Kye
Suspended in the odd area between sleep and awake, the skin-crawling sensation of being watched creeps over me. I do my best to ignore it, but it becomes too much after only seconds. Slowly, I pry open one eye and spy a tiny bright blue pair gazing right at me. Combined with the suspicious weight on my stomach, I know exactly who my alarm clock is today. Being woken up by a silent two-year-old is the freakiest shit ever.
“Uncy Kye!”
I open the other eye and yawn. “Mila. What are you doin’?”
“Mama paint! My play. With you!” She claps her hands and bounces. I wince at the extra pressure on my gut as she comes down.
“Sure. Can we play later, though?”
She shakes her head, her dark curls flying. “Nonono. Pop now!”
I’m gonna put salt in his coffee. Thanks, Dad.
“ ’Kay,” I groan. “How about you go downstairs, and I’ll be down after a shower?”
Mila pouts and considers this for a moment. Finally, she sighs, nods once, and clambers down off of me. Not without an elbow jab in my thigh that necessitates a strategic move to protect my manhood, though. She stalks in her little toddler wobble to my bedroom door and stops. “Kick,” she demands.
I assume she means “quick.”
I nod in agreement. Damn, she got her mom’s attitude. No doubt about it.
Either I’ve slept in really late or Sofie has had enough of Mila’s “help” repainting the kitchen already.
A roll to my side and a glance at the alarm clock confirm the latter. It’s not even nine yet. I open my messages and text Conner.
What did she do?
He’s replied before I get out of bed. The side of the fridge is now blue.
Oops.
I snort and pull my bedroom door closed behind me. One perk of my brothers not living here: I can get the shower without rock-paper-scissors to determine the pecking order. I also no longer get stuck with the fucking Star Wars towel.
I lock the bathroom door behind me and immediately start the shower. The hot water rushes out, and the steam fills the room quickly. My mind drifts to last night when I step under the pounding water.
After convincing Mom I won’t be moving out until we get back from L.A. in a few months—or before we go, just days before Christmas—I followed Leila to the bar. I knew exactly how it’d go down, that Chelsey would do everything she could to avoid being around me, just like she has since last month, but this way she’d have to talk to me.
Jessie warned me, too. Told me I was dreaming if I thought Chels would give me even a second of her day.
I reminded Jessie that she once said the same thing about my twin brother . . . and now she’s getting her mail delivered to his house.
And even if Chelsey isn’t interested—a point I’m gonna argue, since she blushed like hell last night—I at least want to know why. She couldn’t jump into bed with me quick enough last month, but not in the way any of our fangirls would.
No, she called the shots. She told me when, where, how hard, what position . . .
At least she tried to.
She was putty in my fucking hands the second my lips touched her.
My cock twitches with the memory of our one night together. How easily she responded to my movements, how tightly her pussy clenched around me, how hard she grabbed me, how deeply she took my cock into her mouth . . .
Fuck. This isn’t helping me.
I scrub my hair harshly, wash out the shampoo, and kill the water. My cock is only semihard, but it’s noticeable when I wrap a towel around my waist.
My brothers might not live here, but my sister does.
And this ain’t something she needs to see.
I brush my teeth, staring at myself intently in the mirror to avoid thinking about . . .
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bangbangbang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bangbangbang.
“Uncy Kyeeeeeee!”
Thank you, Mila.
“What?” I yell around my toothbrush, for the first time maybe ever thankful to be interrupted by her.
Toddlers might be creepy alarm clocks, but clearly they have their uses, like interrupting dirty thoughts and bringing you back to Earth.
“My pay!” she demands. “You so!”
I spit out frothy toothpaste. “Okay, I’ll hurry up. Ask Pops to make me coffee.”
“No,” she huffs. “Do a-self.”
Guess I’m doing it myself, then.
I wait until the tiny steps clunking against the hardwood floor have disappeared down the stairs and silence reigns, dart back into my room, and get dressed. I know for a fact that Aidan planned on doing nothing but listen to Jessie brainstorm color schemes for the front room today, so if I’m on uncle babysitting duty, his lazy ass is joining me.
I grab my keys off the side table and run downstairs. Mila is sitting in the middle of the living room floor with Dad, absently grabbing at a bowl of grapes while scribbling on some paper.
