by BJ Harvey
“It’s to do with the house. It looks like Barbie’s Dream House. The name kind of stuck.”
“And let me guess: you’re Ken?” Jamie says with a grin.
“And I’m GI Joe,” Bryant announces with a smirk.
I narrow my gaze at my twin. “Like hell you are.”
“Please tell me that it’s not some twisted, dirty role-play you two have got going on?” Jamie says, returning to the trim he’s sanding.
“You wish,” I retort.
“Nope. Really don’t,” he groans. “TMI, brother. There are things I really don’t need to know.”
“Well, you’ll be pleased to know it’s not some kinky cosplay we do, because we’re not sleeping together,” I say, before realizing what I’ve said and who I’ve said it to. Again, all four of them freeze and spin their heads around like I’ve just declared I’m Barney the fucking dinosaur.
“Say what now?” Bryant asks.
“Can’t deal the deal, young Jaxon?” Ez says, his lips twitching as he crosses his arms over his chest.
Co snorts and shakes his head. “How is that possible? This is Jax the closer. He’s never met a woman he wants who he can’t close the deal with.
“It’s not that we haven’t; we have. Once.”
“In my guest room,” Jamie rumbles.
I chuckle. “Okay, yes, at the engagement party.”
“Already sterilized it,” Jamie announces.
I sigh, shaking my head. “What I mean to say is that we’re taking things slow.”
“Meeting her parents isn’t taking things slow,” Jamie adds.
I look first to Bryant and then to Jamie, both of them conspicuously quiet.
Jamie studies me before a slow-growing half-grin appears. “She’s making you work for it, isn’t she?”
“She’s making him chase her,” Bryant says, finally entering the conversation.
I narrow my eyes at my twin. “So much for having my back.”
“I have your back, big brother,” he says. “Just not at the expense of everyone else being able to give you shit.”
I flip him the bird. “Thanks, Bry.”
“Any time.” His grin is fucking huge now.
“And nothing since then?” Ez presses. Usually I don’t have an issue with sharing things with the guys, but not about Ronnie. Just like how Jamie has never talked about April in that way. Maybe he’s talked about her with Ez, just like I’d consider talking about Ronnie with Bry or Cohen, one-on-one, but not like this.
“Let’s say she likes to be pursued, and it just so happens that I get off on doing the pursuing. But only because it’s her.”
“It’s not like you don’t know each other,” Co says. “Exactly how much chasing is really necessary? She’s been around us for more than a year.”
“And Jax stupidly avoided anything other than polite conversation that entire time until he had a few Jacks under his belt at Jamie and April’s engagement party and I gave him the push he needed,” Bry explains.
I sigh and shake my head, waving my arm his way. “Should I just let you tell everyone how it went down? I mean, you seem to know everything,” I say with a laugh.
He chuckles. “I’m done now. As you were.”
“What I wanna know is how will you know if you’ve won? I mean, what’s the prize gonna be?” Ez says. “Because it sounds like you already claimed her trophy.”
That makes all of us laugh again.
“And this is why you’ve got how many ex-wives now?” I muse.
Ez chucks a clean paintbrush at my head, which I thankfully duck just in time.
“Maybe I’ve just got shit taste,” he says, walking over to the cooler in the middle of the room and lifting the lid. He pulls out a beer and hands it to Jamie.
“Or good taste and bad decision-making skills,” Jamie says, nodding and taking the offered bottle from Ez’s hand.
“Or I’m just going to stay single and play the mid-life crisis angle.” He grabs another and another, until all five of us are standing in a wide circle, taking a much-needed drinks break.
“Right. Good luck with that one,” Co says. “Women are just trouble, full stop. Hard to understand. Hard to make happy. Just hard.”
