Monday started with Pax cursing the dawn as he continued their tutoring charade. He banged out more Chopin on the cold piano keys, foot pumping the pedal. Stupid, clever shrew.

Why did Cliff have to like this new tradition of listening to “Luca” practice early mornings?

Why hadn’t Pax said Luca had late-night practices?

He only had himself to blame.

Nah, he’d blame the shrew. That got him off.

Pax was a terrible person.

After their run and a much-needed shower, Pax dragged a restless Luca to the shrew’s front porch.

“What are we doing?” Luca asked.

“Henry’s practiced lines with Bianca long enough. I think they’d like some company—”

Tepid air waked over them, and Pax and Luca plastered on innocent smiles.

Cliff glared at them, hair wet from a shower. Drops darkened the shoulders of his green polo shirt. Christ, Cliff was a sight in green. The shade only intensified his scowl. It was making Pax a little uneasy. Not that he’d show it.

“Don’t you boys have anything better to do than hound after my sister?”

Pax clapped Luca’s shoulder. “Oh, so happy are the holidays.”

Henry’s dramatic voice whirled down the hall, and Luca’s muscles jumped under Pax’s palm.

Luca looked ready to leap inside, and Pax helped him out by stepping forward and blocking Cliff’s access, in case he intended to shut the door in their faces. “Join the fun, Luca. Join the fun.”

Pax slouched his whole weight against Cliff’s front. Chest to chest, thigh to thigh. The door banged into the wall and they both tumbled with it, bodies bumping. Cliff was all firm, slender muscle. An insane amount of warmth leached through Pax’s T-shirt and shorts. Naked knees pressed either side of Pax’s, an inch higher up his thigh.

Pax pushed up Cliff’s glasses that were slipping down his nose. “You want to join the fun, too?”

Cliff’s expression said no. “You finished your song yet?”

“I’m close.” Had a couple of lines down, anyway. Pax plucked himself off Cliff, the man’s warmth still clinging to him, and prowled into the living room.

A cardboard box hit his stomach almost the second he entered, and Bianca grinned at him from the other side. Luca and Henry wavered under boxes, too. “Great timing. Help me walk this up the hill to the church.”

All five of them toted boxes of props and costumes Bianca had pulled down from the attic. Colorful, textured material spilled over the rims of boxes. A gust of Dunedin wind had a silk scarf flying up over Pax’s face and the world was filtered red.

He could still make out the small smile Cliff wrongly believed private, proving the shrew wasn’t all bluster.

Mostly.

He freed his face and took in the small navy-and-cream church nestled on a swell of rolling grass. A few trees swayed at the wrought iron fence, and a cemented path led to the front steps.

Bianca led them to the back entrance. More grass, a wooden railing and chipped concrete steps, and a dark blue door that was propped open with a Christmas gnome.

They stepped inside, and cold, musty air swallowed them.

The walls, half wood paneling and half white, displayed verses in old-fashioned script.

“Welcome backstage,” Bianca said. She dropped her box and Pax followed suit. He peeked behind an arched door covered with a red curtain. It led to a raised platform, which he guessed was the stage. A skeleton of dark beams arched over the empty pews.

He smirked to an invisible audience.

“Had enough posing?” Bianca asked from the archway.

He searched for a glimpse of Cliff behind her, but the curtain fell and blocked his view. “Not nearly. When’s opening night?”

“Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, damn.”

Bianca darted a furtive look around the church like he may have been overheard.

“Won’t be able to see it,” he continued. “I’m playing alongside Lone Whistle and the Deserted.”

She blinked. No recognition at all.

He groaned. “You need a more varied musical education.”

Her eyes sparkled with sarcasm. “I plan to find that with Luca tutoring me.”

On their way home, Bianca complained about the sticky heat and stripped off to her sports bra. Luca and Henry nearly fell over each other, and Cliff looked like he wanted to kill his sister.

When they returned to the house, Cliff curled a finger at his sister. “Bianca, a word in the kitchen?”

Bianca followed her brother. Pax dropped off a bickering Luca and Henry in the living room before doing what he did best.

Eavesdropping.

He hovered outside the door, forearm pressed against floral wallpaper.

The conversation was short and pointed, and Pax winced on Bianca’s behalf. It was freaking hot outside, and the double standard sucked. Guys could strip off their T-shirts any time. Why did it have to be inappropriate for women?

At the sound of shifting feet, Pax scooted back to the living room.

He assumed he’d witness the same eye-narrowing duel as before. Instead, another image smacked him.

Namely, Henry was shaking a piece of paper in Luca’s face. Not any piece of paper, but one with a picture of his band under the words “Christmas Bash.”

Pax’s shin bumped the couch in his hurry to yank it from Henry. The picture was new, without his face on it. Without Blake’s, either, thank fuck. But still.

