Chapter 35

Joey

“This is perfect.” Lying back on a pile of pillows in Andi’s room I confess, “I’m exhausted.”

“We didn’t do anything,” my best friend says from the other side of the room as she swipes at residual makeup with a cleansing wipe.

“The sun just drains me.” I peel the loose collar of my t-shirt away so I can glance at my shoulder. It seems the multiple layers of sunscreen I applied over the course of the day worked because my skin isn’t even pink.

“Being around Anthony and not being able to jump his bones is what’s draining you.” She winks at me, her reflection smiling over her shoulder to where I am lounging on the bed.

“I told you all of that in confidence,” I remind her.

I told her almost everything today after the near-death experience parasailing. Nerves on edge, I treated her like she was my priest and confessing my sins was the only way to be absolved from them.

“Look around, babe.” She holds her arms out, spinning in a slow circle. “It’s just you and me here.”

Glaring at her, I let my thoughts formulate in my mind before I speak. “You and Dave need to stop with the taunting in front of my brother.”

“Jon is clueless,” she assures me. “He’s too focused on his next female target to concern himself with what Anthony is doing.”

Her tone is light-hearted and dismissive, but I can still feel the tension that surrounds her when she speaks about my brother hooking up with other women.

“When he finds out about Anthony and me, it’s all going to fall into place, and he’s going to be livid at both of you for not telling him.”

“It’s not my secret to tell,” Andi offers as she plops down on the bed beside me.

“He won’t see it that way.”

“Is he worth it?” she asks in a muted voice. “Like do you love him?”

Letting her question bounce around in my head, I think for a long moment before I answer. “I don’t think it’s love just yet, but it’s just…different.”

“That tells me absolutely nothing,” she mumbles pointing the remote at the TV clearly trying to find something that catches her interest.

“If I could explain it better, I would,” I argue. “It doesn’t make any difference right now, anyway. With his ultimatum, we may never get the chance to see how far we can take this relationship or whatever it is.”

I wave my hand in front of us, having no better way to get my point across.

Listening to his story yesterday made me see things differently, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still apprehensive about coming clean.

“He called you his boyfriend on the beach earlier.”

“He did that to run those two jerks off.”

“He really wanted to beat their asses. I saw it in his eyes.” She whistles. “Seeing that domineering, possessive side of him in full force turned even me on.”

She chuckles at the memory, but it only serves to make me angrier.

“He shouldn’t have acted that way.”

“You’re crazy.” Playfully, she nudges my shoulder with her own. “I wish Jon would get jealous over me like that.”

“My point,” I begin, “is that if he thinks I’m his in some archaic, caveman type of way, he shouldn’t be down there with the other guys. He shouldn’t have let them run us off.”

See what I mean about being back and forth? I question Dave’s sanity every time he opens his mouth, but I may be the one in desperate need of a mental health evaluation. Anthony makes me fucking crazy.

“What else should he have done?” Anger is pushing its way into her tone. “Asked you to sit on his lap when I offered to sit on Jon’s?”

“Maybe,” I grumble, having no clue where her agitation is coming from.

“Really?” Her voice is almost a screech, such a jarring sound in the tiny room. “The man, from what you’ve told me, has offered numerous times to out you guys to the group because he wants to do exactly that. You shut him down! You can’t be pissed when he does exactly what you’ve told him he’s allowed to do.”

My eyes narrow in her direction. “I don’t need you to make sense right now. I need you to be my best friend and just back me when I say crazy shit.”

“Nope.” She holds her hands up in frustration. “You’re risking losing a great thing, a guy who sees no one else but you, a man who is willing to take the ass beating of his life from three guys, because you know Dave and Cooper are obligated to Jon, just so he can hold your hand in public and peck a kiss to your lips before he goes and grabs the order from the counter at fucking Taco Bell!”

Speechless, I feel like shit when I see a tear roll down her cheek.

“Where is all of this coming from?” I whisper after a long beat of both of us just looking at each other.

