Page 42 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“Don’t fumble the fucking ball and it won’t,” I shot back.

He whirled around, tension vibrating through his body as he turned to face me.

“I didn’t fucking fumble—”

I matched his energy, getting right up in his face.

“You always do. Got sexy fingers, don’t ya? Fucking everything up.”

“And what’re your fingers doing?” His hands slammed against my chest, but I wasn’t going anywhere, and that just made him madder. “Touching my sister—”

I grabbed his hands, ground the fingers together for good measure, before knocking them away.

“I’ll use these hands to do whatever the fuck your sister wants.” His eyebrows jerked down as I wiggled my fingers at him, steam almost coming out of his nose as his whole body coiled, ready to launch it at me. But I knew exactly what it would take to cut his knees out from under him, so I did just that. “Because I fucking love her.”

“What?” Sure enough, the prick stopped, staggered forward slightly, and then corrected himself. “You what?”

“I’m in love with Kendall.” God, how good it felt to finally say that out loud. “I always have been.”

“No you haven’t. No… No…”

He was shaking his head like a dog with fleas, but we kept going.

“We all are.” Connor came to stand beside me. “You warned us off as kids, but the minute she graduated from school, we intended to see if she was open to something with us.”

“Us? All of you?”

Finn stared at Van, almost begging him to contradict what we’d been saying, but that was never going to happen. Van crossed his arms and stared Finn down.

“All of us. We fought about it plenty when we all realised we were crushing on Kendall, but it seemed like this was the only solution. It was either break up the friendship, or we’d do this together.”

“But what about me…?”

We’d shared girls back at school, and Finn liked that just fine. So much so, we were pretty sure he was feeling us out when he started things with Cheryl, but his girl was not ours. We’d known it then, just like we did now, and so that thought never got voiced.

“Well, you’re a bit fucking hairy for me.”

Van’s lips twitched, wanting to form a smile, a battle he quickly lost.

“Yeah, and the whole dick and balls thing is a bit off putting if I have to be honest,” he added.

“There’s also the fact you can’t aim to save your life,” Connor drawled. “Like do we need to put fur on the toilet seat so you can aim right?”

“You fucking…” He wanted to be angry, to push back, to stop everything we just talked about, but Finn found himself grinning despite himself. I watched him shake his head then straighten up. “If you bloody hurt her—”

“Like you did?” I cocked an eyebrow, reminding him of all the bullshit he’d pulled on Kendall. “That’s just it, dickhead. We never really wanted to hurt her back then, and we sure as shit don’t want to now. Shit.” I stepped closer, getting in his space but with less aggressive intent this time. “If we do hurt her, you can kick my arse.” I tapped a finger on my chin. “I’ll let you get the first hit in for free.”

“Let me…” He gave me a shove, but it was the friendly kind, because straight men aren’t allowed to touch each other with anything other than violence. His arm went around my neck, and he tightened his grip, trying to cut off my airflow. I just elbowed the prick in the ribs, the oof of breath escaping him music to my ears. “Jesus, so does Ken know?”

“Tonight,” I said, as we came to stand before our coach. “She’ll know tonight.”

Chapter 23

Van

I was totally fucking pumped and trying really hard not to look it.

Half the reason why our team went to training was because it was an excuse to drink beer on a school night, but I just clung to my ice-cold can, only taking a sip when I had to. I didn’t want a fucking beer, I wanted Kendall. As if sensing that, Finn came sidling up.

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