by E. L. Todd
I missed the California sun, but I was happy to be home. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“Yeah, no problem.” With one hand on the wheel, he looked out at the road with the same brooding stare he usually wore. But he seemed particularly moody that day, like the weather had squashed whatever joy he had. “Have a good trip?”
“Yeah, it was great. I worked a lot, but I also went out with my coworkers a lot. Time passed so quickly.”
“Yeah…I know what you mean.”
“You really enjoyed me being gone that much?” I asked incredulously.
“Actually, I did.” He drove through the city then headed to his home near the coast.
“What did you do while I was gone?”
He shrugged. “Worked.”
“I hope you didn’t have sex on every piece of furniture in the living room.” I imagined the second I was gone, Finn had had a sex party. He hadn’t been bringing women around often, so maybe he waited until he had more privacy.
He shrugged again. “That may have happened…”
I cringed. “Why did I ask?”
“Good question. Hope you learned your lesson.”
We pulled up to the house, parked in the driveway, and walked inside.
The house was exactly as I remembered it, meticulously clean and smelling like pine needles. I didn’t want to carry my bag up the stairs so I leaned it against the wall before I raided his fridge. I grabbed a beer and twisted off the cap.
Finn tossed his keys on the counter then headed to the stairs. “I’m gonna hit the gym.”
“On a Saturday night?” I asked incredulously. I stood at the counter and kept drinking my beer, shaking off the jitters from being on the plane for a few hours.
“Yep.”
My brother was innately moody and quiet, but it seemed like there was something on his mind. He seemed down, like something disappointing had happened. “Finn?”
He turned around at the bottom of the staircase. “Hmm?”
“Everything alright?”
He looked me dead in the eye without showing a hint of emotion. “Yeah.”
“You just seem a little down.”
He turned back to the staircase. “You know me. I’m always a little bummed.”
“So, did you take my advice?” I sat across from Zach in our favorite booth at the bar. We were both drinking light beer. When you drank as often as we did, you had to cut back at some point.
“With Stella?” He wore a t-shirt that stretched his arms and a backward baseball cap.
“Yeah.”
“Kinda hard to do when she only wants me when Finn is around.” He rolled his eyes then drank from his beer.
“Well, you’ll run into Finn eventually. Make your move then.”
“If she weren’t so hot, I wouldn’t put up with this. I’ve done a lot less for pussy.”
“Then why are you bothering?”
He shrugged. “I’ve had a crush on her forever. I want her in whatever way I can.”
“That’s deep.”
“Shut up.” He grabbed a handful of peanuts from the bowl and threw them at me.
The shavings got all over my shirt, so I wiped the crumbs away. “Thanks for that…”
“Seen Tom yet?”
“I invited him to hang with us tonight.”
“Really? Already introducing him to your friends?”
“I don’t really see it that way. We’re all hanging out, and I wanted him to join us. No big deal.”
“I guess. But it seems like you really like the guy.”
The guy had an eight-pack and a boyish smile. Tom was perfect. “Oh, I do. I don’t want to rush it, but it’s hard not to get carried away. I loved Pepper with my whole heart…but it was never anything like this. I hardly know the guy, and butterflies are soaring in my stomach. Sometimes I want to tell Pepper these things, but I feel too insensitive.”
“Maybe when she settles down with someone.”
“Yeah. I want her to be happy before I brag about being happy.” My parents were right for being disappointed in me. Pepper was forgiving, but what I did to her was nearly unforgivable. Being gay wasn’t a crime…but lying about it was.
“She’s a beautiful woman, so that shouldn’t be hard.”
I narrowed my eyes at the comment.
“What?” he asked innocently. “It’s not like I said she had a nice ass or something…even though she does.”
“I’ll dump this bowl of peanuts on your head.” I grabbed the bowl and dragged it toward me.
“What?” he asked. “Last time I checked, she was a single woman, and you were with someone else. I can’t check her out?”
