Page 2 of Rock the Chardonnay

“I’m NYC bound, baby!” She punches the air like a prize fighter and it is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

“That’s awesome.” She will be thousands of miles away from my brother, which seems like a mark in the plus column. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Declan.” She paws through the bags of snacks on the table, but she isn’t going to find anything. I’m a scarfer when I study. No junk food is safe. “I’m pretty excited. I’ve been researching affordable voice coaches and everything. My mom doesn’t want me to major in music, but I have a scholarship, so she doesn’t get a say. Like I don’t get a say in her life.” Leaving the table, she moves across to the cupboards. She’s like a restless little hamster. No, something cuter than a hamster. A quokka?

I’m hopeless.

“Are you hungry?” I ask. Damn Ciaran. Had he even offered her water after hooking up with her? Of course he wouldn’t have thought of that. I mentally schedule a Very Serious Chat with my brother for tomorrow on the proper care of women. I move to the fridge and take out a can of soda and a bottle of water. “Want a drink? I can make pancakes.”

“Ooh.” Daughtry plucks the soda can from my hand and pops it with one nail covered in chipped teal polish. “You’re only confirming that you’re the sensitive brother.”

That stings. Sensitive brothers don’t get the girl. “Pancakes sound good. I always study better with a full stomach.” I busy myself with getting the pancake mix and filling a measuring cup with water from the tap. I’m not avoiding looking at her. No. Of course not.

I turn to put the measuring cup in the sink and Daughtry sits in one of the bar stools at the kitchen island, her legs in her skintight jeans swinging in the air. Her elbows rest on the island, cradling her heart-shaped face in her hands.

She has a line of piercings in her left ear, little hearts and moons and gems running along the curve. I memorize each one. They almost look like a chemical compound winding along her cartilage.

I am most definitely staring. I pay attention to the stove instead and turn on the electric cooktop, sliding my mom’s ancient cast iron pan into place on the burner.

“No one’s ever made me pancakes before,” Daughtry says quietly, her tone holding a hint of amusement. Daughtry always looks like that, like she’s about to burst into laughter, or a joyful Broadway number, complete with sparkly costume. “I guess, technically, restaurants make pancakes for you. No one’s ever made them in their house for me.”

The skin along my hands heats, which has nothing to do with the stove or the butter melting into the pan. I don’t know much about Daughtry’s mom, but I’ve inferred a lot. She spends a lot of time at the Broken Lighthouse, and she is neither bartender nor waitress there.

“I don’t think Ciaran knows how to turn on the stove, but I can teach him. He should make you breakfast.” Though that brings up all the reasons why my little brother would be making her breakfast, which only makes me see her in the vat, her thin T-shirt soaked with grape juice and clinging to her curves. I grip the spatula so tightly that the metal wand falls out of the plastic handle. I rush to reassemble it.

“Pfft.” Daughtry picks up the napkins and starts folding them into different shapes, origami boats and fans. “He brought me pretzels once. Is it weird? Talking about your brother’s sex life?”

Yes. “No. Of course not.” I ladle some of the pancake batter into the cast iron, but instead of the sun I wanted to make, it spreads into an amoeba. Amoebas are easier to contemplate than what Daughtry and my brother do up in his room while our parents are out of town.

“What about you?” she asks.

I spoon another scoop of batter into the foaming butter. This one spreads into a shape like a used condom. Great. That sends all the right messages. “What about me?” I use the edge of the spatula to nudge it out of the used condom shape and into more of a trapezoidal bubble.

“I bet you pull all kinds of women at college.”

All the hairs on the back of my neck stand erect. My hand stumbles and I slice the trapezoidal bubble into two irregular triangles. Her gaze is a laser. Why would she ask me that? I shouldn’t think about it. “Despite what pop culture wants you to believe, the nerdy guy doesn’t get the girl.” Mostly because nerdy guys have to study in order to keep their scholarships and get into graduate programs, because a plain old Bachelor of Science degree is worth about as much as a steaming pile of B.S.

“I can’t believe that. You’re smart, hot, and you know how to make pancakes. I’ll bet you have all the ladies lined up outside your dorm room.”

I sneak a look at her when I reach up into the cupboard to get a plate. Her hazel gaze is on me, watching my every move. It’s enough to clear all the organic chemistry from my brain.

I’m not a monk, of course not. But do I have the kind of pull my younger brother has? Hell no. Certainly not anyone of Daughtry’s caliber.

I focus on transferring the cooked pancakes to a plate, and remember all the reasons why this isn’t actually happening. She isn’t flirting with me. She is just hungry. She is too young. She is out of my league.

She is my brother’s girlfriend.

I hand the plate to her across the island and then take the bottle of syrup out of the fridge. “Yum,” she says, licking her lips. With the prongs of her fork, she traces the outline of the amoeba-like one. “This one looks like an amoeba. Or maybe a raincloud.”

My cock swells, and I hide my growing erection with the stove. Pancakes. I can make fucking pancakes and not get hard thinking about her. It’s wrong. Very wrong, and I am a very, very bad man for even remotely contemplating it.

Very bad.

Pancake batter splashes into the sizzling hot pan in a sequence of irregular blobs, not dissimilar to my banana ester model.

“These pancakes are delicious,” Daughtry says. I hear her eating behind me. She has an incredible mouth, especially when she sings. Lips that curve around a microphone like she—

No. Pancakes. I am focusing on pancakes.

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