Page 44 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“Not in the bathroom either,” Gage announced. “Maybe she’s outside.”

“Or maybe she’s asleep.”

Connor stared at her closed door, and that drew the lot of us closer. Each one of us stared at the surface, then the doorknob. No sound came from within, just the steady whirr of the ceiling van.

Fuck.

My grip on the flowers slipped, but I recovered, holding them way too tight.

“She works at a bakery, so she has to get to bed early.” I knew that tight tone. It was the same one Connor used with difficult clients, but right now he was managing himself, not someone who wanted non-tarnishing copper fittings in their bathroom. “We’ll talk to her in the morning.”

“I’ll set my alarm earlier,” Gage rumbled, taking a reluctant step backwards.

“We all will.”

I felt… deflated. I’d lost enough games to know what this was. You went rushing out onto the field, full of piss and vinegar, and sometimes you just got beat.

Despite your best efforts.

I went to drop the flowers on the kitchen bench, no longer needing them, but as I stared at the red roses, I realised they needed to be put in water. We’d get up, make Kendall breakfast, and then give her the flowers, chocolates, and the goddamn bear and hope to god she didn’t kick us in the balls when we confessed our feelings.

Yeah, that.

I rummaged around in the cupboards because we didn’t have a vase of any sort, but the old glass jar we used to store pasta in would do the trick. The stems in water, I tweaked the plastic, flicking out the creases until I was satisfied, then nodded before jumping into the shower.

This was a familiar feeling.

Getting naked in the shower at the Kennedy house always had an edge to it. That Finn might bust in and flick my bare arse with a towel was one thing, but mostly it was her. When I stripped my clothes off, I couldn’t help but think of Kendall, sleeping down the hall then as now, and imagine what might happen.

Maybe she’d get up, sleepily shuffling down the hallway to get a drink of water, and she would lift her head, turning her eyes my way as she’d hear the water running. She’d fill her glass, feeling the water spilling over her fingers as she imagined this.

Me scrubbing the stink of work and football off my skin. All of the sweat and sawdust, dirt and grass, but more than that. The all-singing, all-dancing bullshit of my fucking life, the water stripping me bare in ways removing my clothes couldn’t achieve. The soap bar slid down, my hand lubricated by the foam finding my aching cock and giving it a tug, wondering what she’d do if she stepped inside.

Would she press kisses to the back of my neck, breathing in to catch my scent, as I longed to do to her? Would she slide her hands along my ribs, raking her nails to leave a red trail that declared what we both knew. That I was hers, utterly, my body, mind and soul, but most of all my soul—that ached just as fiercely as my dick. It’d been carrying around this bullshit all this time, and right when I was about to set that burden down… I gasped, my breath coming in rapid little pants as my balls erupted. Orgasm tore through me with claws that would leave a mark, with as much pleasure as there was pain, and that felt right. I ached and I ached, and that made me pull away from the wall, forcing the water to stream down my body, right as I wanted to storm down that hallway and wrench open the door to get to what was mine.

But I wouldn’t.

I wanted her to sleep long and deep, to get all of her rest in the hope she’d roll out of bed with that same sweet smile she used to wear when she was a little girl. My fingers would itch with the need to rumple her hair and pull her close, but before I did that, I’d hold out the flowers. Maybe she’d look pleased, surprised, or her eyes would meet mine and we’d both know. That it was time to stop pretending and fucking be together forever.

I switched off the taps, dashing water from my face as I grabbed a towel. The vigorous massage of the fabric wasn’t what I wanted, but I’d take it for now. Tomorrow, I promised myself, even if I had to turn up at her workplace and make an entire dick of myself declaring my love.

I went to flick the light on in my room, but the room remained resolutely dark. Fuck, the globe had gone again. I shook my head, vowing to get Connor to look at it tomorrow. He was the electrician, so he’d work out why the globes kept blowing, but right now exhaustion was hitting me like a tonne of bricks. I felt hollowed out, empty as I turned on the fan, then lurched over to my bed. Breeze caressed my skin, the sensation of it feeling a little weird, but I couldn’t interrogate that further. I was beyond exhausted and needed to sleep forever.

Or just until the morning.

The morning. I nestled into my pillow with a smile, able to see it now. It’d be perfect, I just knew it. Bacon not too crispy and bread that was lightly toasted, just the way she liked it, that’s what I’d do.

It wasn’t what I did.

A sharp rap on the door had my head jerking off the pillow, and when I groaned then blinked furiously, I saw the grey light of dawn was sneaking past my curtains.

“What—?”

“Time to get up, dickhead,” came Gage’s grumpy reply.

Maybe it was his tone, maybe it was my brain frantically reminding me what was at stake this morning, but it had me moving, staggering out of my bed, jerking my feet free of the blankets. It was go time every instinct said, and so I yanked on my work clothes and my boots and then stumbled out into the hallway.

Only for two of my best friends to look at me and burst out laughing.

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