“If I were straight, you know you would be crossing a line. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean she’s not my ex, that the bro-code doesn’t apply here. She’s off-limits. If I catch you looking at her ass, I’ll slam this bowl on your head.”
He nodded slightly. “I guess that makes sense. But what I said still goes. It won’t take her long to find someone. Look at what happened with Jax. All she tried to do was get laid, and that guy wanted to marry her.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.” Pepper was the perfect woman. There were so many times I wished I were straight just to keep her. “Did you guys hang out while I was gone?”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t see her. I don’t think the girls did either.”
“I guess she was busy. Maybe she went on a date or something.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Like I said—”
“I’ll shove these peanuts up your nose, asshole.”
Pepper walked inside at that moment, wearing skinny black jeans, gray booties, and a long-sleeved top that highlighted her hourglass frame. Her hair was slightly curled at the ends because it had managed to survive the nonstop rain that afternoon. She grabbed a beer at the bar first before she joined us. “What happened to the peanuts?” There were crumbs spread out everywhere, like a child had been making a mess before we arrived.
“Colt kept trying to use them as a weapon,” Zach explained.
“And why do you need a weapon?” she asked, looking at me.
“You know, because Zach is a little bitch.” I drank my beer.
“Big bitch,” Zach corrected. “I’m over six feet.”
“Fine,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “Big bitch.”
Pepper chuckled. “So, is it good to be back home? To be pelted with rain constantly?”
“It is nice, actually,” I said. “The heat gets old. It can be over a hundred degrees on most days in San Diego, even in November. It’s crazy.”
“Yuck.” She made a disgusted face. “I’ll take the rain and the cold over heat any day. My skin can’t stand direct sunlight for more than fifteen minutes.”
“No wonder why you hated Hawaii for our honeymoon,” I said with a chuckle.
“I didn’t hate it,” she corrected. “It was just so sunny all the time. There weren’t even any clouds to break it up. It was hot, sunny, humid. A Seattle girl can only stand that climate for so long.”
“I’m with her on that.” Zach clinked his bottle against hers. “I love hiking, and there’s no way I could hike when it’s hot like that. I love hiking Mount Rainier when it’s constantly drizzling. Keeps you cool.”
I’d never been athletic like Zach. I liked to play basketball every now and then, but I didn’t go out of my way to hike on a Saturday morning. “What did you do this week, Pepper?”
“Me?” she asked, like she was surprised by the question.
“Yeah,” I said. “Zach said he didn’t see you.”
“Oh.” She tapped her fingers against the side of her bottle. “I worked a lot. Got a lot of new inventory. Then I went home and ate a lot of pizza. Pretty uneventful, honestly.”
“That does sound boring,” I said. “Did you go on any dates?”
“Dates?” she asked incredulously. “Me? No.” She laughed like the question was completely absurd. “Nope, just stayed hom
e…alone. By myself. The only date I had was with a pizza box.”
She was oddly defensive, but I didn’t press her on it. Maybe it was still awkward for her to talk about that stuff with me. We’d seemed to move past it, but maybe I was wrong. “When I came home, Finn seemed moody. Moodier than usual, at least.”
“Why would I care about that?” she blurted. “I didn’t see Finn while you were gone.”
Zach turned to her, his eyebrow raised.
I raised an eyebrow too. “I didn’t say you would. I’m just talking.”
“Oh…” She nodded slowly. “Finn seems like a moody guy, so there’s no surprise there.”
“Did you talk to him while I was gone?” I asked.
“No,” she barked. “I said that already.”
“I just thought maybe you knew something.” I picked up one of the peanuts off the table and cracked it open with my fingers. “He was quieter than usual. Seemed to want to be alone. When I asked what was wrong, he said there was nothing to worry about.”
Pepper hung on my every word, staring at me with her fingers secured around her beer. “He’s a veteran and a doctor. He probably has a lot on his mind that none of us could possibly understand.”
