Page 37 of Tangled Rose

There’s some low-pitched mumbling, then a few seconds later, a light tapping at my door. I look up from where I’m stretched out on my stomach across the bed. Griffin pokes his head in. “Hey. You got home okay?”

I slide him a faux-annoyed look. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Ah, good to see you didn’t lose your smart-ass mouth at school or something, sis.” He flings all of his two-hundred-plus pounds onto the bed next to me.

I smile. “Nope, not at all.”

“Whatcha doin’?” He pokes at my shoulder and eyes my notebook. “We’re watching movies downstairs if you want to join.”

“Precalc.” I ignore his last statement, although I’m kind of curious who is down there.

“Ah. I finished that assignment during study hall. Want some help?” He gives me a teasing grin and his pretty blue eyes connect with mine.

Damn.If I didn’t have this weird, angsty, delicious chemistry with Beau, I could totally see myself falling for Griffin. He’s been nothing but kind to me… and apparently, he’s intelligent, too. “Oh, so you’re a smarty-pants, huh?”

He wiggles his brows at me. “Maybe. Could also be that Mom didn’t want me and Beau in the same grade, so when she held him back a year because he was still throwing temper tantrums, that pushed me back a year, too. We’re both probably the oldest in our classes. I bet I’m closer to your age than you think. I’m only six months from eighteen.”

I tap my pencil against my notebook, doing the mental math. “You’re what, a year younger?”

“Less, actually. We’re only eleven months apart. It was mostly funny to me that it pissed Beau off, back in the day, when I took some of the same courses. We started studying French the same year, took pre-algebra the same year…”

“And how about now?”

“It’s actually fun to be in class together.” He bumps his shoulder to mine. “He’s my best friend.”

I nod, glancing down at my notebook again. He’s about to say something about Beau, I know it. Because if they’re truly best friends, Beau probably told Griff that I got all hot and heavy with him at lunch and then pushed him away without much of an explanation. My teeth sink into my lip, worrying the delicate skin at the corner. At the same time, Griffin explicitly told me I could trust him. That if I told him things, he wouldn’t share them.

“He doesn’t understand why you got upset outside while you were talking to him. If it’s the Mandy thing, he’s not into her. She offered, and he was a little drunk. It happened.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his blue eyes staring at me intently.

“I saw them together, Griff. And while I need a few gallons of bleach for my eyes and brain to make it disappear from my mind’s eye, that’s not actually it. Sex is sex. Blow jobs aren’t that big a deal in my book. It’s not like I had any claim on him when that happened.” I throw up my hands. “I think I’m having trouble coping with all the changes. There is so much I’m dealing with right now that I’m not used to, and I don’t know which end is up. Griff—” My voice catches. I blink a few times. “My background is a lot different than yours. Like, a lot.”

He presses his lips together, head bobbing. “Okay, I get that.” He swallows, running his hand over his stubbled cheek. “But who fucking cares? I don’t. Beau certainly doesn’t. You’ve knocked him silly already. I don’t know what magic you’ve got, but it’s working.”

My chest tightens and my throat goes dry. “I’m nothing special, Griff. You should make sure he knows that.”

Griff surprises the hell out of me when he lets loose a low growl from deep within his chest. “That’s fucking bullshit. And you’re not staying up here thinking crap about yourself. Get up.”

My brows pull tightly together. “What? No.”

“No?” He grins and tugs me off the bed, throwing me up and over his shoulder, heading out of the room with me.

“The fuck, Griff? Put me down.”

“Nope.” We start down the stairs, and I squirm. “Hold still.” He smacks me right on my ass, then grips one cheek tightly.

“Dude! Not cool.” We hit the bottom of the steps and race through the house, then descend a second flight of stairs into the basement.

Great. I should have known better than to think that two brothers who are thick as thieves wouldn’t be all up in each other’s business. Apparently, this now includes me.

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