Page 11 of The Sweet Spot

Apparently, I take too long to answer, though, because Maddox and Callen have joined me outside, and Satan opens his big, fat mouth first. “Listen.” He grabs a cinnamon roll and takes a bite. I love my cousin. Really, I do. But in this moment, I may be wishing for him to choke... just a tiny bit. “Callen and I are going to swap condos with Brynn. She doesn’t need all that space anymore, but we could use it. So you’ll be moving into our condo.” He takes another bite and then turns his traitorous grin on me. “See? Wasn’t that hard.”

“I’m getting coffee,” Callen grumbles, getting the hell out of the line of fire, and Everly laughs while I contemplate both their deaths.

Okay, maybe not deaths, but I could go for a good maiming.

I think that’s called for.

“It’s decaf?.?.?.” Everly calls after him in a melodic voice that’s way too chipper for this early.

“Fuck,” he mutters as he disappears into the kitchen, and Maddox takes the small distraction as an opening and sits down in the seat next to me.

My eye twitches while I try to fight the urge to stab him with the plastic fork he’s using to eat the cinnamon roll I paid for.

Meanwhile, Gracie is staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. Which might not be too far off at this point. “Did you just Friends us?” she finally asks, much calmer than I deserve for her to be, but that’s Gracie. Always the calm one. Always the peacemaker and people pleaser. I’m not even sure if she’s asking me or Maddox, but neither of us deserves her calm right now. “Because there’s no way you’d give up that condo for theirs. Is there?”

“Don’t ask,” I murmur as I stuff an entire pastry in my mouth, then shove one her way. “Try them,” I tell her around a mouth full of food. “They’re good.”

Everly laughs so hard, I think Gracie might actually kick her leg under the table to shut her up, but Everly doesn’t care. “Dude. You’re going to be sleeping where so many women have slept before. I hope you clean that place with bleach before you touch any surfaces. Seriously, girls. Beware of STDs. I bet some of them are even airborne.”

I turn my head slowly to my cousin with an uncontrollable twitch in my eye and hiss, “I fucking hate you.”

Maddox just grins, baring his teeth like the psycho he likes to pretend he is, and after this, I’m inclined to believe him.

“Honest to God, one of you had better tell me what I missed,” Gracie tries to demand, but it falls on deaf ears when we both ignore her.

Everly picks up Gracie’s phone with a little too much glee, and Grace finally glares. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Door Dashing bleach to your new condo. You’re gonna need a lot of it.”

“Time to wake up, Brynn.”

My eyes fly open, startled by Callen’s voice, and I look around to get my bearings. “Sorry,” I mumble when I realize I’m in his Escalade in the parking garage under our condos back in Kroydon Hills. I’d caught a ride down to the beach with Maddox, but there was no way in hell I was riding back home with him. Leaving Callen as the lesser of two evils. At least for today.

He and I have always been close. Hell, at one point I thought maybe it could have been more. But Callen spent most of college with his high school sweetheart, and once they broke up during his senior year, he’s spent time with every other woman who’s smiled at him since. I guess it’s safe to say I got over any thought of an us because we’re way better as friends than we would have been as anything else.

“I hadn’t realized I fell asleep,” I manage to say around a yawn.

“You passed out as soon as we got on the AC Expressway. Late night last night?”

I close my eyes and picture the sunrise, trying to get back some of that peace from this morning. Only instead of picturing the sun, an image of a handsome man with piercing blue eyes fills my memory and warms my cheeks. “Something like that.”

We get out of the SUV, and he grabs my bag and his. Callen might be one of the biggest manwhores I know, but he’s always been a gentleman... At least where I’m concerned. Not sure many women would say the same.

“You’re really not gonna tell me why we’re swapping condos?” he pushes, having asked the same question a handful of times already.

I glance over at Maddox’s still-empty parking spot and get ragey again. “Ask your roommate.”

I’m not ready to talk about this.

Not with him.

Not with anyone.

I’m not even sure I’m ready to talk to my mom, and I know that needs to happen sooner rather than later. She isn’t one to ever accept being ignored. Not from her children. Not from anyone. My family might be full of kings, but she’s the queen we all bow down to.

“Whatever.” Callen chuckles half-heartedly as he nudges me to walk ahead of him. “Your loss is my gain.”

Yeah, I guess it is.

---