“Yeah…that’s true.” My brother never talked about those things with me, but after everything he’d been through, he must struggle with stress on a daily basis, whether it was because of his past or because of his job in the ER.
After I drank from my beer, I spotted Finn step inside. Even though it was cold outside, he still rocked a t-shirt and jeans like the temperature didn’t affect him at all. He scanned the bar before he noticed me sitting with Pepper and Zach.
His eyes went to Pepper next. And that’s where they stayed.
He arrived at the table, his quiet presence louder than the TVs in the corner. “Hey.”
Pepper stared at him, her fingers resting against her bottle. She almost didn’t say anything back, like she was in a trance. “Hey…”
The eye contact lasted a while.
Finn was the first one to turn away. “I’m gonna get a drink.” He left the table and headed to the bar.
Pepper’s eyes followed him the whole way.
“Are you checking out my brother?” I asked, seeing the way her eyes zoned in on his ass.
She instantly snapped out of it and turned her focus back to us. “So I can’t check out your brother, but you could check out a bunch of guys when we were married?”
“Whoa…ouch.” I raised both of my hands in defense. “You’ve been holding that ammunition for a while, huh?”
“Maybe a little,” she said.
“Why do you hate it when everyone checks out everyone else?” Zach asked. “I compliment Pepper, and you’re threatening to kill me with peanuts. Then she glances at Finn, who is super-hot, by the way, and you lose your shit again. Dude, chill.”
“Okay…there’s a lot of things wrong with that sentence,” I said. “One, you think my brother is hot?”
Pepper looked at Zach, grinning widely.
“I don’t personally find him attractive, alright?” Zach brushed off the suggestion by moving his hand around. “But I understand what the chicks see in him.” He started counting off the reasons on his fingers. “One, the guy is tall. Two, the guy is ripped. Three, he’s got tattoos. And not just any tattoos, but ink that shows his time in the service. Four, he’s a veteran. Five, he’s a doctor. Come on, the guy is the perfect catch, and you can’t hold it against Pepper for looking. She’s not gay.”
Pepper clinked her beer against his. “I second all of that.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I guess it’s just weird for me. He’s always been the favorite of the family, and I guess I’m a little insecure about it.”
“Well, Pepper already proved that she thinks you’re hot,” Zach said. “She married you. So there’s no competition.”
“Very true,” Pepper said. “It shouldn’t be a big deal if I think your brother is hot.”
“Yeah.” I realized I overreacted. Sometimes, I got jealous when it came to Pepper. She wasn’t my wife anymore, but I still felt like she was mine. My brother could have anything he wanted, but she was the one thing off-limits. If they ever got together, it would ruin my relationship with my brother and destroy my friendship with Pepper. But my paranoia was ridiculous because neither one of them would do that to me. “You’re right. It’s not like anything would ever happen. You guys wouldn’t do that to me.”
Pepper took a long drink of her beer, downing the rest of the contents even though she only sat down ten minutes ago.
Finn returned with his glass of scotch and placed a beer in front of Pepper. “It seemed like you were getting low.” He scooted into the seat beside me, forcing me to slide toward the wall.
Now that we were all together, it turned quiet.
Finn drank from his glass and looked at the TV, not making eye contact with anyone. A distinct quietness settled over the table, making the moment somehow heavy. He cradled his glass close to his body and didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood, even though he’d come out to socialize.
“How was work?” I asked, breaking the tension that seemed to come from nowhere.
He shrugged. “Long day. I’ll leave it at that.”
“Something happen?” Pepper asked.
He didn’t turn his head, but his eyes shifted toward her. “I had a critical patient. I stabilized him, but I doubt he’s going to make it.”
I bowed my head, realizing just how tough Finn had it. His entire adult life had been surrounded by death. He probably got paid well, but sadness hung on his conscience. “Sorry, man.”
