Page 115 of Only in Your Dreams

She’s totally fucking serious.

Mel’s foot drops away from my knee and she squirms around, presumably trying to get her shoe back on. “What do you mean, get into his lap?”

Yeah, Summer. What the fuck do you mean, get into his lap?

“I mean, get in your boyfriend’s lap and give him a kiss for the camera.”

Without thinking, a laugh blows past my lips. It fizzles the second Parker throws me another weird look.

You have to be fucking kidding me.

Brooks shoots me an uncomfortable glance. “I don’t think we’re quite there yet with lap sitting, Sum—”

Parker lifts his eyebrows. “Did I mention I heard some very disturbing noises in my apartment last night?”

Fuck.

Melody and Brooks exchange a quick look. My jaw is killing me from the force of grinding my teeth together, and I try my best to stop, but I don’t quite manage to.

At last, Mel gives a strained laugh. “Don’t be shy, Brooks. Parker won’t bite your head off if I sit in your lap for a second. Isn’t that right, Park?”

“It’s not Parker I’m worried about,” Brooks mutters under his breath.

“What was that?” Parker asks Brooks.

“Nothing,” he sighs. He pushes back his chair, making room for Mel. “Okay, babe. Hop on.”

There’s a devil on my shoulder. He wants me to reach across the table and spill a beer on my friend’s lap.

It’s the one time I’ve ever resented Grams for raising me right. Because all I do is sit there, watching Melody get to her feet. And it goes from bad to worse. She was already sitting at the table when I got here earlier, so this is the first time I’m seeing her properly.

She’s wearing the dress. The green one from the dressing room picture she sent me all those weeks ago. The one that slices across the perfect swell of her tits, a green shiny fabric that might as well have been painted over her curves, cutting off above the mid-point of her thighs. She’s wearing it with a pair of sneakers, a Melody look through and through, and she’s utterly exquisite.

I’ve never wanted to kiss or fuck or fall to my knees and beg someone to love me back so much in my life.

Most of all, I want this to stop.

Melody perches herself on Brooks’s lap. Face flushing, dress riding up, a furtive glance in my direction. She’s sitting so stiff, like she’s trying to make as little contact as possible. And to his credit, Brooks looks just as uncomfortable—

Mel starts to slip off his knees, and Brooks quickly reaches out. Then puts his arm around her waist, tucks her against him, and something green and ugly rears its head inside me.

Are we really letting this happen, man?it asks me, incensed.

I catch the look on Parker’s face, who is apparently none too pleased with the sight of his sister on his friend’s lap, and I work to smooth my expression.

Yeah. Looks like we’re letting this happen.

“So sweet,” Summer purrs behind me, andno the fuck it is not, Summer. She lines up her phone above my head, capturing this hellish moment for posterity.

Melody shifts in Brooks’s lap. I zero in on the way her hair has snagged between them, itching to reach over the table and twist the strands out of harm’s way.

Then Brooks gathers her hair, twists it, places it over her shoulder and that’s it. My fucking breaking point.

Brooks Attwood is a good guy. Decent-looking. Responsible. A great friend.

He’ll be survived by his parents, his sister Josie, and his three-year-old German shepherd named Peter.

Because that’s our thing.Mything, the thing I do every night before we fall asleep, and it shreds my insides worse than Summer’s next words.

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