Page 14 of Juno

“Ten minutes,” she said.

“Great, I’ll be waiting here for you,” he said.

“Do you by chance have an extra toothbrush?” Juno asked.

“Yep,” he said, “it’s in my medicine cabinet. Help yourself.” He waited for her to head upstairs before he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called Dare. He knew that his brother would help Juno and him out. He just hoped that Juno was ready to come clean because pretending to be together, in front of Dare, wasn’t something that he wanted to do. Before last night, Saint had never lied to his little brother, and he didn’t want to start now.

* * *

He quickly called his brother, deciding that it would be better to ask forgiveness rather than permission from Juno. If she knew that he needed help, and called Dare, she’d insist on packing her stuff alone.

“Hey, how’s the arm?” Dare asked. “Sorry that I didn’t stick around the ER last night, but Juno refused to leave and said that it was no use us both sitting there all night.”

“She refused to leave?” Saint asked.

“Yep,” Dare said, “your new girlfriend seems very protective of you. And why the hell didn’t you tell me that you two were dating?” This was where things were going to get tricky. He wouldn’t lie to his brother, but he needed to come up with a good cover story that involved the truth.

“You know how it is with new relationships. We just don’t want to jinx things.” Saint hadn’t lied. What he had with Juno was turning into a friend's relationship, even if he wanted it to be more. And they did just meet (officially), so that would make it new.

“I’ve never known you to be superstitious, Saint,” Dare challenged.

“Yeah, well, Juno is,” he said. He knew that she was superstitious just by spending the day together. Juno had knocked on wood twice and had even tossed salt over her shoulder when she spilled some on the table during breakfast.

“Is Juno ready to tell Vixen the truth?” Dare asked. Saint worried that Dare knew more than he was letting on and that he’d need to tread carefully if he didn’t want to blow Juno’s cover.

“The truth?” Saint asked.

“Yeah, you know about the fact that you two have been dating behind all our backs,” Dare said.

“I take it you two talked last night about our secret while I was having my arm cast,” he said. His brother would have insisted that Juno tell Vixen the truth or he would. He was a stickler for the truth—usually. Of course, when Vixen needed Dare to pretend to be her boyfriend to get rid of her stalker, he had no problem doing that.

“Yep, and I told her that she needed to tell Vixen within the day, or I would. You know that I won’t lie to my wife. Hell, she’ll murder me if she finds out that I knew about this and didn’t tell her immediately. I don’t want to die, man,” Dare said.

Saint couldn’t help his chuckle. His brother was usually over dramatic, but this time took the cake. “You are such a drama queen,” Saint teased.

“I am not,” Dare grumbled. “So, did you just call me to give me shit, or did you need something?”

“Actually, I do need something. Can you meet me and Juno over at her apartment? It’s a long story, but she needs to pack some of her stuff and stay with me for a while.” He hoped that Dare didn’t ask too many questions because he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to keep up the whole relationship lie with his brother.

“How long will you be out of commission?” Dare asked.

“Two weeks, why?” Saint asked.

“Because I figured that she’d insist on staying with you while you recovered. Like I said, your girlfriend seems very protective of you.” Saint wished that his brother would stop referring to Juno as his girlfriend. Every time he said that Saint felt even more guilty.

“Yeah,” Saint said, “and you know how stubborn she is. I told her that I didn’t need her to play nurse, but she insisted.”

Dare groaned on the other end of the call. “Man, I don’t need to hear about you playing nurse with my best friend. We’re going to need to come up with some boundaries if this is going to work out. The first one is that I don’t need to hear about your sex life.” That worked for Saint because he currently had no sex life, but his brother wouldn’t believe that they weren’t having sex already. He knew Saint too well to believe that.

“Listen, would you be able to come by Juno’s place and help me get everything that she needs into my truck? Doing things one-handed won’t help her out, and I want to do this quickly so that I can get home and take some pain meds.”

“Of course, I don’t mind giving you both a hand,” he said. He started laughing and Saint wondered what Dare found so funny.

“What’s funny?” Saint asked.

“I said that I can give you a hand,” Dare repeated. “Pun intended,” he joked. Saint rolled his eyes at his brother’s joke, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see him. “You just rolled your eyes, didn’t you?” Dare asked.

“No,” Saint mumbled.

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