Page 104 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“You’ll be getting up there too, you old goat,” Mum said. “Leaving our boy to labour in the hot sun all on his own? He needs to get home and back to that beautiful girl of his.” She came closer and put a hand on my arm. “It was all a bit of a shock last night, but Van, I’m happy for you, love. You’ve held a torch for Kendall for some time, haven’t you?”

“Longer than you might think,” I croaked. “I love you guys and I don’t want drama, but…” I shook my head. “Nothing’s gonna stop me from being with my girl. Nothing.”

“Better get your arse up on the roof then,” Dad said with a sigh. “Get these jobs knocked over and then you can run back to Kendall and start making some grandkids for us to spoil.”

“Ooh!” Mum clapped her hands. “Do you think we’ll get more grandies because there’s more guys?”

“Um… not sure that’s how it works, Mum,” I said.

“You’d have to have at least three. A cute little boy with your eyes, or a girl with your blonde hair.” Mum sighed, a familiar clucky look on her face. “Oh, she’d be just beautiful.”

“If you let me go now, I could start practising for kids really, really hard,” I pleaded.

“Not a fucking chance, stud.” Dad punched me in the arm. “Now get your arse outside. I had the birds and the bees talk with you when you were a young fella, but now’s when I can share the real good stuff.” His eyes twinkled as we walked through the house. “I know some real good positions—”

“I’ll do the gutters all by myself if you stop talking.” I groaned.

“Done deal, kid.”

Chapter 51

Gage

Kendall was used to me slipping out of bed early. She groaned into my chest, clawing at me to get closer when I started to roll free, but I pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Just going for a run.” A little snort at that, her eyelids barely fluttering. “You could come if you like?”

I chuckled to myself as she rolled away abruptly, grabbing a spare pillow and putting it over her head.

Normally I’d be pulling on my running gear, chugging down a protein shake before taking off down the road, but instead I had another idea in mind. I brought out my phone and sent out a group text before I jumped in the van and left.

“Gage…” Mum rushed out to the front gate as soon as she heard my van turn up. “Are you all right, love? I’m sorry about last night, but you gave us a terrible shock.”

“I’m fine, Mum.” I reached down to give her a hug. “I know everyone needed time to process, but I couldn’t stand by and let Kendall be disrespected.”

She nodded slowly.

“You’ve always been sweet on her, haven’t you?”

Sweet? That wasn’t the right word to describe how I felt about Kendall. It evoked images of something light, pleasurable, easy to consume. No, what I felt was more like a damn landslide, carrying with it the momentum of years and years of sediment as it swept everything out of its path.

“Always,” I told Mum. “There’s never going to be any other girl for me. I loved her back when we were kids and that’s never stopped. It never will.”

“Then you better come in and talk to your father,” she said with a sigh.

“What were you bloody thinking?” Dad shot up, leaving his still-steaming coffee on the kitchen table. “Kendall Kennedy? She’s a good girl.”

“She is.”

I couldn’t help but smirk at that, remembering just how good she was last night. I’d watched her take Connor out of his head, in awe of the way she could settle him, and while my best mate got some sleep, Van and I had shown her just how much we appreciated her efforts. We lost count of how many orgasms were had, all the stress of the day exploding between us.

“Don’t stand there smirking like a gormless twit,” Dad raged. “This isn’t the way I raised you. You need to find your own woman, look after her, provide for her, not—”

“Love her.” Dad fell silent. “Want no one else but her. Feel a burning need to key lock the front door so Kendall couldn’t leave, but not letting myself do that. Listen to her talk like there was no one more interesting than her. Give her my van when her rust-bucket of a car was on its last legs. Keep her safe. Dad, that’s what burns inside my chest. A fire that has never gone out and it never will. I don’t know what you think is going on, but… I love Kendall Kennedy, and the boys and I aim to show her that every fucking day. We’ll keep people in our lives that can respect that, but if they can’t…”

I watched my dad’s brows twitch, a frown forming then smoothing, both of the bushy caterpillars rising in surprise, only to frown again.

“You love her?”

---