That piques my attention. Cohen is the most tight-lipped one out of all of us, whereas Abi and I are the loud, outgoing ones. Bry is somewhere in the middle, and Jamie and Co are the more brooding, introspective, quietly intense ones. They do have their moments when they let the rest of us in though, and apparently, this is one of those times. I’m reminded about how Cohen grumbled about women in general at golf a few weeks ago, and I meant to talk to him about it whenever I next saw him alone. Turns out I had a bad brother moment and never followed up.
“Wanna talk about it?” I ask, turning serious for a spell.
“Nah,” he says, taking another swig of his beer. “It’s just a communication breakdown. Or more like a lack of communication.” He pauses and I think he’s done. But he’s not. “I mean, you think you’re on the same page, and then suddenly it seems you’re reading an entirely different book.”
“I didn’t even know you were seeing someone?” Jamie says.
“I’m not. Don’t worry about it. I’m just venting.”
“Well, whenever you wanna unload, you know where we are,” Bry adds, saying it for all of us.
“Right. Well, if we’re done with the brotherly bonding portion of this break, should we get back to it?” Ezra says, changing the subject.
“I do have one thing I need to ask you about. Not Ronnie-related. It’s more unwanted attention from a student.” That gets Bryant’s attention.
“And you didn’t tell me about this because?” he asks, quirking a brow.
“Because I’ve been trying to ignore it but my gut feeling about it isn’t going away.”
“Okay. So, what has she done?” he asks,
“Nothing much. Yet. She called in during my office hours on Thursday to ask questions about her grade for the last assignment. I know it comes with the job, and both you and Joey warned me about being aware of certain situations and avoiding others. It’s hard to explain. She made it clear that she really wanted to do well in the class and would love any chance to earn extra credit and improve on her performance.”
“Okay…”
I swallow hard before continuing, because this is the part that concerns me the most. “She also mentioned being willing to meet me off-campus for one-on-one help like I gave Ronnie.”
“Shit,” Cohen says, shaking his head.
“What’s her name?” Bryant asks, grabbing my attention.
“Chelsea B—”
“Ah, yep. She’s a real piece of work, and you might wanna tread carefully,” he says.
“Really? What do you know?”
“Nothing, except she was in one of my classes last year and she was rather obvious in her intentions where I was involved.”
My eyes widen. “You never said anything.”
Bry shrugs. “There wasn’t much to say. I shut it and her down straight away and let the dean know in case anything came of it. But all you can do is make sure that everything you do is beyond reproach.” He narrows his gaze. “And not to say you’re not doing it already, but that includes anything to do with Ronnie.”
“We’ve done everything right in that regard. It was probably just unfortunate that Ronnie happened to call by my office when Chelsea was leaving on Thursday.”
“And did she say anything to Ronnie?”
“No. I think the look she gave her said it all. I had to dismiss Ronnie and text her later to explain.”
“Was she okay with that?” Jamie asks.
I smile now. “Yeah. She read the situation, and even said she noticed Chelsea watching her in our class on Monday and in another class they have together.”
“Well, the semester is almost over, right?” Ez says. “So not long to go.”
“Nope. Three weeks until portfolios are handed in. Five weeks until the
end of the semester. Joey is grading Ronnie’s submission and I’ve got the rest of the class, then he’s offered to quickly go through all of them to ensure consistency. Five weeks till Vegas.”
“Good. So soon, you won’t be secretly—but legally—fraternizing with your student, and no one will be able to question anything.”
“Pretty much,” I reply, a comfortable silence stretching between us.
I lift my beer and drain the rest before walking over to the cooler and placing the empty bottle inside. The rest of the guys follow suit.
“Any other problems we need to discuss? I mean, we’ve covered Co and Ken; what about you, GI Joe? Or Ezra ‘many wives’ Baker?” Jamie asks hilariously.
“Do we need to discuss the bachelor party?” Bry asks.
“Nope. That’s all taken care of. Tickets are booked. Hotels are arranged. Entertainment is pending approval,” Ez says, quirking a brow Jamie’s way.
“April’s approval?” he says, quite wisely I feel.
