Page 58 of Stolen Kiss

I braced myself and looked up at him. “Yes?”

He waited a beat too long to answer—something I was sure didn’t go unnoticed by either Dad or Ethan. “I didn’t know you got here.”

“Well, I’m here,” I muttered lamely.

“Right.”

I could hear the confusion in his voice. I knew I shouldn’t let something so small get to me, but right now, I didn’t care. I was mad at him, even if he wasn’t a willing participant in the flirting game with the Kate Upton wannabe over there, who was now looking over at him, her eyes hardening a bit as she took me in. A childish urge came over me to stick my tongue out at her. Or to lick Jensen and claim him as mine.

I could laugh at the ridiculous thought.

Ethan moved a little closer to me. “Hey, man,” he greeted Jensen.

Jensen, for his part, didn’t look the least intimidated by my brother, but they were equal in height and bulk. My brother was six-foot-three, which meant Jensen was around the same, but my brother was rougher around the edges than Jensen, who looked like he had grown up with money—but that was because he had.

“Hey.”

“Right,” I said, when the awkwardness became too much. “We’re going to see Evelyn.”

Jensen looked like he wanted to say something to me, but I couldn’t think of anything worse than him saying it in front of both my brother and my dad. I backed away and moved to the kitchen.

Three steps in, I heard my dad and Ethan following suit.

Ethan caught up to me easily enough. “What’s going on between you and Jensen?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I replied softly. He eyed me skeptically. I rolled my eyes. “Nothing,” I repeated, stronger this time. “And even if there was, it would be none of your business.”

I flashed a smile at him and moved quickly to the kitchen, where I found my sister carefully inspecting a pink cake adorned with Hello Kitty fondant and glitter.

“Oh, how pretty,” I said.

Evelyn looked up and smiled at me proudly. “Right? This took me all of last night to finish.”

“Well, it’s certainly worth the effort,” I said, moving in closer and giving her a hug. She wrapped her arms around me, beaming.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I’m good. You know you don’t have to ask that every time you see me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have to ask that if I saw you more often.”

I opened my mouth, but Dad interrupted, moving over to us and wrapping one arm around us each. “My girls. You know, we haven’t been together like this since Christmas.”

“Yeah, and that’s such a long time ago,” Evelyn joked, meeting my eyes.

We were in mid-February. I was sure Evelyn Facetimed Dad more than I did, considering she was the only sibling with children now. Dad laughed, and I crawled out from under his arms to look closer at the cake while Evelyn chatted to Dad about some of Elliot’s accomplishments.

Evelyn really had outdone herself. This looked amazing, and I was sure Ensley would love it for about two seconds before she demanded we cut through the cake and give her the slice with the Hello Kitty fondant on there.

Ethan walked over to me and looked down at the cake as well, though I had a feeling his mind was elsewhere.

Sure enough, he said quietly, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

I glanced at him briefly from the corner of my eye. “Uh, no. No offense, but there are some things I would much rather not talk to my big brother about.”

He frowned. “Sure, you can. I would never judge you for anything.”

“Oh, really? You really want to know everything about me?”

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