The paper crunched in his grip.

Luca eyed him thoughtfully, while Henry kept talking. “. . . good music, great atmosphere. We should go.”

Bianca slipped into the room—shirt on—her voice a soft lilt. Like she hadn’t just suffered harsh words from her brother. “You asking Luca out, Henry?”

Henry lurched away from Luca. “What? No, I thought Pax would help us get you in—and help me avoid a commotion with Buster at the door.”

“Commotion?” she asked.

“Wee bit of history. It’s nothing.” Henry looked at Pax. “Can we get Bianca in?”

A deadpan “No” came from Cliff, who entered behind Bianca.

Pax stuffed down the hurt that had simmered to the surface seeing his band’s picture.

Henry looked at him insistently. Damn, he hated how much of himself he saw in that look.

Pax prickled. He didn’t want to back Henry up. But . . . his face was absent from the photo, dammit.

He slapped the flyer against Henry’s chest and swiveled to face Cliff across the room. One couch and a potted plant separated them.

“Why not let her?” Pax asked. “It’s Christmas.”

Cliff stood with his legs apart, rooted to the floor—and his decision. “She’s underage.”

“Sneaking into a club at seventeen is a rite of passage.”

“She can’t go.”

Bianca glared at her brother like he was the reason for all evil in the world.

“Did you never sneak around when you were seventeen?” Pax asked.

All eyes in the room were on them, and Pax tried not to enjoy the attention. But after the crush of seeing that flyer, he needed to indulge in some comforting narcissism.

He ratcheted up one eyebrow.

Cliff’s gaze had moved from Pax to Henry to that damn flyer.

Pax positioned himself so Cliff couldn’t study it too closely. “Yeah,” Pax said. “She is so going.”

“She can’t,” Cliff said tightly. Eyes trained back on him. “She doesn’t have an ID.”

Pax held Cliff’s gaze and sauntered around the couch to him. He smoothed the collar of Cliff’s cotton shirt, feeling his body heat. Cliff’s pulse ticked under his caressing fingertips. “You do know who you’re talking to, right?”

“Vanity personified.”

A laugh shot out of him. “That’s pretty accurate. But I was aiming for guy who can’t take no for an answer.”

Cliff stepped back from him and set a punishing gaze on the trio. “All of you out. I have weekly shopping to do.”

They trundled outside, Luca and Henry ahead, and Cliff jingling his keys behind them with a little too much self-satisfaction.

Bianca scowled after her brother from the porch.

“Sometimes I think he hates me.”

Nah, there wasn’t an ounce of hate in his shrew-ness. “He’s being ridiculously overprotective. He loves you.”

You’re lucky.

Pax rubbed the back of his neck, eyeing Cliff climbing into his car.

“Don’t worry, Bianca. I convinced him to agree to the Christmas Carousel tomorrow. I’ll persuade him to agree to Saturday, too.” He clapped her shoulder and raced after Cliff. “Wait for me, I need . . . stuff from the supermarket too.”

Cliff was not happy when Pax settled himself in the passenger seat, but he didn’t say anything. He drove toward New World supermarket across from the botanical gardens.

“So,” Pax lifted his feet onto the dashboard, “what happened between you and Bianca in the kitchen?”

“We had words.”

“What kind of words?’

“Little words.”

“Little harsh words, like, ‘when will you start using your common sense?’ and ‘mark my words, you’ll regret flirting this summer away in a few months’?”

Cliff parked abruptly near the gardens instead of the supermarket parking lot. Pax’s feet jerked off the dash. “If you know, why are you asking?”

“Will you two figure it out?” Pax asked, following Cliff outside into a wet, smoky breeze. “Or do you need divine intervention?”

The locks beeped into place. “I pray to the heavens you’re referring to God right now.”

“Should we devise something to make her smile at you again?”

Cliff paused at the curb. “Like what?”

“Something that humiliates you.”

Cliff sprung onto the pavement and charged past Pax to a small yellow trailer outside the garden gates. “I need coffee.”

“I thought we were shopping. And formulating the demise of your inflated overprotectiveness.”

Cliff looked from Pax to the aproned guy behind a small counter. “Double shot espresso.”

“Same,” Pax said. “And a flat white.” He winked at Cliff. “We’ll need it for all this planning.”

Cliff shook his head. The moment the barista set the first shot down, Cliff slammed it down his throat.

“You know what we could do?”

Cliff eyed him uneasily. “What?”

“On Saturday when we go to Untamed, we can get you drunk. Show Bianca that you make less than perfect decisions too. Let her have the upper hand.”

Cliff caught the barista’s attention. “I’ll take a cappuccino, also.” He drummed impatient fingers over the counter. “Saturday is not happening. Getting drunk to make my sister feel better, even less.”