“Yep. Learn from my past mistakes,” Ez says, smirking at Jamie.
I chuckle. “You mean, accidentally booking a Mexican prostitute instead of a stripper isn’t the norm?”
Co, Bry, and I all look at each other and burst out laughing. We all remember our shocked expressions when the woman’s pimp turned up and demanded more money for the apparent orgy. It took Jamie and a lot of pesos to calm the guy down and get both him and the working girl to leave, services unrendered.
“I’m never gonna live that one down, am I?” Ez says, his lips twitching.
“Nope. And for the record, no strippers,” Jamie says, pointing his finger at each one of us.
“Aye, aye, captain,” us brothers say in unison. Ez is conspicuously quiet.
Jamie spears him with a don’t-fuck-with-me look. “I mean it, Ez.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he relents. “If I hadn’t known you almost my entire life, I’d swear you were no fun.”
Jamie throws his head back and barks out a laugh. “I’ll be a hell of lot more fun with my balls still attached to my body.”
That gets us all laughing, and as we get back to what we were working on before our break, I’m thankful for having these four guys at my back.
One thing I am sure of is Ronnie and I being on the same page, and with the semester’s finish line in sight, we’ll both be home and free with our academic reputations intact.
And that’s definitely something I’m looking forward to.
16
Ronnie
Five dresses in, and I decide this is the perfect time to tease my favorite professor.
April disappeared with the bridal shop owner thirty minutes ago with her own clothing rack’s worth of wedding gown options. That just left Abi and me with the task of choosing a dress that suits our style and body type, so long as it fits within her color scheme. Abi’s dress has to be pregnancy-friendly. Mine can be whatever tickles my fancy.
Having stayed at my place last night, I dropped Jax off at the house earlier so the guys can all start the mammoth job of tiling and painting, so I’m not expecting to hear back from him until later.
The first photo I send him is an artful angular pic of my bare shoulder which I took while getting undressed right at the start. When there’s no reply for five minutes, I send the next one. This time, it’s a slightly more risqué shot of a bright fuchsia dress with a very high split on one leg, and my strategically placed hand.
Then I decide to really make his head explode, and naked as the day I was born, phone camera pointing over one shoulder, I take a full-length body shot from the back.
That does the trick and gets me a phone call.
“Are you trying to kill me?”
“Hello to you, too,” I say with a smile.
“I was trying to paint primer and I heard a text notification. I made the mistake of opening the first message in view of Bry, who then tried to grab the phone from me. Thankfully, I abandoned the painting and I’m now sitting outside on the back steps because someone succeeded in thoroughly distracting me.”
“Should I stop?”
“Fuck no,” he says.
“Good, because I thought I’d put my extensive contortionist training to good use for the next one.”
“Jesus,” he rasps. “Wait… you trained as a contortionist?”
“No, but I always wanted to try some of those cool silk tricks in the air.”
“Naked? Because that could definitely be interesting.”
That makes me giggle. “So apart from expressing your gratitude for the photos, for what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”
“I wanted to check whether we had plans tonight?”
“We could have dinner and watch movies. I figure we deserve a night of mindless relaxation.”
“I would’ve said yes before you sent the first pic. The last photo is now my new screensaver.”
“You’re joking,” I hiss.
“Yeah. But only because I don’t want anyone else to experience the absolute fucking perfection that is your naked ass.”
“Why, thank you. You say the sweetest things,” I say in a fake Southern drawl.
“I aim to please, Ms. Nelson.”
“You always do, Professor Cook.” I smile to myself in the mirror at his answering groan.
“Takeout and movies at your place it is. I’ll pick up the food on my way over.”
“How about I grab some groceries on the way home and I can make you dinner. You’ve been working on the house all day, you deserve a little pampering, Ronnie style. I’ll even let you sleep over,” I say.
“Beautiful, I’m not gonna turn down a home cooked meal, especially from you,” he says, his voice so soft and warm I want to wrap myself up in it. “And since we just moved out the last of the furniture from the house, I’d say us sleeping here isn’t really an option for a few weeks.”
