Page 37 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

But they didn’t have time for a nice little moment, because Gage and I nodded to each other and then advanced. Trying to ingratiate himself with the babe? That was an unforgivable sin.

“Then let’s take these fuckers down,” she said with a wild grin, right as I spread my arms wide.

“Hey, come and get me.”

Chapter 20

Connor

Right about now I was ready to find a time machine, go back to when I was a teenager, and kick my own arse, because as Kendall came to stand beside me, I could see it. Finn and me against Gage and Van was our usual pairing, but it wasn’t hard to imagine how our kitchen battles might’ve gone if we weren’t forced to keep Kendall on the outer all the time. I heard her low chuckles each time she hit the mark, felt her dancing away when the others tried to get her back. Instead, I threw myself in front of her, protecting her, rather than subjecting her to our relentless onslaught, the way we had when she dared to try and join our games.

We treated her like an equal participant rather than an annoyance.

“You know you don’t have to protect me.” That was pushed through gritted teeth as she flicked and flicked, barely dodging out of the way to avoid the others’ strikes.

“What if I want to?”

I shouldn’t have been saying shit like this. Turning around and letting the guys’ blows rain down on my shoulders while I confronted Kendall was also really fucking stupid. I’d completely lost my chill when she sat down to dinner with us, my memories of the way it’d been in her home around their dining table an unwelcome fifth wheel.

But I couldn’t help it.

Our house was the biggest on the street we had all grown up on. Dad’s firm built the whole estate, unconsciously creating a kind of manor home, with the ‘plebs’ arranged around us, but all the wealth he managed to generate didn’t create this.

A kind of family.

We all knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We had a shared history that came from showing up for each other day after day, and despite our best efforts, Kendall was well and truly a part of that. When I sat at her family’s dinner table, I promised myself one day I’d have something similar. That I’d sit at the head, like Kendall’s dad, and she would take her mother’s place. We’d have the same chaos, the same mess, the same complete and utter dysfunction, and we’d be a family.

“Are you having an aneurysm?” Kendall now asked me, peering exaggeratedly at my face before snapping me with her tea towel.

“Hey, I’m on your side!” I yelped.

“I’m the only one on my side.” She said that with a slow grin, shuffling back and dropping low, ready to take the lot of us on, when her phone rang. The others went to surge forward and exploit this moment of weakness, but I stepped in, somehow knowing I wouldn’t like whoever was on the other end of the line.

“Hello?” She waved her hand furiously at Van and Gage, warding them off, but she needn’t. I held my hands out, ready to keep them back. “Oh yeah, hi. Yep, I’m definitely still interested in the room.” I was feeling so damn good moments ago, so why was my heart dropping through the floor now? “It’s still available? Yeah, that would be amazing.”

The others finally realised who she was talking to, dropping the tea towels on the bench and going quiet as she completed her conversation.

“This weekend? Yeah, I can do that. I’ll be there bright and early. Thanks for calling me back!” Her cheeks were still flushed, and she was smiling when she turned around, but we weren’t. Kendall slowly seemed to realise that, blinking as she took us in. “Looks like there’s a possibility I could be out of your hair by the weekend. There’s a place that has a room to rent a bit closer to work.”

But that didn’t matter. If she hated the commute, we’d drive her every morning, or find her another job, a better one closer to us. Or fuck, we’d buy her a bakery and she could set it up anywhere she liked. We’d fit it out so it looked amazing and—

“You know you don’t have to go anywhere.”

I said that with a calm I didn’t feel, stuffing down the fucking chaos raging in my heart.

“Have to?” She shrugged. “Maybe not, but if this is already causing issues with Finn… This was only ever a temporary fix. You’ll have your house back to yourselves and…”

It’d feel so empty. I didn’t say that, couldn’t hear what else she said, just watched her hang her tea towel neatly on the over door handle and then walk away, taking my heart with her.

Fuck.

Gage said something to that effect, but before I could turn to them and start the necessary brainstorming it would take to find a way to keep Kendall here, Van’s alarm went off.

“Shit, footy training.” We all played in a social league as a means to stay active and socialise, but I’d rather eat a shit sandwich than go to training right now. “C’mon, we better go.”

“I don’t want—” I started to say.

“People have been dropping out and letting Phil down.”

---