Page 14 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“You already said that,” I said as we walked towards the front door.

“It bears repeating.” I found the right key and twisted it in the lock. “As does this.” She shot the guys a look over her a shoulder before walking inside with me. “It’s OK to let people help you.”

But it wasn’t. If you let them, then you got used to it and what happened when they stopped? You felt a loss, an ache inside your chest that just wouldn’t stop until— I pinched off that thought like Mum did the dead heads of her precious flowers.

“Think of it as penance,” Barbie said, settling against the kitchen counter then craning a neck to watch the guys file in through the door, each one toting a box. “Sexy, sexy penance.”

“I’m not sure moving my shit makes up for what they put me through,” I grumbled.

“Then what would? Because damn, girl. I knew you were a freaking hard head, but how the hell did you keep your hands off those boys growing up? I’d be slipping down the hallway every night they slept over and…”

She began to make movements with her hands, making clear what she would do— something Gage caught out the corner of his eye. I grabbed her wrist and dragged her out through the glass sliding doors towards the perfectly turquoise pool.

“You would’ve been singing a different tune if you’d met them then,” I told her, opening the gate and then toeing off my sandals. The pebblecrete pressed into the soles of my feet, keeping me here rather than back at my parent’s old place. “Sneaking into their room would’ve just meant being tickled until you peed or being Dutch ovened.” I ran a toe through the water, feeling how refreshingly cool it was, the Australian sun burning far too brightly. “Remind me to check if there’s a lock on the bedroom door.”

She chuckled.

“To keep them out or you—?”

I slapped a hand over her mouth, making clear I did not want to hear her finish that thought. This whole thing was weird, and I didn’t need her making it weirder. The nice house, the lovely pool, and the fact my tormenters were moving me into their McMansion, I didn’t need her concocting sexy scenarios as well.

“My bathers are in my boxes and yours are at home,” I told her, “so what did you want to do? Work on our tans?”

“Where’s your phone?” she asked.

“In my bag. Why?”

Wrong answer. She grinned and then moved like lightning, shoving me forward, my limbs flailing through the air right before I hit the water. Cold, harsh chlorine hit me as I went under, then surged back up to suck in a breath.

“You b—!”

I didn’t get to finish that sentence as she leapt forward, curling her body into a ball before going slamming down into the water, forcing me to splutter all over again as waves of water hit my face.

“Fuck, Barbie…” I gasped.

“Shut your eyes when you get a blast to the face,” she said with a wild grin, her perfect waves of blonde hair now plastered to her skull. “Haven’t I told you that before?”

“I’ll give you a blast to the face,” I growled, slapping my hands down on the water to splash her. Of course that’s not how it worked. She just shut her eyes and held her face out in a porn-worthy performance, moaning as the water hit her. I, of course, doubled down, trying to get her spluttering, but she just made a further spectacle of herself, right as Gage appeared with two tall glasses in hand.

A small clearing of his throat was what stopped the two of us, our eyes blinking water away to see him just standing there. Those hazel eyes seemed to take everything in, what we were doing, the noises we were making, and the way our clothes were now plastered against our skin. No, make that my clothes.

Barbie, that would’ve made sense. During our entire friendship, I’d seen guys drop drinks, stop conversations mid-sentence, even with their girlfriends, or just leave off what they were doing to trail after her. But if I wanted to ascribe his sudden interest to her, I was out of luck. There was no mistaking who he was staring at.

I’d chucked on some light, floaty top this morning along with some shorts, the weather making it impossible to wear anything heavier, so that meant he could see everything. Not granny panties, but a super boring, slightly grey from being washed far too often bra. He traced its shape with his eyes like it was the finest lingerie.

Weird.

“Yummy!” Barbie moved to the edge of the pool, and that was when Gage paid attention to her, right? Nope, not when she swam over to the edge of the pool or gazed up at him with her baby blues. Instead, it took me wading closer to break whatever spell had been cast over him as he blinked and then swallowed hard.

“Your drinks.”

Was his voice this deep and rumbly when we were kids? I always remembered it being deeper than the other guys—Gage seeming to go through puberty before everyone else—but it didn’t feel like it vibrated all the way through me then, did it? I found myself reaching up for the drink, his hand not moving any closer, forcing me to cling to the rim of the pool and surge up to grab it.

And he watched every moment of that movement.

It was as if his eyes traced every rivulet of water, each droplet as it slid down my body, and why did that have me flushing? An instinctive need to cover up, to shield his eyes from my body, rose and was quickly stuffed down. This was Gage. He’d seen me in the pool, out in the yard, lounging on the couch, or mucking around on the play set since I was a little kid. This was no big deal. That didn’t explain the slight zap I got when I grabbed the glass from his fingers, our skin touching for just a second before I pulled away. I gulped down a mouthful of the drink, my mouth suddenly dry, and the sharp burst of lime, Cointreau, and tequila was a pleasant surprise.

“Damn, that boy does know how to make a good margarita,” Barbie said, taking the words right out of my mouth. “Hey, where’s yours?”

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