Page 49 of Falling for my Brother's Best Friend

She huffs out a laugh. “I swear Calista won’t stop with the ‘Baby Shark’ song. It’s imbedded into my brain.”

“This morning, she had Denver’s phone and was listening to it, and this girl he labeled ‘Wednesday night girl’ called. Calista answered it and had a five-minute conversation about ‘Baby Shark.’”

“No way.” Her eyes widen.

“Yep. Imagine that girl’s surprise. She probably thinks Calista is his.”

She cracks open her second crab leg. “We all thought Calista was his once upon a time.”

I remember that. When Harley first came to town, looking for Calista’s father, she was asking around for Denver. “Sometimes I’m still surprised Rome has two kids and a soon-to-be-wife.”

“How do you think I feel? I’m the second oldest and three of my siblings are settled down. Two married. One with kids. Another trying. I wonder if I should take medication for my cat allergy because I’ll never fit in with the rest of the permanently single women.”

I gulp my beer, trying not to spit it out because imagining Savannah with cats all around her is funny as shit. “I’ll marry you. We can’t do Vegas since Brooklyn and Wyatt already did that. Do you have your passport? Maybe we can go to Niagara Falls?”

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling at least. “I thought there was no flirting?”

I hold out my hands. “I’m not flirting. This is innocent marriage-of-convenience talk.”

“And what would you get if you marry me? There’s always an exchange.” She wipes her hands and mouth, straightening her back to be poised and ready.

“Maybe that eventually, after twenty years, you’ll finally cave and sleep with me.”

She laughs. Head tilted back, eyes crinkled with laughter that can be heard two tables over. I relish in the fact that something I said finally made her happy.

“You’re laughing at my expense?” She can do it all day long for all I care. This is how I want to see her.

“No.” She tries to compose herself but fails once before sobering up. “It’s just the way you talk. You’d think you’re that nerdy kid in school going after the head cheerleader. I mean, you do look in the mirror every morning, right?”

I shrug. “Yeah.”

“And when you walk down Main Street, you catch the women staring at you, right?”

“There’s only one woman I want to see staring.”

She throws a hushpuppy at me. “You’re not abiding by the rules you laid out.”

“Sorry. It’s harder than I thought.” Ain’t that the truth.

Her laughter dies off. I kick myself for bringing up my feelings for her again.

“Can I ask you a question?” she says.

“Sure.”

“That night with the tattoo… how come you kept that secret from my family?”

“Because you asked me to.”

She shakes her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?” I think back to the night she came to me and asked me to tattoo a remembrance of her parents on her skin. I came up with blackbirds flying away together. Later on, her sisters saw it in the book at my shop, and now they have identical ones without knowing Savannah was the original owner. “I guess it felt like a shared moment between us and I wanted to keep it for myself.” She watches me silently for a moment, so I add, “I thought it might upset some of your siblings if they knew that.”

“Why would they be upset?”

“Because I’m your brothers’ best friend. I always felt you were off-limits.”

“Until recently?”

I shrug, finishing my second beer. “I guess it finally felt like maybe you saw me as more than just that.”

Her eyes lock with mine, and my heart races as I anticipate what she’ll say.

“Liam, I’ve been seeing you for a while.”

I slide my tongue over my bottom lip. Damn, that’s the last thing she should’ve admitted.

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