His eyes came to mine before he explained the reason behind his obvious frustration. “You lucked out,” he began. “This was supposed to be a prank. A dare. It should have been awkward and uncomfortable for it to be considered a success. These pictures indicate that you had the time of your life.”
“And you did it with a smoking-hot woman, too,” Leo muttered. “Damn, why couldn’t I have been the one to get this dare?”
I smirked.
It had worked out in my favor.
“I told her,” I admitted.
“What?”
“I told Adele that I was only there for the photo session because my siblings dared me to enter the contest,” I clarified.
Layne narrowed his eyes and pressed, “You admitted that to her, and she was still willing to do all that with you?”
I grinned.
“Wasn’t she offended that you weren’t really into doing something like that on your own?” Eden wondered.
Recalling the initial interaction I had with Adele when she arrived at the shoot, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.
Eventually, I shared, “No, she wasn’t offended. That’s probably because the only reason she was there was because her best friend had duped her.”
“What does that mean?” Piper wondered.
“It means she didn’t know she was heading into a stranger photo shoot until she got there and met me,” I explained.
“Despite that, she seemed to have no problem with immediately falling right into your arms,” Sam grumbled.
I wouldn’t have exactly said that Adele immediately fell into my arms, but I was too amused by my brother’s bitterness to correct him. All that mattered was that she eventually did end up there, and it was better than I could have imagined going into the shoot.
My eyes drifted back to the laptop screen, where Piper was still scrolling through the photos and examining each one with great detail. I watched the screen as she did it because I wanted more time to look at Adele.
Piper eventually made it to the last of the pictures, and I instantly felt my heart pounding against my chest. Seeing that photo, I could remember the exact moment. It was the single best moment of the entire session. Not because Adele had just moaned into my mouth but because of the way she looked at me afterward.
It was, by far, the best shot of the entire lot.
“That’s a lot of concentration on one photo for someone who claims this whole thing was just no big deal,” Piper declared.
Begrudgingly, I tore my eyes from the photo and looked at Piper. She had cocked an eyebrow and was giving me a look that suggested she knew I hadn’t been entirely truthful earlier in the week about what I actually felt about the whole thing.
Trying to play it off, I tossed my hand out toward the screen and argued, “What? It’s the first time I’m seeing them. You and Eden have obviously been inspecting them for a while now.”
Before Piper could come back with a sarcastic remark, Eden jumped in. Her voice was soft when she reasoned, “It’s pretty obvious that you and Adele had a connection, Riggs. Even if you don’t want to admit it, we can see it. Anyone who looks at these pictures would never know that the two of you weren’t a real couple.”
“We aren’t blind,” Piper added. “It’s written all over your faces.”
“I’m with the girls on this one,” Layne began. “As much as I dislike the fact that this whole dare backfired on us, there’s no arguing with the evidence. You are seriously into this girl.”
“And she’s clearly into you,” Leo said.
There was no getting out of it. My siblings weren’t stupid. And just as Piper declared, they weren’t blind either. They could easily see what was happening in those photos. I hadn’t even had the opportunity to really look at them, and I could see it.
So, I knew it was useless to continue to try and deny it.
“Okay, okay,” I finally declared as I threw my hands up in surrender. “There was a bit of a… connection.”
“So, when are you going to see her again?” Leo asked.
“I’m not.”
“You’re not?” Sam questioned me. “I might be pissed that you managed to get lucky on this, but even I wouldn’t advise walking away from a woman that looks like that.”
“Or, more specifically, a woman that looks at you like that,” Layne asserted.
I sighed. I loved that even though they all gave me a hard time more than was necessary, when it all boiled down, they wanted what was best for me. Unfortunately, they couldn’t seem to understand that my life right now wasn’t conducive to fostering a relationship.
“What do you expect me to do?” I asked. “Things are going to be crazy here for the next few weekends. What am I going to do? Should I find her, ask her out, and explain that she’ll need to wait a while until things settle down here?”
“We already told you we’d pick up the slack,” Leo reminded me.
“I know that,” I assured him. “But there’s no way I can’t be here on the weekends up through the Thanksgiving holiday.”
“So, go see her during the week,” Piper suggested.
“She works,” I retorted. “She’s a teacher.”
“And school is usually out by three o’clock,” Layne noted.
I was fighting a losing battle. I knew the people surrounding me at the moment. I probably knew them better than they knew themselves. And I knew there was no way they’d stop pushing me anytime soon.
Shaking my head, I declared, “Look, we probably should call it a night here. It’s getting late, and we’ve got an early morning and a busy weekend ahead of us.”
Piper audibly sighed. “The master of avoidance.”
With the clear understanding that I was done talking about this whole thing, my siblings turned and started to walk off. I bent down and picked up one of the tools I’d brought out with me earlier in the day. When I stood up, I found Eden was still standing there.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” she said softly.
“Eden—”
She cut me off and insisted, “No, Riggs. I meant what I said last week. I think you’re a great catch.” She held the laptop up again and looked at the pictures before returning her attention to me. “And it’s clear I’m not the only one who thinks that.”
“It’s not as easy as you’re making it seem,” I stated.
“It is,” she maintained. “You just have to want what this woman has to offer badly enough. We can already see the attraction here… on both sides. You know I love you, but honestly, you’re a fool if you don’t at least give yourself the chance to see if there’s something else here with Adele.”
“Why is this so important to you?” I questioned her.
She shrugged. “I want you to be happy.”
“What about the rest of the family?” I pressed, wondering why she thought I should be the one that gets all the focus right now.
Instead of giving me an answer that would have explained it all, she countered, “Would you prefer I go out searching for a man that’s going to make me happy? Should I start looking for the man who’s going to look at me the way you looked at Adele?”