Page 52 of The Brothers Next Door

“What do you mean you have nowhere to go? Go fucking home. Go to a hotel. I don’t care, you just need out of here.”

“I tried before coming here. There’s several huge conventions in town and it’s summer. Everything is booked solid everywhere. I can’t drive back tonight.”

My eyes widened as I stared at him in disbelief. “What? You just thought you’d show up on my doorstep and I’d be so grateful to see you that I’d beg you to stay the night? Are you insane?”

“Of course not. I didn’t think, I just drove. I knew I had to see you and for over a month, you’ve been ignoring my text messages and phone calls…”

“Because I didn’t want anything to do with you. Jesus, take a hint, Craig. Are you that self-involved that you couldn’t figure that out?”

“Just let me spend the night. Please.” He stood and I took a step backwards. Not because I felt he’d hurt me, at least not physically, but because I was hoping if I gave him a clear path he’d just leave.

I couldn’t have been so lucky.

He closed the distance between us and stopped directly in front of me, grasping my shoulders in his hands. “I’ll be out of your hair and I’ll never contact you again. I swear. Just tonight. I’ll sleep on the sofa and bright and early tomorrow, I’m gone. I promise.”

This was a bad, bad idea. I knew it right down to the core of my being that letting him stay the night was a horrible, horrible idea.

“I swear if I had a place, I’d leave tonight. Please, LayLay.”

I cringed at him calling me LayLay. I was never a fan of it when we were together and downright hated it now. What if one of the brothers showed up? I’d have to explain Craig staying the night. I’d already inadvertently caused a rift between us, so how would they react to the news that my ex-fiancé had stayed the night?

But there was the part of me that couldn’t just turn him out on the street. I couldn’t do that to anybody. But I was damned well going to verify his story first. And I did. He hadn’t been lying. He stood by as I called ten hotels in the Manhattan area and outlying areas including New Jersey. No one had rooms.

Fuck me. Why should I be the one to house the man? I didn’t even like him.

Angry with him for putting me in this position and disgusted with myself for falling for it, I finally agreed. “Out by tomorrow morning. 7 am sharp. And don’t think this is going to give you time to win me over, it’s not. I’m in love with someone else and this is only because I don’t want to be the one responsible for you ending up dead in a ditch somewhere.”

---