“Ah, Pop. Noooo! Ed! Ed!”
“Hey, Mila!” I call, immediately drawing her attention. “You wanna go see Uncle Ads?”
“Uncy Ads?” she gasps, dropping both the crayon and grape she was just holding. “Yeahyeahyeah!”
I glance at Dad. “We’ve got her seat, right?”
Dad nods. “In the garage.” He gets up, and when Mila sees him pause to catch his breath, she runs over and hugs his leg.
“ ’Mon, Pop.” She smacks a kiss against his knee and runs to the garage.
Dad smiles and pats her head by the door, his wrinkled hand resting on the top of her head as she looks up at him adoringly.
When did my dad get this old?
He disappears into the garage with her and I shake off the last thought. He isn’t old. He’s getting there—but he isn’t there yet. Another ten years and I’ll give him the “old” button for his birthday.
I wait by my truck until Dad carries the seat out. We’re all pros at installing them by now, so Mila’s sitting snug in the backseat with her bunny within minutes. Dad waves, knowing I’m deliberately heading to Aidan’s place.
Surprisingly, he’s outside when I get there.
“Dad called,” he grunts as I pull up to the curb and pause. “Said you had Mila.” He nods toward the house.
I turn my truck into his driveway and inch up until I’m just behind his. “Yeah. Sofie and Conner had a blue fridge by eight,” I explain.
He laughs and opens the back door. “Been busy, Mila?”
“My paint!” she shrieks, grinning. “My lub boo paint.”
Aidan glances at me, pausing before he unbuckles her. “You didn’t bring paint, right?”
I shake my head. “None here. Unless you already got some inside.”
His inhale is sharp, and twin intuition tells me he wants to run into a brick wall repeatedly. “Don’t,” he mutters. “Just fuckin’ don’t.”
“Dollar!” Mila yells.
“Go ask Jessie.” He points at the house, and Mila runs through the open front door. He turns to me. “Who the fuck knows the difference between scarlet and fire engine? Or coral and salmon?”
“That’s red and pink, right?”
“Precisely. It’s fucking red or it’s fucking pink. Get whatever shade of that shit you want. I don’t care.” He takes another deep breath. “Chelsey has been here for two hours and what was formerly my living room is now a goddamn DIY paint store swatch wall.”
I pause. “Chelsey’s here?”
“Yep.” Aidan smirks. “And she ain’t happy with you.”
“Take a chick home, and she hates your guts,” I mutter. “Fucking women.”
“Dunno. I stopped listening when she told Jessie you wanna fuck her again.”
“I do.”
Ads stops, his eyes flashing with laughter. “So fuck her.”
Twin brothers: pains in the ass, but always good for a moment of understanding.
“You wanna have a little chat with your girlfriend so she’s on the same wavelength?”
Jessie steps out of the front door, the sun glinting off her bright red hair. She narrows her eyes as she looks between us. “The same wavelength for what?”
My brother turns to her. “The wavelength where you get to pick between powder blue and teal, sunshine.”
“It was turquoise and teal.”
Ads holds his arms out. “See? I’m fuckin’ useless.”
“Hmm.” Her eyes flick to me, her lips twisting. “Kye, what do you think? Teal or turquoise?”
Yeah, I’m busted.
“Isn’t that a trick question?” I answer.
She crooks her finger in my direction. Aw, shit. That’s never good. “C’mere.”
“Nah, I like it here.”
“Pussy.”
Aidan snorts, so I give in and walk toward her. Jessie Law is a force unto herself, and I’m not afraid to admit I’m slightly scared of her.
She hooks her finger around the neck of my shirt and leans forward. “You wanna fuck my best friend?” she asks.
“That was to the point,” I mutter.
“Kye.”
I remove her finger from my shirt and step back. “What’s it gotta do with you?”
“Absolutely nothing.” She grins. “I’m just damn nosy.”
I shake my head and push her to the side so I can enter the house. Faintly, I can hear Mila chattering about Bunna the rabbit, and the dolly she had to leave at home. She swiftly moves on to Doc McStuffins and Squeakers’s latest adventure in the bathtub.
