Page 85 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“Nah!” She gave me a shove. “But sometimes he does get dressed up in—”

“Barbie.”

One word from Connor and her bullshit stopped, and that was reason enough to couple up, throuple, or whatever the fuck this was with the guys.

“Right, right, so the guys got in touch, and as it’s late-night shopping tonight, we’re going shopping!” She threw her arms up with a squeal. “You never let me spend Alan’s money on you, so now you can spend theirs.”

“Um, no—” I started to say.

“Yes.” Gage settled against the counter behind me before pushing a black credit card my way. “Who else would we spend it on?”

“I don’t need clothes.” I brushed a hand self-consciously over my flour-stained apron but then whipped it off. “I keep telling you, Barbie, I’m happy with the way I dress.”

“Like a hobo.” She nodded. “I get it, but that’s why we’re not going dress shopping.”

“Our home is yours now,” Connor told me. “But we need to get you some of your own stuff to personalise it.”

“Oh.” I blinked, trying to imagine adding knickknacks or picture frames to the glossy interior of the house. “So we’re going to IKEA?”

“God no!” Barbie punched me in the arm. “This relationship is too new for that. You have to work up to the ordeal that is an IKEA trip together. No, we’re going to…”

“A homewares place?” I said as I stumbled out of the van. We’d driven across town to… here. Glossy pans or pastel-painted ones filled the kitchen windows in artful displays. “You brought me to get cookware?”

“I told them that this kind of gift usually gets a guy junk punched, but you’re weird about cookware,” Barbie said. “All ceramic coated this or stainless steel that. I know way, way, way more about Teflon coating than I ever wanted to, so…” She grinned up at me, shoving her elbow out for me to take. “Are you ready to go shopping?”

Yes day was turning out pretty damn good, so I said the only thing I could.

“Fuck yeah.”

Chapter 44

Gage

“I don’t get it,” Van hissed at me as we picked our way very carefully through aisles of fragile china. “It’s just shit that you cook food on. Why is it such a big deal to Kendall and…?” He blanched when he peered at a price tag. “Why is it so damn expensive?”

“Why did we buy that brand-new DeWalt circular saw?” I asked him. “The old one was fine.”

“But it had a laser sight and it takes one of those newer, longer-life batteries,” he replied. “The blades last longer and… Oh.”

I knew he’d work it out eventually. He glanced back to where Barbie was pointing out one thing then another, getting more and more excited by the second, but my girl wasn’t really paying attention. Instead, she picked up a pastel green pot, turning it over in her hands as she inspected it with a reverence we saved for tools.

“So Barbie was right.” Connor came to stand beside us after having a word with one of the sales assistants. He’d made clear what the brief was today: for Kendall to walk out of here with everything she could possibly want for the kitchen. I didn’t care if we were the only ones who used the items we bought. We just wanted her to have the best of the best in case she ever decided she wanted to cook. “This is exactly where we needed to take Kendall. I thought massages—”

“We can still do that.” I grinned despite myself—and had been all day. Some of the guys made mention of it, giving me shit, but I didn’t care. I was on top of the damn world. “We can do all the things you’ve got stored away in that head of yours.” I glanced at Connor. “That’s what this means. Kendall said yes.”

“Kendall said yes.”

The other two repeated those words with the kind of reverence people save for sacred rites, though in some ways that was what this felt like. My destiny, that was what had me moving towards her.

“What do you think?” I asked as I sidled up to my girl.

“I like the purple,” she said, picking that pot up. “But the green would suit your decor better.”

“So get the purple.”

“Maybe some green, some purple…” She tapped the bottom of her lip. “I mean, how many am I buying? This is the kind of cookware that will last a lifetime, but that comes at a cost…”

I clicked my fingers to get the attention of a passing salesperson, which in hindsight was kinda rude, but I wasn’t focussed on that.

---