“You can stay here if you want.”
“We’re a bit too new to move in together, beautiful.”
“I meant temporarily.”
“I know you did and I love that you offered, but how about we stick to occasional sleepovers like we’ve been doing and move towards that? We’ve gotta learn to walk before we can run, right?”
“Or chase before you jump me?”
“Barbie…” he growls.
“So dinner, are you on the menu?” His voice is low and smooth.
My lips twitch. “You’re the one who took me off it.”
“And you’ll be back on it soon enough. Once I’ve earned the right to eat it.”
Damn. Is it getting hot in here? “Is that a threat or a promise?”
“That’s all promise, beautiful. So much damn promise.” And I don’t miss the certainty in his voice. Confidence in a man is so damn sexy, it’s a wonder I haven’t tried to use my feminine wiles to break this enforced abstinence of ours. . .again. I appreciate why he put the no-sex rule in play, but it doesn’t help the frustration I’m feeling or the number of batteries I’m going through on a weekly basis. Weekly.
“What are your plans for tomorrow?” I ask, staring at myself in the mirror. This is definitely the dress I’m going to choose. I’m currently wearing a classic, V-neck, satin, A-line gown. I snap a photo of the front then turn around and take a photo of the strappy crisscross back detailing leading down to the figure-hugging bodice.
“Actually, both of my ideas depend on your plans…” he says, suggestively.
The gown is simple but fitting, showcasing all my favorite body parts. It’s the perfect dress to wear while I stand by and witness my best friend marrying the love of her life.
“The only thing I was going to do was work on my portfolio. Maybe take some more shots.”
“Hmm… I can definitely help with that.”
“Oh yeah?” I finger the edge of the fabric framing my bust. “I’m not sure my professor would approve of a collection of nudes.”
His deep, husky laugh fills my ear. “He’d absolutely
approve of that. Especially if you were the subject. Joey might not appreciate having to grade it though, considering I’d have to beat him up for seeing you naked.”
I giggle. “Probably not a good idea then.”
“But there are creative ways to portray the human form.” My interest is definitely piqued now, my mind contemplating the multitude of possibilities.
“Ronnie?” Abi calls out from outside the changing room.
“I have to go. I need to show everyone this dress.”
“I wish I could see you in—and out—of that dress.”
“I can’t wait until I get to see you in—and out—of your suit.”
“I’m already imagining how good it’s going to be when you pop my maid-of-honor cherry too.” His raspy voice almost distracts me from what he just said. Almost.
I gasp in surprise. “You mean to say you, a man who’s probably shot a few weddings where you would’ve been the object of attention for many a bridesmaid, has never ticked that achievement off his bucket list?”
“I said maid of honor…”
I giggle. “Very sneaky, professor. Five weeks and you can pop whatever cherry you want.” His answering groan in my ear is worth the sexual frustration I’m feeling. “Besides, you seem to be a fan of delayed gratification lately.”
“Mmm hmm. Anticipation can be the best foreplay.”
“So can a blow job,” I deadpan. He bursts out laughing. My smile in the mirror is huge as I enjoy the sound.
“I’ll let you go then, beautiful. Send me a text when you’re finished up and we’ll finalize our plans then.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“I just look forward to you,” he says, softly. God, this man!
“Bye, Jax,” I say with a smile, ending the call just as Abi calls my name again. “Coming.”
I step out of the changing room and walk down the short hallway to the big fitting room where Marcy, Betty, and Abi are already waiting. Abi’s standing in the middle of the room wearing a gorgeous dress in the same luminescent navy blue as mine, but in a different, more baby-bump-accommodating style from the bust down. She’s nearly six months and is more than showing, and since the wedding isn’t for another six weeks, April said to the bridal boutique owner that they needed to have pregnant-friendly dresses available. Looking at Abi, the woman more than delivered.