I lean against the doorframe and watch as she regales Chelsey with tales of her fictional friends. None of the words make a lot of sense if you’re not familiar with her babble, but I follow her perfectly. Something about Goofy mixes in with Jake, and my lips twitch.
Chelsey, for her part, is leaning forward and listening intently. She nods and gives an “uh-huh” at the appropriate moment. Her smile is wide, and as Mila gets too excited and throws her arms up, Chelsey reaches forward to stop her from falling backward. Mila pauses, then bursts into laughter when she realizes she’s safe.
Her tiny blue eyes find mine. “Uncy Kye!” she exclaims. “My ’kay.”
I sweep her up, much to her amusement. “Well, ain’t that good?”
“Uh-huh,” she agrees. “My pay?”
“Outside?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sure.” I put her down and she runs back toward the front door. I watch her for a second and hear Jessie pretend to chase her down the path that leads to Aidan’s spacious backyard. Chelsey’s eyes burn into the side of my head, and I turn to her. Sweet fuck, I wanna grin just to piss her off. “What?”
“What are you doing here?” Her voice cracks halfway through the sentence, and she clears her throat.
“My brother lives here,” I say simply. “What are you doing here?”
“My best friend lives here.” Her jaw clamps shut, and her eyes harden.
“We’re at an impasse.” I wanna laugh, but I fight it. Fucking hell.
Chelsey takes a deep breath and looks away. “How much longer until I move about this town freely and don’t have to worry about you?”
Now I let myself laugh. “Until last night, you hadn’t seen me for a month.”
“It was the best month of my life.” She gets up and attempts to walks around me.
I shoot an arm out toward her.
“Do you mind?” she asks softly, glancing at my fingers wrapped around her slender arm. “I have to get ready for work.”
“What’d I do to you, Chels?”
She hesitates for a moment, her fingers twitching where they’re resting against my elbow. Slowly, she brings her eyes up to meet mine. They’re hard but hesitant, the reluctant glint in them oddly softening. It goes against her general demeanor. “Nothing,” she whispers, the word slicing through the tight silence lingering between us. “Nothing.”
With that final word, she shakes me off her and turns away without a backward glance. The chill she leaves in the air is stronger than the wind filtering through the front door toward me. Fucking damn.
Of course my cock would stir at the mention of her name. It never was very damn sensible.
A heavy sigh sounds from behind me. “Oh, Kye.” Jessie touches my arm. “What’d you do?”
I hold my hands up, shrugging. “I don’t know. I was me?”
Her lips twist to one side. “Could be better, could be worse.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“You’re welcome.” She laughs. “I don’t know what to suggest to you.”
“Isn’t she your best friend?” I raise one eyebrow and focus on her. “Aren’t you supposed to know everything about her? That’s how chicks work, right?”
“Kind of,” she hedges. “But I’m not her only best friend, you know? She has three others.”
“In other words, I’m on my fuckin’ own.”
A tiny cough echoes from the doorway, and we both turn to Mila. Her hand is outstretched, and she makes a gimme motion with her fingers. One I’m very familiar with. “Dollar,” she demands, deadly serious.
I sigh, pull my wallet out, and hand her a dollar bill.
“Tankoo,” she says, grabbing the crinkled bill in her fist and twirling away back outside. Who knows what she actually does with those things? All I know is that the kid must be the richest two-year-old in the state. Hell, the country.
“What are you gonna do?” Jessie asks, smoothing her bright hair away from her face.
“About Chelsey?” I shrug a shoulder. “I was kinda hoping you could get her drunk as soon as possible, because when she’s drunk, she likes me. Not to mention that she—”
“Please stop talking. I don’t want to know what she does drunk.”
I laugh. “Guess I’m gonna go piss her off until she finally agrees to a date. How hard could it be?”
Jessie half-grins, a knowing glint in her eye. “Take what you think and times it by ten,” she says dryly, moving back toward the front door. “You’re halfway there. She has a heart of stone.”
“Like you, then?” I call as she disappears.
“Fuck you, Kye!”
I laugh as the littlest has the final word. And, yep, it’s “Dollar!”
I pull up outside TJ’s Tavern, the bar Chelsey works at, and walk toward the door, glancing to the side as Tate falls into step beside me.