“Rules!” she yells as she stands from the bed and begins to pace in the small confines of the room. It’s literally five hearty steps from one side to the other, but that doesn’t keep her from walking and turning and walking and turning. “I hate the fucking rules. I know they’re there to protect the group, and I know we’ve had this conversation over and over, but that fucking rule,” she stops and stares me down so hard a shiver wiggles up my spine, “the rule you’ve been breaking for weeks now, is ruining my life.”

She presses her finger so hard against her own chest, I wonder if she’s going to have a bruise come morning time.

“We’re telling Jon soon after we get back home,” I assure her, but the doubt in her eyes is reflective of the same doubt I can hear in my own voice.

“You’re lying,” she finally replies with no venom in her voice.

“Maybe?” I respond. “I don’t know. It’s forbidden and fun and I’m—”

“You’re worried when it’s out in the open that it’s going to change something between you and Anthony.” She finishes my sentence without even having to explain myself further.

“Yeah,” I mutter hanging my head as my insecurities are given a voice.

“You are so fucking blind,” she says with a laugh as she settles in beside me and lifts my chin so I’m looking directly at her. “He is totally infatuated with you,” she assures me.

“I don’t want infatuation. It’s fleeting.”

“You want him to love you.”

I begin to shake my head in denial, but she grips my chin tighter to deter me.

“I want to be loved,” I specify. “I don’t want something that’s not going to last to disrupt the group.”

“You can’t talk about love one second and then mumble some bullshit about not taking chances. Love is nothing but chances and risks.”

“And you know this because you love my brother?”

A sad grin plays at the right-side corner of her mouth as she releases my face. “He didn’t cringe when I asked him to oil my back earlier. We’re making progress.”

Silence fills the room. We’ve beaten the ‘my brother is an asshole who will only hurt you’ horse to death, and I’m done fighting for the safety of her heart. If she wants to risk it with the crazy hand she’s been dealt, that’s on her.

“That chick in the polka dot bikini was livid,” I remind her.

Anthony stuck close to us for almost an hour before the other guys and the girls they were talking to came over and surrounded us, opting to sit on beach towels in the sand.

“Not as mad as the one in that black suit.” Andi chuckles as she grabs the room-service menu from the tiny bedside table. “She kept muttering something about us having a weird ass family under her breath the whole time he was lathering me up.”

“I didn’t hear her.”

“You were too busy watching Anthony’s lips wrap around the top of his beer bottle to pay attention to anything else going on around you.”

“Guilty.” I was more worried about my inability to hide my erection in the speedo.

“When the tips of his fingers were working their way up my side,” she shivers dramatically, the shake of her body jostling the entire bed, “the girl said something about incest. I think she thought I was his sister.”

It’s my turn to shiver.

“Do you need a minute?” I ask when her dreamy eyes start to glaze over. “Keep in mind that’s still my brother you’re mind-fucking right now.”

Her eyes roll back, a low whimper erupts from her throat as her teeth dig seductively into her lower lip. It’s then that I shove her right off the bed. “Stop!”

Laughing hysterically, Andi rolls to her side on the thin carpet. “It’s almost too easy to fuck with you, but it’ll be very serious when BOB is pulled out later. Just a warning if you plan to sleep in here.”

“Fuck no,” I respond immediately.

“There isn’t shit on this menu that I’m interested in.” She holds the menu above her face as she continues to lie flat on her back on the floor. “I’m thinking about going down to the twenty-four-hour pizza place to grab a couple of slices.”

“Can you—”

“Pepperoni, no veggies, you got it.”

She changes out of her lounge pants and tugs on a tank top and shorts before grabbing her brush and wrapping her auburn hair in an artsy bun. She turns back in my direction and swipes her access card from the nightstand.

“Maybe you can find something to watch while I’m gone.” She frowns. “I love Harry Potter as much as anyone, but a five-day marathon is a little too much.”

I’m laughing as I hit select on the remote and Dumbledore begins to explain the mysteries of the world to the young wizard. I’ll find something different when she returns.