Page 33 of Loved By the Hacker

No. I didn’t need love and all the messy complications it brought.

My life was full enough. I might have had to leave the Marines earlier than I wanted after getting injured, but I was alive. I had good friends and opened a brewery with two of the best friends a guy could have.

I was fine.

Content.

I had enough to make me happy.

Brewing beer, running a spot in the town where I grew up where others came to have a good time, that was good enough.

I didn’t need hearts and flowers and a woman. Hell no. I’d had front row tickets to my parents’ tumultuous marriage and the disaster it had turned into before they cut their losses and split up. I didn’t want that. I didn’t need the headache or inconvenience. I’d been fine with what my life was going to be like. I was thirty and could see it all clearly.

But what’s the saying? Tell God your plans and he’ll laugh? Well, fuck, he must have had a good ole time at my expense when little Raven Trejo walked into my life six months ago and knocked me on my ass.

I’d met her a couple of times in the past when I came back from college and stayed with the Trejos on college summer breaks here and there. But she had been nothing but a kid back then. All I remembered was big glasses with braces and frizzy hair. The little squirt would sit at the end of the driveway when Austin, Onyx, and I would play basketball, her nose stuck in one book or another.

But when I came back, she’d been off to school, some beauty college in San Francisco. Onyx would tell me things here and there about her. Maybe because she was the youngest, he kept a close eye on her, worried about her being so far from home. Austin and he had even gone out to the Bay Area for her birthday, but I had chosen to stay behind.

Six months ago, I saw her again for the first time. I had been covered in saw dust, shirtless and sweaty, in the middle of the renovation for the brewery. She’d walked in, and when our eyes connected, it had felt like I had been sucker-punched. I’d climbed off the ladder slowly, wondering if I was imagining things. No one but the construction crew was allowed inside the building, yet there was this little fairy-like creature sauntering over to me with a knowing smile. And she didn’t stop until she was right in front of me. With the way the light filtered through, I remember thinking her eyes were the prettiest brown I had ever seen. Dark with swirls of caramel.

I hadn’t recognized her.

Who could have blamed me? She was about twelve the last time I’d seen her. The dark-haired beauty in front of me was all woman with soft curves and silky-smooth hair that made my hands ache to touch.

And just like that, my cock started to come alive for the first time in a year.

Everything around me stopped. The sounds of the construction crew faded away to nothing. The only hammering I heard was that of my heart beating against my ribcage trying to pounce out and land right in her delicate hands.

I felt like I had been struck by lightning.

Even more when she excitedly said, “Hi!” Her voice was sweeter than anything I’d ever heard in my life. She wrapped her little curvy body around mine with a big hug. A hug I returned as my head dipped down and I breathed in her scent. But before I could make out the notes, I pulled away. Her smile was so bright and beautiful as she stared at me, her hands still touching my bare skin, I wondered if I’d died. Was the angel in my arms the one who would walk me through the pearly gates of heaven?

But it wasn’t to be so.

I was about to ask who she was when Onyx walked in with a scowl on his face, yelling at Raven to leave me alone and stop bugging.

Raven. My best friend’s baby sister.

The door to the storage room opened, and Austin stood there, looking at me. “You okay, Bash?”

“Fine,” I gritted through my teeth.

“Yeah?” With his assessing gaze on mine, I knew he didn’t miss shit, but he had yet to call me out on anything. “That why you’re hiding back here?” he asked, knowingly pressing my buttons.

“Yup,” I clipped, pushing off the wall.

“Man,” he sighed, stopping me from exiting and hiding in the small office we shared. “You gotta get a hold of this.”

“Hold of what?” I dared him to call me out on it. To tell me to stop crushing on our friend’s little sister like some kind of perv. Jesus, our age difference alone was enough reason not to go there. To keep my hands to myself. Not to mention the fact she was my best friend’s little sister.

“You really think I don’t see what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what?—“

“That’s Onyx’ little sister, man.”

“Which one?” I pretended to act stupid, but by the way Austin stared back at me, I wasn’t fooling anyone. I sighed and swallowed. My Adam’s apple bobbed heavily as everything I felt for her stuck to me, clung tightly.

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