Page 117 of Burn It Down

“Phoe, can we go inside? I came to play poker not watch you crash and burn with my boyfriend’s sister.” Dylan and I have resumed holding hands and I reach behind me for Cassie to take my other one.

She steps around Phoenix and links her fingers with mine as we climb the steps.

“Oh, come on,” Phoenix calls behind us. “Why does he get both?” He’s still muttering as he starts up the steps behind us. “Twins are hot. I might not even mind a dude and a chick if they looked like these two.”

“We can hear you, you know,” I deadpan.

“I hope you can,” he says, laughing and putting me at ease. I much prefer his jokes about lusting after my boyfriend to him shunning us, judging us, or acting totally weird.

Inside, we slip off our jackets and find the rest of the guys around Phoenix’s dining room table.

“Hey guys. This is Cassie, Dylan’s sister,” I introduce.

There’s a chorus of names andnice to meet yousbefore Phoenix pipes up as he grabs a chair from the kitchen and adds it to the table right next to his own chair. “I don’t want any of you fools looking at my woman,” he says, guiding her to the new seat.

Too late, two other pairs of eyes have locked in on Cassie’s round ass, plentiful chest, long black hair and...

“Fucking hell, where do you guys get those eyes?” Hudson says.

Dylan and Cassie share a look before answering in unison. “Our grandfathers.”

Everyone takes their seat and Knox speaks for the first time, making everyone grow serious and quiet.

“Were you ever going to tell us?” He takes a long pull from his beer bottle. He sounds…hurt?

“I didn’t plan to ever tell anyone,” I admit, rubbing Dylan’s thigh under the table as a silent apology for almost denying us, both, what we have now.

“How’d your dad take it?” Hudson asks, mirroring Knox’s serious tone.

“Poorly. I’ll be out of a job in two weeks. But it could’ve been a lot worse. I wouldn’t have put it past him to start throwing punches or something stupid.”

“Tell me something, Jakey,” Phoenix starts and I groan because I have no idea where this is going. “Did you ever have a crush on me? Even the tiniest one?”

Conceited bastard.Of course, he’d want to know if I thought he was hot. The truth is Phoenixisattractive. Stupidly so. But he’s not my type.

Deciding to fuck with him, because that’s what best friends do, I keep my face straight and shrug. “Nah, I had a thing for Knox early on, but knew I could never act on it.”

Knox sprays the table with his most recent sip of beer, making me double over in laughter.

“Jesus, Knox, I was kidding. If you must know, I find you all hideous.”

Hudson cracks up at this before pinning me with a stare. “No wonder you got so uptight when I was looking at Dylan’s tattoo on the boat.”

“Dude, he was pulling his trunks down and you were less than an inch from his dick. Of course I was uptight,” I point out.

“How long’s it been going on?” Knox asks, slightly more relaxed as he wipes his beer from the table.

“What is this, the Inquisition?” I fire back. “Are we going to play poker or would you rather grill me about the sordid details of my sex life?”

“I’ll pass,” Phoenix says, turning to face Cassie. “But I wouldn’t mind hearing about yours.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Dylan scrubs a hand down his face and I pat his forearm and lean to whisper in his ear.

“I think Cassie can handle her own with this one.”

She proves me right three hands later when she distracts Phoenix by flirting with him as she raises the bid. He’s so in to her he just keeps throwing chips and she damn near cleans him out with a royal flush.

I honestly think it makes him like her even more.

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