Chapter One
Vale
“Rule three hundred and sixty-six: thou shalt not covet thy best friend’s little sister,” my best friend Hudson Kelly says as he picks up his burger and shoves half of it in his mouth. Three patties, three slices of cheese, and three pieces of bun all smoosh together between his teeth as a dollop of ketchup splats onto the glossy surface of the bar where we both work.
Well, I work. I can’t say I’d call singing along to old nineties jams and generally warning me off his sister Lily is work.
What can I say about Lily Kelly? Well, a lot actually, considering I’ve known her since she was a pain in the ass thirteen-year-old with side braids and a sassy mouth.
She’s smart as hell and can whoop Hud’s and my ass at any video game. Her green eyes are several shades lighter than her brother’s. She’s obsessed with bananas. She uses coconut mango bodywash and her toes are always freezing. Also, she once had a crush on me that was borderline obsessive.
And that mouth of hers… still sassy and ready to cause trouble.
I grab a cloth off the stainless steel surface where we bring together alcohol and mixers to create hope or at the very least a lack of inhibitions, and swipe up the blood red mess. “How does your fiancée put up with you?”
“I put my babies in her.” He grins widely and his chest puffs up.
There are bits of pickle stuck between his teeth. It’s really not attractive, but I don’t tell him the green pieces are there. Let him figure that out in his own time.
“Also, I clean up after myself,” he adds before tearing into the other half of his burger like a jacked up T-rex with a live goat. More of the burger’s contents—sesame seeds, shreds of lettuce—drop, this time onto the wrapper like confetti.
“Sure you do. Wipe up your own damn mess.” I toss the cloth to him so I can pour a beer for the guy a few seats down. We’re open, but quiet since it’s in between lunch and happy hour.
I go back to stacking pint glasses in preparation for tonight’s crowds. It’s Friday and the weather is warm in Chicago, which means it will be hectic. Not that I mind. I love busy nights. The people. The music. The vibe. All the pretty girls in their skimpy outfits. I wonder if she’ll come tonight.
I drag the cardboard cutter over the plastic wrapping on the slabs that we’ve yet to fill our fridges with. They’re partially cold, having come from our beer storeroom, but I crouch down and sweep the cans already in the fridge to one side so I can backfill.
My phone beeps in my pocket. I don’t pull it out. But ignoring it is almost unbearable. Like an itch begging to be scratched, but on the inside of my body. Where my fingers can never reach. A bead of sweat forms at my hairline.
“You’re thinking about her,” he grumbles.
My pulse skips like an old record jumping, but I play it cool. There’s no way he can know who is on my mind. This is classic Hud. Always warning me off his sister. And we’ve been so careful. My voice is balanced. Equal parts strong and even. “What?”
“My sister. You’re thinking about Lily.”
I glance up at him like he’s a second thought. My brow is furrowed and one eyebrow rises sardonically high. The bead of sweat trickles down my temple despite the air-conditioned environment and the open fridge door. I swallow. “I am not thinking about your sister.”
One day soon I’m going to have to come clean. About his sister and the way I feel about her and what’s happening between us. I’m going to have to taunt the bull. Wave my red flag of a heart in front of the angry beast and hope that our friendship might survive. Along with my testicles.
He crumples the waxed paper his burger came wrapped in and alley-oops it into the trash can where I’m stowing the copious amounts of plastic wrap. Climbing off the stool he’s been perched on for the last fifteen minutes, he saunters around the barrier to get in my space. “You are. It’s obvious, and I’m here to tell you it’s not going to fly.”
“Here.” I shove a box in his direction. Spirits in glass bottles—tequila, vodka, gin—clink against each other. “Why don’t you get off my back and stock the shelves.”
He takes the carton. Rests it on the counter. Starts pulling bottles from the cardboard and fitting them on the shelves where they belong. Vermouth. Cointreau. Grand Marnier. “I saw the way you looked at her the other night. You had your filthy mitts all over her.”
My chest squeezes. The back of my neck prickles. I shut my eyes for a fraction of a second as I bow my face to the first of many fridges that we need to fill to maximum capacity. How could he know? We’ve been so careful. Okay, not as careful as we could be. But there’s no possible way he knew that Lily was at my apartment the other night when he came over. Naked. In my bed. Waiting for me. I was cool, calm, and collected. Or at least I thought I had been, until now. “Look, Hud—”
“You can’t grope my sister while the three of us are playing Twister, dickwad. It isn’t right.”
I breathe again. A short, shallow breath. Quick. And then slow. Not too deep, not deep enough that he catches onto the fact that I was holding my breath like a virgin in a horror film, fully expecting my demise. Whose idea was it to play Twister anyway? Bodies twining around each other, touching each other. Lily joked about stealing the mat and taking it back to my place so we could play in our birthday suits. Luckily, I already had the game in my closet. “I was reaching for the blue circle, jackass. I was literally reaching around her to put my left hand on a blue dot. You threw yourself between us, remember?”
I might have grazed her hip on the way. Accidentally of course. It wasn’t to say I can’t wait to get you alone. Or I can never get enough of touching you. I wouldn’t do that in front of Hud. I don’t have a death wish. I’m not ready to risk euthanising myself. Or maybe I am when it comes to Lily. But we’re not on the same page. Yet.
I don’t blame her for being uncertain. For not wanting to label it. But I’m ready. Never thought I would be, but I am. I want to call her my girlfriend and, well, not introduce her to my friends because she already knows them all, but announce that we’re together. In love.
“I had to.” He glowers at me.
“You didn’t have to fart in my face.” I close one nostril with my index finger and sniff. This time I lift my gaze to his. Let him see that I have nothing to hide. I have everything to hide. “I still can’t smell properly. It was disgusting.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep your ho bag dick far from my pristine Lily.”
We’ve been friends a long time. Too long maybe. Since college. We’re way past that stage where friendship is a cut and dry definition. We’re odd fellows. We’re brothers. I show up to family dinners. I’ve babysat his sister. I’ve slept with his sister too, but I don’t think he’ll appreciate that fact. I might be in love with her. I’m definitely in love with her.
I snicker under my breath. Maybe at how far he’ll go to protect his sister from me. Perhaps at the idea that my cold dead heart isn’t quite as stony as I used to believe it was. “She would probably want to punch you in the face if she heard you talking about her like that.”