alexander?” Liz called from the front door as Katie tried her hardest to wrestle Alex to the ground.

“I’m going to hurt you,” Kate announced as Alex laughed, moving defensively against her but never overpowering her the way I knew he could.

“Aren’t you happy to see me, Katiebear?” he asked through his chuckles.

“Oh, fuck you!” she sniped at his teasing, curving her fingers in a way that warned me of the epic pinch she was going to land somewhere on his body.

“Jesus, you’ve turned into a psycho!” he yelped as her fingers made contact.

He jerked her arms out to the side, then bent at the waist, throwing her over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” Kate yelled, kicking her feet.

“Nope,” Alex answered. Then he took a few steps away from the truck and started to turn.

“Oh, shit,” I said to Bram, my own laughter coming to a stop.

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to puke!” Kate yelled as Alex began spinning in the middle of the driveway with Kate over his shoulder. She’d been kicking her legs at one point, but she’d frozen completely when he began to move, and now the only thing on her body that wasn’t holding on for dear life was her long, auburn hair.