Page 41 of Bragg's Love

“Fine, but I’m going to make up a story of what you two are doing in there and tell the entire town about it.”

“You would do that anyway,” Miller says.

Elder shrugs and flounces off. I shut the door and lock it before turning to face Miller.

“How dare you?”

“How dare I what?”

“I don’t know where to begin. Wait a second. Yes, I do. How dare you read my mail?”

“It was an accident.”

“An accident? Like oops! The letter fell out of the envelope. Let me go ahead and read it. I call bullshit.”

His shoulders hunch forward and he scratches his neck. “Elder handed me a pile of mail. I didn’t look at any of the envelopes before I opened them.”

I poke him. “When you saw it wasn’t addressed to you, you should have stopped reading.”

“I was confused. I didn’t pay attention to who the letter was addressed to. I thought there must have been a mistake.”

I throw my arms in the air. “There was a mistake! You were reading my mail. Invading my privacy. How dare you?”

“I think we’ve covered the whole dare thing.”

“You could have told me the truth when you brought me the letter. But no, you threw beer all over it instead.”

“I also made labels.”

He actually sounds proud of himself. “Were you dropped on your head as a baby?”

“Mom claims he wasn’t,” Elder yells through the door.

I whirl around to deal with him, but Miller snatches my arm to stop me.

“Let him be. Unless you have some secret basement without doors and windows, he’s going to eavesdrop on us.”

“How do we get inside this basement if there are no doors and windows?”

He shrugs. “It’s magical.”

“We’re getting off track here.”

“I’d say,” Elder hollers. “I thought you’d be humping like rabbits on my desk by now. By the way, I keep the condoms in the upper left-hand drawer.”

“Can I kill him? He’s your twin. Will you die if he dies?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Bummer,” I mutter before inhaling a deep breath and launching into part two of my Why Miller Is An Asshole-tirade.

“It’s bad enough you read my mail without permission – which is a federal offense by the way – but you also pity me now.”

“I don’t pity you.”

“No? Why did you bring your mother toEden’s Gardento help me if you don’t pity me? Why did you place this huge order for plants for the restaurant? You’ve never ordered plants from me before.”

I poke him. His chest is hard as a rock and I want to smooth my hand over the planes of his muscles to find out how his naked skin feels. His shirt is in my way.

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