Page 14 of Pin-up Girl

Jamie lost his glower, but Johnny wasn’t ready to let go of his anger.

“Are we talking about—” Jamie started.

“Yes,” I cut him off. The next few minutes passed with glares and scowls and stilted small talk.

“You spoiled all my fun.” Emmett set four plates at our end of the table, then came back with the skillet, expertly divvying up the omelets.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Elise picked up her fork and twirled it to encompass the table. “What happened wasn’t a personal thing, was it? It was a frat thing?”

She didn’t let a littlethinglike that bother her. She dug in to her breakfast with enthusiasm. Emmett sat down with a grimace, an unusual apology written all over him. He jerked then whipped his head to Jules, who just shrugged.

What the fuck? This was supposed to be a temporary thing. A few days, and then back to business as usual. Now with Emmett’s shit, and the twins’ slip, she had a good fucking idea that what we were doing was fraternity-wide.

“Sure. If you’d like to think of it that way. A fraternity is a brotherhood, and we always have each other’s backs.” Complete total bullshit. Not a chance in hell she’d believe it.

“Uh huh, sure.” She hmmphed into her food.

“So, what’s your name, beauty?” Johnny ruffled his red hair, attempting to get the bed head look. It was his signature move when trying his hand on the ladies. I’d never seen it work in the light of day.

Elise paused, looked to Johnny, then started eating again, completely ghosting him.

The tips of both twins’ ears turned bright red. I scrubbed a hand down my face. This was getting out of hand, and there had only been a handful of words exchanged. The next comment stopped everyone.

Jamie pulled his chair back in, an ugly expression on his face. He was never good with rejection. “So, you’re taking a card from Jules, are you?”

Emmett jumped out of his chair, but Elise leaned up to catch his arm. She shook her head. Surprisingly, he sat back down as something passed between them. When she looked back to the twins, her face was ice. Stone fucking cold.

“This is one of yourbrothers, Milo? Good fucking thing I never wanted to join a sorority.”

The younger brothers lost their shit, covering their mouths and pounding on the table. Even the more relaxed guys laughed or smirked at the jab.

“What the fuck ever.” Jamie stood and took his bowl to the sink. “We were trying to be nice, bitch.”

“What the fuck ever.”Elise mocked. “What you were trying to do is line up a select. Let me tell you something, dickass. Thisbitchain’t no one’sselect.” Her voice dropped an octave, and she traced a finger down her cleavage. “I’m needy, and greedy. You and your brother just don’t have what it takes to satisfy thisbitch.” Mic drop.

I adjusted myself, tugging at my collar. That was the hottest thing I’d seen this year. And we had to spend days with this girl? There had to be something we could do to speed this up.

Emmett flopped sideways, propping his head on his hand. “It’s my turn tonight.”

For a second, I was positive Elise was going to tell him to fuck off. But she winked and finished off her omelet.

“Thanks for breakfast, Em.” She touched his shoulder on her way to the sink. When she came back, Jules got his own touch, and she cleared his plate and mine. Elise smoothed her hands down her hips and looked to me. “Ready, Milo?”

“Absolutely.” If we stayed any longer, all the brothers would be begging at her feet for her toselectthem.

I held out my arm for her. It was a little outdated, but after all that, she deserved the fucking arm of the president as she waltzed out of the Shack on spike heels.

“Later, boys.” She finger waved over her shoulder.

When I glanced back, Emmett was making his way around the table. Good. The twins were cool most of the time, but that comment crossed the line. They needed to pay their penance if they wanted to stay in our good graces. Jules crossed his arms, adopting his blank face. They would never see any emotion out of him.

Outside, I did the gentleman thing and opened the door for Elise. Mom would have been proud if she’d still been here. We hit the road in a blessed silence that I hated to break.

“What’s your address?”

She checked her phone, which looked dead and sighed. “The One92 building off of Broadway and Trigo. You know where that is?”

I handed her my charger, and she sent me a firm and small smile, likethank you for fixing a problem you created.

---