Page 72 of Between Us

“You guys ready?”

As one, they bound toward the door, guessing what they’ll find at the event this year, and buzzing with excitement for the evening.

AssoonasMargoand Blake step out of the car, a six-foot guy with dark brown skin and a Ghostface mask drops his arm around each of their shoulders.

Immediately, my hackles rise. Even more than when I saw her talking to that guy Cody, who’s clearly some dude she used to hook up with.

I’m not mad at her for having a past. That would make me a huge hypocrite. But, considering I grew up three hours north from here and went to college in Florida, the chances of running into any of those girls are slim to none.

What really has me feeling like a caveman is the comfortability Blake’s showing with this guy, compared to Cody at the vet clinic. The feeling burning through me does settle a little bit when she slips out of his hold, and turns her head, smiling when her gaze finds me standing on the other side of my Durango’s hood.

The backseat’s door slams next to me as a petite, but clearly pissed off, Meera stomps around and stands in front of the guy.

Margo doesn’t look perturbed, but she’s not impressed by him either.

“Can younot?” Meera gripes. She pushes his hand off of her friend’s shoulder and grabs the mask off of his head—which she has to get on her tiptoes to do. “Never going to happen, Dev.” She smacks his chest with the costume piece.

Slowly, it clicks that he’s one of Meera’s brothers. Blake moves to the space next to me, brushing our arms against each other.

“That’s Meera’s brother, Dev,” she confirms my silent assumption. “He’s the middle sibling and thinks he’s a real ladies man.”

Looking down at her with a quirked eyebrow, I ask, “Thinkshe is?”

She scrunches her nose and admits, “Depends on who you asked at my high school.”

Laughing, I reply with, “Margo?” I tip my chin in her direction.

“Oh, no,” Blake murmurs quietly, and shakes her head. Looking down at her and back to Margo, I notice she’s not looking at Dev anymore. She’s watching another, slightly taller and older version of Dev walk up. It’s clearly their third sibling, although that’s not the reason he looks familiar. I just can’t place it though.

“Margo’s had her eye on one of Meera’s brothers for as long as I’ve known her, and it isn’t the younger one.” Blake takes a step toward me, clearly not wanting her friends to know she’s filling me in about their lives.

“That one?” I ask, subtly nodding toward the guy who stopped next to them, rolling his eyes at his siblings bickering.

“Jatin, yeah,” Blake chuckles, clearly amused by the situation.

It starts to click where I know him from when Meera walks over with her brothers. “Hey, Adrian. This is Dev and Jatin.” She gestures over her shoulder at them.

“Hey, man,” Dev easily greets, and my earlier hostility melts away.

Nodding in his direction, I look back to Jatin as recognition sparks in his eye too. “We have some classes together, right? I think the Bio lab is one of them.”

“Yeah, I thought I recognized you from somewhere.” We shake hands, both of our gazes catching on the three girls standing dumbstruck next to us. Each of their mouths are hanging open and their heads tilted in the same direction.

“Wow…” Meera mumbles when Jatin shakes his head impatiently at her. “Of coursethey have classes together. How did we not think about that?”

“I feel stupid,” Blake simply says.

“Hey, neither one is my brother or boyfriend,” Margo argues, holding her hands up in surrender.

Blake just snorts, and now having more of the big picture, it doesn’t surprise me when Margo elbows her in the side.Hard. And for the first time since I met Margo last week, she’s actually blushing as she tries to not look at Jatin.

To his credit, he tries to play it off like he doesn’t notice what’s going on either. He just tilts his head, giving the three of them an impatient look. “The single brain cell you three share doesn’t seem to be doing so well with the long distance, huh?”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Blake

Apparently,Adrianhasapenchant for grumpy personality types because he and Jatin have fallen into an easy friendship. I’m sure it helps that they’re in the same program, though when I overheard them talking, it wasn’t about classes or animal medicine.

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