Page 609 of The Winslow Brothers

Everything depends on this.

“Hey,” one guy wearing a Yankees baseball cap says, giving me a jerk of his chin as I scoot past him and an older man I’m assuming is his father as they try to cram a couch through his dorm room door.

I give the head nod back, but I don’t need to bother with anything else—he’s already back to what he’s doing before I’m finished with the simple motion.

Two doors down, I find my name on the wall beside a wide-open threshold.

Finnley Hayes

On a sigh, I take the black Sharpie marker I got in my welcome packet out of my jeans pocket and scratch out the l-e-y until the sign readsFinn Hayes.

Underneath is a second name—Ace Kelly—belonging to my university-random-generated roommate. I might be morenervous about sharing the space with someone if I weren’t one of five rambunctious kids. I’m used to having people on top of me all the time, and I’m used to not having a choice about it.

One roommate is child’s play, compared to what I dealt with growing up.

The room looks empty at first, save several boxes and suitcases and a shitload of electronics on one of the desks, but when I step inside, a voice proves my assumption false. I turn around just as one of the hottest middle-aged ladies I’ve ever seen pops out from behind the door. “Hey,” she says casually, her dark brown hair and vibrant blue eyes standing out immediately. “Are you Finnley?”

“Finn,” I correct, loathing the sound of my full name coming from such a hot mouth, even if she is old.

“Ah, Finn.” She nods, and her mouth curves up into a smile that only makes her lips look fuller. “Yeah, that’s way more fuckable.”

My eyebrows shoot up. My mom would never dream of saying something like that to a college kid she didn’t know. But she probably wouldn’t have her tits halfway out of her shirt either.

She holds out a hand. “I’m Cassie Kelly, your roommate Ace’s mom.”

I take her hand and shake it, careful to keep my eyes on hers. In my peripheral vision, I know her tits are bouncing up and down with the movement. “Nice to meet you.”

With as polite of a smile as I can manage, I turn away from her and head for the other side of the room where my empty, bare-mattress bed is waiting. I toss my duffel on top and startunloading the essentials. A set of sheets and a blanket, the laptop computer I spent the last two years saving for, and my seven sets of jeans and shirts. I leave the underwear and socks at the bottom of the bag and shove it under the bed.

When I turn around, Cassie Kelly is watching me surreptitiously. She’s only bashful for half a second before owning her nosiness. “Where are your parents?”

“Busy,” I say simply, though fuck knows the truth is a lot more complicated than that.

She frowns but nods. A loud curse sounds outside the door, followed by two of the tallest people I’ve ever seen coming through it, carrying some kind of futon. I’m six one, but these dudes have several inches on me.

“Ace, for the love of everything, could you stop dropping this fucker?” the older man says as they finally make it inside the room.

“It’d be easier if you weren’t running me over the whole time,” my roommate responds. With the same black hair, brown eyes, muscular build, and towering height, they’re clearly father and son. A sprinkle of gray hair mars the black at the older man’s temples, but other than that, they’re practically twins.

When they reach Ace’s side of the room, they drop the black futon unceremoniously onto the cream vinyl tile floor of our dorm with a thud. It takes a few scoots, but they manage to stuff it into the only available corner near his bed.

“I fucking told you we should’ve hired movers,” Ace says, swiping sweat off his brow.

“Aw, poor Ace,” his dad says through a laugh. “His wittle baby muscles hurt.”

Ace rolls his eyes. “Says the old man who is going to spend the rest of his night in his fucking hot tub crying to Mom about how old he’s getting. Probably going to lube up your decrepit muscles with Aspercreme too.”

“Lubing up with Aspercreme? Have I taught you anything, Acer?” his dad retorts. My eyes bounce back and forth like ping-pong balls. “That’s the most dangerous game any man can play.”

“You talking from experience?” Ace counters. “Tell me you’ve lubed your balls with Aspercreme, and I’ll never let you live it down. All I have to do is make one phone call to Gunnar. You and I both know his response will cause long-lasting pain.”

“You tell your crazy-ass brother I lube up my balls with Aspercreme, and I swear I’ll—”

“Thatch.” Cassie cuts off their ongoing verbal judo with a hard shove to his shoulder. I stopped watching her the moment they came in, but I have a feeling she’s had at least one blue eye pegged on me the whole time. “Stop fighting with your spawn and say hello to his roommate.”

Thatch, evidently, turns toward me and smiles. “I’m just going to apologize in advance for you being stuck in a dorm with this shithead.”

“Shut up.” Cassie hits Thatch in the shoulder again and turns her attention to her son. “Ace, this is Finn.”

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