Page 49 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

She cackled. “It’s an art, I tells ya. So what’s going on? Did you glitter bomb those poor sods.”

“Did I ever.” She let out a wild giggle at that. “If you want the play-by-play, meet me for coffee after work.”

“That cute bar on the corner in the city, the one with all the hot guys in suits and you’re on,” she replied.

“Barbie, I can’t—”

“Say no to your bestie who’ll ply you with overpriced, weirdly flavoured gin, then pay for an Uber to get you home to those hunks you live with? Damn straight. See you there at five, babes, and wear something pretty. There’s a hot finance bro out there just waiting for you to walk into his life and sit on his face.”

“I fucking hate you…” I growled, right as Chris walked back in.

“No, you don’t. So I’ll see you then? That red dress—”

“See you then.”

I abruptly ended the call, because sitting on the phone during work hours was less than awesome, and because I knew how the phone call would go. Barbie had the doll’s name, but I was the one she liked to dress up.

“We can probably close up early today,” Chris told me. “There’s not much left to sell and business is slow.”

Music to my ears, I just nodded and got started on the end of shift clean up.

Chapter 26

Gage

I knew Kendall. She didn’t think I did, but that wasn’t true. I watched her too damn closely, had observed her reactions, and I knew exactly what she was going to do right now.

Bolt.

Connor went to her bakery and bought out the shop, giving every bloke on the site an impressive feed, but I knew why. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from pushing, and that would get her feet moving, away from us, not closer. So I needed to step in and stop everything, which was why I slipped away not long after lunch. I arrived back at the house before I went to work and found it empty, no trace of Kendall having returned or taken her stuff.

I grabbed the sauce bottle out of the pantry, then the mustard. We’d used them as guns back in the Kennedy family home, and she’d been our main target more than once. It was only her mum stepping in because we were wasting too much food that stopped us. A tub of peanut butter came next. I nuked it for a few seconds in the microwave, then screwed off the lid, seeing that the heat had turned it into a slightly runny, lumpy mess. When we’d smeared it in Kendall’s hair, we’d told her it was diarrhoea, and she screamed until she realised what it really was. Flour. I set that on the counter along with a box of tissues from the bathroom, then went to work making flour bombs. They were considered more benign uses of food as weapons as Mrs Kennedy bought it cheap in bulk. I scanned shelves in the kitchen, the bathroom, the garage, finding weapon after weapon and then lined them all up on the kitchen bench, working until I heard the click of the front door lock.

Kendall froze when she saw me standing there, blinking and staring, with limbs almost quivering like a frightened fawn.

But my girl was no Bambi.

She straightened up and looked me up and down coolly, having no idea how hot she was when she did that.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I said back.

“I’m just gonna grab a shower and then head out. I’m meeting Barbie at a bar.” No the fuck she wasn’t, but I couldn’t say that right now, so I kept my lips closed, nodding. “She’s shouting me a few drinks and then will play ‘have you met Kendall’ a few times with disinterested finance bros before getting an Uber home.”

When her hand moved towards me, my heart clenched, wanting her to reach for me, but instead she was offering me her keys.

“I won’t take the van, so you may as well take them back.”

“You won’t get an Uber,” I corrected, closing the gap between us, then curling her fingers around the keys. “You’ll call one of us, and we’ll pick you up.”

“You don’t need—”

“Yes, I do, but before you go, there’s something we need to do.”

Her whole body stiffened as a frustrated sigh escaped her lips.

“Is this the whole ‘we need to talk’ thing, because I gotta say, can we not? I’m only here temporarily. Like I need to thank each of you for saving me from the sight of Todd’s lily white arse pumping away between Marcia’s legs, but hopefully I’ll be moved out by the weekend.”

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