“Hear me out. It’ll be fun. Bianca and I can watch you clumsily hit on women and mock you.”

Cliff stopped drumming. “There’s not a chance in the world you’d see me making a fool of myself with a woman.”

“Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

Cliff’s gaze scanned Pax’s face, searching for something. What?

“You seem awfully interested in my love life.”

“What?” Pax scoffed. “No. I . . . No. But I find it difficult to imagine you whispering sweet nothings.”

“I can assure you, there were no sweet nothings in my girlfriend’s ear.” Cliff picked up his cappuccino. “Words should carry meaning. Purpose. Otherwise I don’t care for them.”

“Are you telling me”—Pax leaned in, lips poised at the shell of Cliff’s ear—“if someone says in your ear that you’re a hot piece of ass, you’re unaffected?”

Cliff double-checked the lid on his cappuccino.

Pax smiled inwardly, scoping out a safe path to the supermarket. Cliff clomped close behind him. “You’re not saying anything,” Pax teased.

Cliff stepped to his side. “Because unlike some, I know when I can’t improve on silence.”

Pax laughed, and then thanked the universe for delivering its own payback. A short stretch down the pavement, a parking enforcement officer stood at the hood of Cliff’s car, writing up a ticket for parking in a no-parking zone. The sign for which, neither of them had noticed.

Cliff grunted next to him. “There. Bianca can laugh at that.”

“She could,” Pax agreed. “But she won’t because I’m getting you out of this.”

“No, you’re not. More to the point, why would you want to?”

“It isn’t obvious? I get you out of this ticket, Bianca comes out Saturday night.”

Cliff’s jaw twitched.

Fine. “I’ll get you out of this ticket and write you another song.”

“Get me out of this ticket and five songs.”

Pax tapped his temple. “You’re crazy.” Pax hadn’t even finished the first song for the costume party tomorrow night. Another one, he might manage. But five? By Saturday? When would he sleep? “The ticket and three songs, greedy guts.”

“Four, final offer.”

“Okay, four. But I’m not paying you back for our coffee.”

“Who said I would’ve asked you to?”

Cliff raised his cappuccino, spearing Pax with a daring lift of his eyebrow.

Pax focused on the parking enforcement officer. She wore a navy polo shirt, dark slacks, and a jacket tied around her waist. Her hair was bunched up in a no-bullshit bun, and Pax rolled his shoulders back. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll approach. When she looks up, I’ll smile at her real big, and you’ll gush about being my number-one fan and buying my autographed underwear for ten thousand dollars.”

Cliff lowered his arm with the coffee. “Autographed underwear?”

“More on that later.”

“I’m good. Give it up, you can’t talk her out of a ticket.”

Pax stole Cliff’s coffee before he could sip. “Watch me.”

He walked up to the officer from behind and lightly bumped into her arm. Ink smeared across the ticket.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” Pax faced her with a sheepish grin. Cliff remained in his side vision, leaning against the fence surrounding the botanical gardens.

The officer glanced up as she flipped over the paper. “No problem. I’ll start again.”

“Is that a ticket for my car?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes. “This your Mercedes? Then this is your ticket.”

Pax lifted his flat white. “Well, if that’s not a sign to give up coffee. If I hadn’t stopped for a quick cup. But caffeine, you know?”

“I do know.” She breathed in the aroma.

Pax capitalized on it. “Best coffee in town.” He gestured at the trailer up the path.

She studied him. “You look familiar.”

Pax shrugged, obscuring his obscene delight at being recognized. “I’m on my way to band practice now.”

“Pax Polo,” she said. “The Pax Polo.”

“The one and only.”

He caught Cliff shaking his head.

“Look,” Pax said, “I bought an extra cappuccino for a friend, but between you and me, he doesn’t need more juice. You’d do us both a favor by taking it.”

She eyed the cup, tempted. “You’re not trying to get me out of writing you up, are you?”

“Not at all?” Pax set his flat white on the hood of the car. “If you pass me your pen, I can even sign the cup.”

She handed over her pen, amused.

Pax signed it with a message for her to have a wonderful day. He handed both back to her and she juggled the pen, ticket pad, and coffee. With the smallest smile, she sighed. “I guess I can overlook five minutes.”

“I can hold something if you need—”

“Get out of here.” She grinned, and Pax blew her an air kiss as she left. She kicked down the road, and Cliff crossed over to him.

Pax picked up his flat white and took a congratulatory sip. “Bianca comes out Saturday.”

Cliff pinched the coffee cup from him. “You could sell fridges to a penguin.”

“Nicest words you’ve said to me.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Wouldn’t want to.”

Cliff’s cheek dimpled behind a sip of coffee.