Page 71 of Rules of Association

I didn’t get to answer.

“Text message from: *Blue heart emoji* *blue heart emoji* *blue heart emoji*:Connor, we’re getting cold in here without you to warm us up. Hurry back or we’ll have to come out and get you!”

“I think you guys should leave,” I said, clearing my throat.

Tiney was already on her way to the door. Practically running.

Clint was nodding his head and mumbling, “Yeah, I think that’s for the best.”

And Clay was alternating between silent dumbstruck looks at my face and the hallway.

I shuffled them toward the door. With a parting wave, I shut the door with a decisive click, while listening to Clay’s mumble to the other two, “It really is the quiet ones, isn’t it?”

Leaning my back against the door, I allowed my breath and my racing heartbeat time to calm. I couldn’t decide if I was mad, embarrassed, or if I simply wanted to strangle Ceci. But before I could land on any one emotion a vision of my family’s stunned faces replayed in my head and a burst of laughter escaped me.

From the kitchen I could hear the very distinct, very vindictive laughter of one Ceci Fernandez floating throughout the air.

I made my way back to her. By the time I did, she was out of the cabinet and sprawled out flat on her back on the kitchen floor,laughing her ass off.

The sight was a hell of a lot better than the one of her shaking from last night, that’s for sure. Still, I glared down my legs at her.

“So you think that’s funny, huh?” I asked through laughter of my own.

She continued to crack up. Nodding as she pressed out a garbled, “Yeah!”

I took a step toward her, “Yeah, I’ll show you funny.”

Like a cat, she was on her feet and running down the hall as she continued to laugh uncontrollably. I just shook my head, following behind her as laughter spilled from me.

“You better run, Fernandez,” I called after her, “Because I know you’re fucking ticklish too.”

Chapter Eighteen

CONNOR

“What are you doing?” I asked my sister as she lay doubled over the coffee shop table waist first with her arms thrown over her eyes.

“I’m waiting until the coast is clear,” she said, her voice muffled into the table.

I rolled my eyes and pulled her hands from in front of her face. When she lifted her head she still had her eyes squeezed shut. I couldn’t help my snort of laughter as I poked her sides. “Stop it, Tine. You’re killing me. I already explained.”

And I had. Following Ceci’s little stunt in my kitchen I had to explain to my family that it was all a big misunderstanding. That a friend was playing a prank on me and that I really didn’t rush out of an important family meeting to have a threesome. They were skeptical but I think they believed me. They couldn’t help but keep teasing me about it though. I probably wouldn’t live it down for the end of time.

Case in point, the hazel eyes in front of me were now open but flicking behind and around me as if she was looking for something. When she met my narrowed gaze she shrugged. “Can never be too sure with you these days, Con. You might be keeping them in your back pocket.”

I groaned as I sat, “Them who?”

“All your girlfriends!” she said. “Really Connor, I thought you had found somebody special. I'm so disappointed.”

I stiffened. “In me?”

“In the situation,” she said, reaching across the table and squeezing my hand gently. “I'm the youngest and I’m the only one who’s been married. I want to tell your wives all your embarrassing childhood memories—like how you used to be Clay’s shadow until that one night he tried to run away and you got scared and ran back and told on him. Or how you once went a whole month without saying a word to anyone because Mom and Dad tried to take your computers away.”

“Those stories are better left untold, Tine,” I grumbled, but I couldn’t help a lightness in my chest as I remembered them clearly.

Tine exaggerated some. I was Clay’s shadow for about a week when he took up for me at school and told a few bullies that if they messed with his brother again, he would send them straight to hell. I had been in first grade which meant Clay was only in third, but he had already started acting like a grown up and I thought that was so cool.

Until he tried to run away.

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