“Man, I tell you, Ella realizes I’m here and not getting Mila’s Christmas present like I promised I would and she’s gonna twist my balls into fuckin’ next week.”
“Someone’s gotta be my wingman.” I push the door open. “And since my twin’s girlfriend has his balls in an iron vice, it’s you.”
Tate groans. “In my next life, I better be an only damn child.”
He leans against the bar and turns his eyes toward me. “Hey, hasn’t Chelsey been avoiding you?”
“Avoidin’ is a real strong word.”
“And entirely accurate,” Chelsey interrupts, a dry tone to her voice. I offer her a slow smile as I turn my attention fully to her. Her long blond hair is pulled back from her face in a ponytail, although her bangs are escaping in wispy tendrils that she pushes out of her eyes. “What can I get you, gentlemen?”
“Gentlemen?” Tate drawls. “Now, Chelsey, darlin’, you had your chance with this gentleman . . .”
Chelsey leans forward, flattening her hands on the bar, and grins. “I see you already found Mila a Christmas present.”
Tate returns her grin. “All right, all right. It’s only December twelfth. The damn tree ain’t even up yet. I’m not buying shit until that happens. But I’ll take a Bud, thanks.”
She rolls her eyes then turns away. She bends to the low fridge and pulls out the deep-brown bottle of beer. Fuck, that’s a nice ass. “Tate Burke, you’re lucky I’m best friends with your girlfriend or your balls would be her next plaything—and not in a good way.” She deposits the bottle in front of him to the tune of his chuckle and turns her attention to me. “Kye? What do you want?”
“A date?”
Tate snorts.
“December twelfth,” she shoots back. “There. Now what to drink?”
Smartass. “Bud, I guess.”
“You guess?” She raises an eyebrow but turns anyway. She’s bent down and has just opened the fridge door when she stops and peeks over her shoulder at me. “You only said that so you could look at my ass, didn’t you?”
Double smartass. “Nope. Didn’t notice it.”
She slams the fridge door, pops off the bottle cap, then slams the bottle down in front of me. “That’s four dollars, please.”
I give her my card. She snatches it out of my hand and turns to the register.
“Good effort, bro,” Tate offers, and I can’t decide if he’s serious or not. “Few more of those conversations and she’ll be begging you for another night together.”
Chelsey smacks the card onto the bar along with a receipt and a pen. She cuts her eyes to Tate as she says to me, “Sign. Thank you.”
I take the pen with a sigh and scrawl on the line. “Thanks, asshole.”
Tate shrugs, lifting the bottle to his lips. “You made me wingman. Never promised I’d be a good one. I’m still gonna get laid at the end of the evening.”
“And Mila’s Christmas present?”
“Didn’t have it in stock.”
I shake my head. Last fucking time I bring my big brother for some goddamn moral support. I’ll come alone next time.
In all honesty, I didn’t expect a date out of it. I just wanted to see if she’d be as much of a bitch to me as she claimed she’d be. She has been, but shit, I thought she’d be a little nice, considering the time I showed her.
No, I’m lying. After her hellish response to me at Aidan’s, I knew she’d be like this. She’s deliberately standing at the opposite end of the bar, her back to me. The end of her ponytail is swept over her shoulder, but a few light strands of her hair are glinting off the back of her black shirt. She jerks her head up and laughs at something the middle-aged guy she’s serving has said to her.
Her laughter is bright and slightly wild.
Fuck me. I’m jealous of the way a fifty-something man can make her laugh.
“Is it too early to say you’ve got it bad?” Tate asks, setting his empty bottle on the bar. “’Cause you’ve been starin’ at her for at least five minutes, and she’s looked at you at least ten times.”
I grab my beer and finish the last of it in one mouthful. “Yeah, way too early.”
“You’re still fuckin’ lookin’ at her.” His hand connects with the back of my head. “Let me guess, you’re gonna leave without another word, aren’t you?”
“You bet.” I stand, sliding my empty bottle across the bar, eyes still on her. “And I’ll be right back here tomorrow.”
He shakes his head as he follows me out, but as I leave, I feel her eyes on me, and the loud scrape as she removes our bottles lets me know she’s been watching me.
And I will see her tomorrow.
We’re not done with this yet.