by Selena Scott
“Um…” she said again. “Hold on. What just—”
“Sarah,” he said in that deep, gravelly voice that sounded like midnight. “I just broke up with someone. And the break up was for really good reasons. Reasons that have everything to do with me. And nothing to do with her.”
“Okay?” she said, feeling her temper blink sleepy eyes and look around in confusion. Why were they talking about his ex right now? Why was he telling her that his ex was great and that it was his fault they weren’t together?
“Yeah,” he said, at least having the grace to look a tiny bit flustered as he finally unhanded her and stepped a good two feet away. “I’m… definitely not what you’re looking for.”
“Looking for?” she asked, shaking her head like there was water in her ears. “What is it, exactly, that you think I’m looking for, Seth?”
“Shit.” He went a little pale underneath his tan skin. “I’m insulting you and I totally don’t mean to. At all. Sarah, you’re amazing—”
“Lemme stop you right there,” she said, throwing up a hand. “If I’d known that touching your stomach was gonna get me firmly broken up with a minute later, I definitely wouldn’t have done it. Cuz, Seth? Literally nothing just happened. We didn’t even kiss!”
His brow furrowed, like he begged to differ on the ‘nothing happened’ front, but she barreled on, refusing to let him let her down easy.
“You’re kinda hot, in a pretty kind of way,” she continued, telling the truth but also reveling, just a tiny bit, in the fact that her assessment was definitely gonna piss him off. “And I touched you. Which it sounds like that’s not what you wanted. So, my bad. I’m sorry about that. Story over. Let’s go back to being friends who paint each other’s houses.”
He blinked at her, and she knew she probably looked a little crazy right now, with her hands on her hips and her stare as intense as his. But no, hell no, she was not getting dumped in her own living room by a guy she hadn’t even kissed yet.
“Okay?” he eventually said. And then he turned and started cleaning up the painting supplies they’d used that day. After a second, he turned to her, a small smile on his face. “Does this mean you’re agreeing to helping me re-paint my kitchen?”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Honestly? How could I say no?”
CHAPTER FIVE
It was very rare for Seth to be in a foul mood for any length of time, but the day after the almost-kiss with Sarah was one for the record books.
Normally, Seth split his work day between his home office, where he was drawing up plans or interacting with customers, and the job site. Raphael didn’t need any help managing the sites, but Seth enjoyed the manual labor of landscaping. He also enjoyed seeing his vision slowly being turned into a reality. It was the best part of being a landscape architect.
That Wednesday, however, he didn’t spend any time in his office. It was all outdoors for him. And he didn’t spend any time on any of the cosmetic aspects of landscaping. Nope. He started shoveling mulch at 7:45 am and he only let up at lunch when Raphael nearly tackled him to the ground and shoved a sandwich in his face.
“What the hell is up with you?” Raph asked as the two of them sat in the shade in the bed of Seth’s truck.
Seth didn’t answer. Raphael was a master at getting information out of people, Seth included. So, Seth didn’t necessarily feel like doing him any favors and spelling it out for him.
“Lemme guess…” Raphael said, squinting off into the distance. “You’ve got your panties in a twist because your favorite cleaning supplies just went out of production?”
Seth rolled his eyes. Just because his brother cleaned his apartment literally once a year didn’t mean that Seth was a lunatic for having two different kinds of glass cleaner under the sink.
“No? Okay. Let’s see… you forgot to use fabric softener in your last load of laundry, but you don’t want to waste water by washing clean clothes so you just have to deal with slightly scratchy clothes for a week?”
Seth looked blankly at his brother. What an idiot.
“Okay, 0 for 2, huh? This problem is a hard nut to crack. Speaking of nuts, this isn’t an STD-related bad mood is it?” Raphael nudged Seth in the ribs with an elbow. “You get some bad news from the clinic?”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Seth finally broke, laughing and shoving his brother back. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? This stinks like girl problems, but you told me you were over June. So, what’s going on?”
Seth sighed and polished off the rest of his water, then half of an iced tea that Raph shoved in his hand after that. “It’s not June I’m having trouble getting over. It’s what happened with June, I guess.”
Raph, switching seamlessly from teasing mode into listening mode, just nodded and kept quiet.
“Does it ever bother you, Raph? The expiration date we have to have on our relationships?”
Raphael laughed without humor, his normally laughing eyes gone cold and serious. “Bother me? Are you kidding? It makes me really freaking sad, man. I mean, it makes sense to me that the three of us can never really be in a relationship. The repercussions are way too freaking risky. But the fact is, even Ma has never been able to have somebody special in her life. And that’s all because of us.”
Seth sagged. He really didn’t like to think about that, but it was true. For decades, Elizabeth’s fidelity had been to her sons and keeping their secret. She’d never let anyone get within spitting distance of getting to know her. She’d kept every single man at arm’s length. And not for a lack of interest.
Elizabeth was pretty and always had been. She was pretty enough that men had come a-knocking often, despite the fact that she was the single mother to three rambunctious sons. And she’d turned them all away. Giving herself over to her family without reservation.
