Page 74 of Teasing

My head snaps her way before I remember her dad is the quarterback coach.

Some days, I’m glad I grew up in Sugar Hill and not Kroydon Hills.

Their town is so interconnected, it’s hard to keep track of all the connections. You need one of those murder boards you see on all the good true crime podcasts.

“One Beneventi down, and four more to go,” a woman I’ve met over the years announces as she joins us. Dillan Ryan, Lilah’s younger sister, taught ballet at Hart & Soul years ago, but she was older than me, and we never connected. She crosses her arms over her chest and frowns. “You know you’re a lucky bitch, right?”

“Dillan,” Lilah chastises her. “Be nice. You were never going to date Maverick.”

Great. And the beautiful blonde apparently has a thing for Maverick.

“I wasn’t. I’d rather be the cream in the naughtier Beneventi brothers’ cookie. But good gracious, that is still one fine man.” She holds her empty glass out for me, and I take the hint and fill it with wine. “I’m pretty sure we’ve met before, but it’s been a few years.”

I top off Lilah’s glass too and sit the empty bottle on the grass. “A few...” I run the tip of my finger along the top of my glass. “So, there are naughtier Beneventis?”

“Oh yeah,” Dillan looks around the yard, then points to a different group of guys. One of them has Rosie on his shoulders. “Mav’s a grouch. But his cousins are flat-out insane.”

“Maddox isn’t insane. He’s calculated and protective,” Lilah argues, and Dillan’s shoulders slump as her face pinches.

“Fine. Rome is a psychopath. Maddox is just a know-it-all.”

Lilah kicks off her sandals and runs her feet over the grass. “Fair enough.”

“So Emmie... Is your brother single?” Dillan sips her wine as I nearly choke on mine.

It goes down the wrong pipe, and I start coughing. Hacking. “Umm...” I force out over a hoarse throat. “I guess he is.”

“He’s playing for Dad, Dillan,” Lilah warns her sister, but it seems to have the opposite effect, and her eyes light up.

“Ohh... good to know.” She smiles, looking more like her sister than ever before.

“Behave, Dillan,” Lilah groans.

“Just because you’re happily married doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t have a little fun, Tink.”

“Why do they call you Tink?” I ask, interrupting whatever the two were about to start fighting about, then sit back and soak it all in as the biggest popstar in the world tells me all about growing up with these men.

Turns out, mine was an overprotective giant from a very young age.

And that tells me so much.

“You want to help me grab more wine?” Maverick whispers into my ear later that night after he’s put Rosie to bed. He pulled me into his lap over an hour ago and hasn’t let me move since, unless you count the way I squirm each time I feel his dick jump against my ass. He’s driving me crazy, and he knows it, but other than the fact that my panties are drenched and the way I want this man is making it hard to breathe, the night has been perfect.

I’ve heard story after story about Mav and Jamie and Ryker all night. Funny stories about them all growing up. The trouble they used to get in. The way they’ve stuck together. The arguments they’ve had. The pranks they’ve pulled.

More than once, Camden and I have caught each other’s eye, and I know what he’s thinking as much as he knows my thoughts too.

Vivi.

Vivi is always the one to tell our stories.

She’s the one who reminds us of the fun times and doesn’t wallow in the bad ones.

Maverick tucks my hair behind my ear and runs his finger over the sensitive bare skin on my shoulder. “Come with me.”

I nod, and he lifts me from his lap.

“We’re going to get more wine,” he announces, and his cousin Maddox grins.

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