Page 86 of Brace and Chase

“What are you doing?” Charlie grumbles sleepily when I start kissing down his neck.

“Doctor gave me the all clear this morning so I’m going to do dirty things to you,” I inform him with the utmost seriousness, and the goofball bursts out laughing. “I’m serious,” I protest. “Why do you laugh at me?” He sees right through my fake wounded act and rolls to his back, brings a hand to my head to comb his fingers through my messy hair.

“You always make me laugh,” he says tenderly.

“Yes I do,” I tell him, proud of myself, and I start to lean down when a chime sounds all over the house. It’s one I haven’t heard before.

Charlie jumps away from me, which makes me pout. He reaches for his phone and I see a video feed appear, and two... identical guys appear to be bickering as one presses on the doorbell again.

Those are Charlie’s brothers, I’m pretty sure.

“Fucking shit,” Charlie whisper-shouts and sprints to his walk-in closet.

“What?” I demand and follow him. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s my brothers,” he says.

“Yeah,” I drawl, waiting for more information to come out of his mouth.

“They didn’t tell me they were coming,” he says, grabbing a shirt out of a drawer then going over to get some pants.

“So?” I thought he got along well with them. What’s the big deal?

“Go put some clothes on,” he snaps at me, making me frown. “They can’t see you like that.” He has to see the confusion on my face because he winces. “They don’t know about any of this, so go put something on.”

“You can just tell them,” I argue, but he won’t hear it.

“No,” he shouts. “Just go put something on.”

I stumble back—the keen ache of rejection is a bitch—but then the doorbell sounds again, and doesn’t stop.

It’s annoying.

All of this is fucking annoying.

I go to my room quickly and put on some sweatpants, but I hear Charlie pass by my room before I have a shirt on, so I decide to follow him without one. I’m not letting him get out of this as easily as he thinks.

He’s pulling a shirt down over his chest when he opens the door, and I stop right behind him.

“What the hell?” one of them mutters when they see me. His frown tells me all I need to know—they think Charlie and I still hate each other. Has he not talked to them at all?

The annoyance inside me just keeps building.

“What are you guys doing here?” Charlie asks them, ignoring the previous question.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” the other one, wearing black, explodes and points at me.

“It’s a long story,” Charlie says with a sigh, and seriously, you could boil potatoes with the heat building up inside me.

A long story?No it isn’t. It’s really fucking short actually.

As if that’s all he’ll say on the matter, he opens the door wider for his brothers. “Come in, but seriously, what’s going on?” He directs the question—he does look worried—at the one who spoke first, wearing blue. Seriously, they are way too identical.

“Nothing like what you’re thinking,” he tells Charlie, carrying a couple of duffels into the house.

So I guess they’re all just going to skip past the “long story” bullshit?

“Then what the fuck?” Charlie cries. “You show up here out of the blue, without any warning?” He turns to the other one, who’s already helping himself to a Coke from the fridge. “And on Valentine’s Day,” Charlie continues when the one wearing black interrupts him.

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