“I guess I’m just frustrated, is all,” Seth admitted. He nodded toward the rest of their crew who were taking their lunch break in the shade of a big tree. They were guys that Seth had known his whole life for the most part. Two guys they went to school with and one of their older brothers. “When they talk about women, all they want is no-strings-attached. I’m so sick of hearing about their fucking commitment issues. They have no idea how fucking lucky they are.”
Raphael took a drink from his own iced tea. “I know.”
“It’s not fair, man,” Seth said quietly. He didn’t usually spend time dwelling on the shit hand he and his brothers had been dealt, but right now, with that almost-kiss still thrumming through his brain and Sarah on his mind, he felt compelled to point out the obvious to his brother. “It’s not fair that just because we were born a certain way we can never risk making a life with a woman.”
“Because either we keep the secret from her, which is a death sentence for the relationship,” Raph started.
“Or we tell her. Which is basically asking her to harbor a fugitive for the rest of her life,” Seth finished, shaking his head from side to side. They’d realized a long time ago that romance, in any real or lasting way, wasn’t in the cards for them. Maybe that was the reason both brothers longed for it. Or maybe that was just the way their hearts were built.
“You know what you need?” Raph asked after a minute, slapping Seth on the back. “You need some fun. Why don’t we take Sarah out tonight like we promised?”
Either Raph was oblivious, or he was employing some twin spidey sense and intentionally needling at Seth. But watching Sarah get hit on by dudes at Coretti’s was the literal last thing he wanted to do. Wait, actually, waiting at home while he knew that Sarah was getting hit on by dudes at Coretti’s was the last thing he wanted to do. So… he went with the lesser of two evils.
“Maybe you’re right.” He looked at his watch. “I’m gonna head back to the office and make some phone calls and then head over to Sarah’s to see if I can’t finish the paint on her first floor before we head out.”
“All right,” Raph said in a voice th
at was just a touch too casual. Seth wondered if his brother somehow knew what was brewing in Seth’s chest for Sarah.
Seth hopped down from the truck and waved a goodbye at the crew while Raph gathered up his lunch.
“Hey,” Seth said, an idea occurring to him. “Maybe I’ll try to get Jacks to come.”
Raphael brightened. “I’ll try from my end, too. It’s been, like, three months since he’s gone out with us.”
Feeling a little lighter at the idea of spending time with both his brothers, Seth drove home in a marginally better mood. His afternoon went quickly, which was a testament to how busy he was these days. Over the last eighteen months, their business had taken off. Seth was actually in the position now to turn down projects he wasn’t interested in doing. Which was exciting for many, many reasons.
Sarah wasn’t home when he got to her house, but she’d left it unlocked, which Seth didn’t like at all. Obviously, he would do his very best to keep an eye out for her as her neighbor, but he wanted her to be as safe as she possibly could be. He’d spotted her heading out for a run just past sunrise this morning, when the street lamps were still on, and he’d made a note to buy some pepper spray for her.
He finished the last coat of paint in the kitchen and in the dining room, using his pent-up frustration as fuel. Even to his finicky eye, the first floor looked done. Next, he wanted to do her attic bedroom and then they’d move to the guest bedroom and bathroom on the second floor. It was a lot of work, but he was excited to see how it would all work out in the end. Everything he’d chosen for her house had reminded him of her. Bold, strong, colorful.
Just as he was washing the last of the paint off of his hands, he heard her coming into the house. “Seth?”
“In the kitchen!”
He finished drying his hands and then turned around, the breath kind of oofing out of him when he saw her standing there in her workout clothes. Before meeting Sarah, he’d never minded seeing a woman in Lycra. But now, with sweat rolling down her chest and one of her arms stretching the other one over her head, he could see that workout clothes were quickly becoming a fetish for him.
She just always looked so warm and powerful right after she’d been working out. She looked active and… yummy. No other way to say it, really. She looked freaking yummy.
“I thought you were at Eldora,” he said, his voice embarrassingly gravelly. He internally chastised himself and forced his eyes to stay on her face. He was the one who’d drawn the line in the sand last night and it wasn’t fair for him to ogle her and sound like he was thinking about sex. If they were gonna be friends then he needed to be friendly, not horny.
“I was there for the morning, but orientation is pretty much over now. I’m due back at the end of the month, but I’ve got a free few weeks until then.” She stretched one quad and then the other. “Raphael called. I guess we’re hitting the town tonight?”
Seth nodded, ruthlessly ignoring the sight of her bending and stretching her toned body. “Yeah. Guess so.” He checked his watch. “I need to head home and shower, but I can pick you up around seven?”
She shook her head, sending some of that honey hair cascading down to her shoulders and sticking to her glossy sheen of sweat. His eyes just kind of got caught there.
“Nah, that’s okay. Raph said he’d pick me up at 6:30.”
So. He was ‘Raph’ now? Seth was usually a very agreeable guy, but for some reason that just irked him.
“Oh. All right. I’ll just see you there, then.”
“Cool.” She pushed off from the doorway, like she was about to head upstairs, and Seth couldn’t help but step forward.
“Did you see that the final coat is finished down here?”
He heard her walking through the living room and dining room as he finished gathering up his things.
“Wow! Looks great in here! Are you sure that couch is going to look all right?”