He shrugged before he looked at the TV again. “That’s life.”
“I’ll buy you the next round,” I said.
“Seems fair,” Finn said. “Since you’re the most expensive roommate I’ve ever had.”
“Am not,” I argued.
“When was the last time you picked up groceries?”
“I don’t have a car,” I argued.
“So, if you lived there alone, you would order pizza every day?” he asked incredulously. “No, you would make it work.”
“Or you could let me take your truck,” I suggested.
He chuckled before he brought the glass to his lips. “I’m not letting you anywhere near my truck. You don’t even have a license.”
“So?” I asked. “I still know how to drive.”
“You don’t have a license?” Zach asked in surprise.
I shrugged. “I never needed one, so I didn’t bother. I have a passport for travel, but that’s it.”
“I don’t have one either,” Pepper said. “I walk to work every day, the grocery store is right around the block, and I couldn’t afford a car anyway.”
I turned to Finn. “If I get my license, will you let me borrow—”
“No.” He drank from his glass again.
“Damn it,” I said with a sigh.
“You look like you could use a double.” A gorgeous brunette came to our table, appearing out of nowhere with a glass of scotch in her hand. She set it on the table beside Finn, her long brown hair pulled over one shoulder. She was in skinny jeans and a tight t-shirt, a storybook of ink covering both arms. It went all the way up her neck and down under the front of her shirt. She looked exactly Finn’s type because she looked just like him.
Beautiful and covered in ink.
He looked up at her, and when he gave a slight smile in encouragement, it seemed like he knew her. “Thanks. I could use a triple.”
She grabbed the glass he was holding and poured the remaining liquid into the double she’d brought. “Ta-da.”
He chuckled. “Like magic.” He brought the glass to his lips and took a drink. “Thank you.”
With one hand on her hip, she kept smiling at him, falling under his spell like everyone else.
“Layla, let me introduce you.” Finn turned to me. “This is my brother, Colton.”
Sh
e smiled at me. “I see the similarities, but I wouldn’t have guessed you were brothers if I didn’t know.”
“Unfortunately, he didn’t get the same quality DNA.” He turned to Zach. “My friend, Zach.”
“Pleasure.” Layla smiled at him.
Zach couldn’t stop staring at her busty chest.
Finn turned to Pepper last. “And this is my…friend…Pepper.” He hesitated when he came to her, probably because he didn’t know how to describe her. She was kinda his sister-in-law even though he’d never met her when we were actually married.
“Nice to meet you,” Layla said.
“Yeah,” Pepper said, forcing a smile that didn’t seem genuine. “You too…”
Finn continued. “Layla works with me in the ER.”
“Oh, so you’re a nurse?” Zach asked.
“No,” she said with a chuckle. “Doctor.”
“Ooh…” Zach looked mortified when he realized he’d shoved his foot in his mouth with his sexist assumption. “Sorry, I—”
“It’s cool,” Layla said. “I get that a lot.” She turned back to Finn. “Now, this guy is one hell of a doctor. He handles trauma without breaking a sweat. One guy came in with three gunshot wounds, and Finn practically looked bored. This guy can handle anything.”
Finn remained humble, like always. “You’re a great doctor too, Layla.”
She smiled. “And he’s so polite.”
“Finn?” I asked incredulously. “The only time I hear him be polite is when he’s talking to Mom.”
“Aww.” Layla’s eyes turned affectionate. “Retired veteran who loves his momma. Man, that’s hot.” There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in her voice, and she didn’t mind hitting on him right in front of us.
Finn brushed off her comment like it meant nothing to him. “Working tomorrow?”
“Morning shift. You?”
“Afternoon,” he answered. “Looks like we’ll cross paths.”
“I hope so.” She grabbed his forearm as it rested on the table. After a gentle squeeze, she walked away. “Enjoy your booze. You earned it.”
Finn didn’t turn around to watch her walk away. He didn’t drink from the glass either.