“Yeah. Just wait and see, it’ll look great. I was thinking we should pick up some rugs, though. We have some money left over in the budget.” He met her in the living room. “Let’s wait and see how everything looks set up and then we can decide on some accents.”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “That’s a lot of ‘we’s’ you’re throwing around there, Durant.”
His brow furrowed. She was right. He was saying ‘we’ like they were a unit. A partnership. A couple. Which they most definitely were not. He swallowed. “I just meant…”
“I know what you meant. It’s cool. The house looks great. I still can’t believe that I stumbled upon the single most helpful and generous neighbor in the history of the world. Seriously, how am I ever going to repay you for all this?”
Her words soothed his ruffled feathers. He hadn’t wanted things to be awkward after last night, and they weren’t… not really. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t all revved up with nowhere to go. He wanted her to ride with him to Coretti’s. He didn’t want her to call his brother by a nickname. And he definitely wanted her to compliment the work he’d just done.
He almost groaned at himself when he put all the pieces together. He was acting jealous. How ridiculous was that? They hadn’t even kissed. And here he was acting like a spoiled little douche. Wanting to monopolize her attention when there was absolutely nothing he could do with it if and when he got it.
He cleared his throat. Time to act like a grown-up who understood the limitations of his life and didn’t make them someone else’s problem.
“What about an archery lesson?” he suggested.
She turned to him, and for a moment, she looked almost fearful. It shocked him because up to this moment, he hadn’t seen Sarah look anything but confident and cool. It was almost like the word ‘archery’ triggered some Pavlovian instinct that had her shrinking away from him. But just like that, she erased any traces of her reaction, clearing her throat and stepping away from him. A cocky smile that he only half-believed slid across her face.
“A personal lesson with an Olympian? That’ll cost you way more than a little house-painting, Seth.”
“Is that right?” he mused, watching her minute reactions carefully.
She nodded. “Trust me. You couldn’t afford me.” She made a show of looking at her watch and now Seth was a hundred percent positive that talking about archery was making her extremely uncomfortable. “Well, I’m gonna run and get ready. See you there.”
And then she was gone.
***
“You’re not leaving unless I come with you, right?” Jackson asked as he stood, arms crossed, in his front door, Seth bouncing on his heels on the porch.
Seth cocked his head to one side, observing his brother. “Just following orders.”
It was true, Raphael had called to give Seth specific orders that Jackson was not, under any circumstances, to be allowed to stay at home tonight. About six times a year, Raphael and Seth would lose their patience with their older brother’s anti-social behavior and haul him out into the world.
Jackson groaned and leaned his head against the doorjamb. Seth observed him for an unguarded moment. Jackson’s dark eyes were made even darker by the purple circles underneath them. His beard was neat, but his hair was messy, like he’d been tugging at it. He was holding-on-by-a-thread personified.
“Come, brother,” Seth said in a tone of voice that he was certain would make Jackson smile. It did. “Come out into the light.”
Jackson frowned. “Why don’t you two just come over to my house? Why do I have to go out?”
Seth rolled his eyes. “Because there’s women and pizza at Coretti’s. And beer. Every two months a man needs a woman and some pizza and some beer. And no amount of brother time is going to fix that.”
“I’m on call tonight,” Jackson said, squinting his eyes. He and the three other vets at his practice rotated nights to be called in for emergency services.
“Fine, no beer, then. Just pizza and flirting. Are you wearing that?” Seth frowned at his brother’s boring b
utton-down shirt. “No. You’re not.”
He pushed into Jackson’s house and through to his bedroom. Jackson’s house bummed Seth out. It was the polar opposite of Raphael’s space, which was messy and loud and disgustingly lived in. Jackson’s space was scrupulously perfect. And not because he was a neat freak, like Seth. No, because he barely even lived here. Jackson didn’t relax in his living room. He didn’t cook in his kitchen. He split his time between the vet’s office, their mother’s house, and his bedroom. Occasionally, if Seth and Raph were over, they’d sit on the back porch or play cards at the kitchen table.
Jackson’s house was decorated nicely. Done by a professional he’d hired. But it was sterile, magazine ready. Depressing.
“Can you not dig through my belongings, please?”
Seth ignored his brother’s irritated tone and kept opening the drawers to his dresser until he found the T-shirt drawer. It immediately warmed his heart to see how messily his brother folded his shirts. See? Jacks wasn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. But Seth brought that thought all the way around the corner and it made him sad again. These misfolded shirts were the reason his brother barely used the majority of his house. Because he knew he’d mess it up if he used it, and he desperately wanted it to seem perfect. So he steered clear of it.
God. How depressing.
Seth grabbed a dark green T-shirt and threw it at Jackson. “Here. Wear this.”
Jackson caught it and sighed, yanking off his button-down. “I don’t think I even fit in this anymore.”
“Even better. The ladies will love it.”
“This is humiliating. I can’t go out in this.” Jackson eyed himself in the mirror.
Seth didn’t know what was so humiliating about it. Except for the fact that it showed Jackson’s arm muscles a bit more than any of his other clothing.
“Jacks, it’s fine. You look good. We’re going to be late.”