Ivy answers. "We went to dinner, then had a drink and went—" She stops and I follow her gaze to the hallway. Austin's standing there, his hair a mess, wearing workout shorts and nothing else. Fuck. Does he really need to parade around the house half naked? Like I really need my girlfriend checking him out. The guy works out constantly so his body is more toned than mine or Bryce's or Nash's. We get a workout just doing construction so we're in damn good shape, and I make it to the gym now and then, but not like Austin. He's a fitness fanatic.
Jen and Callie are also staring at Austin and I see the annoyance on Nash's face. I catch his eye and shake my head. He rolls his eyes.
Austin stumbles into the living room, rubbing his face. "Anyone seen my keys?"
"On the counter," Nash says. "You been sleeping?"
"Yeah. I was wiped out from last night. We didn't get out of there until after three."
"You guys sounded really good," Callie says to him.
"Thanks. We've been practicing a lot." He yawns and stretches his arms up over his head, causing his shorts to drop even lower.
I look over and see Ivy staring at him. What the hell? She can't look at my brother that way!
"Austin," I bark at him.
"What?" he yawns again.
"Put some damn clothes on. We got company."
I hear Jen and Callie snickering. They think this is hilarious. Me being jealous of my brother. But I'm not jealous of him. I just don't want Ivy looking at him like that.
Austin finally notices Ivy. "Oh. Hi." He smiles and comes over to her. "I think we've met before. At the opening for the Victorian. I'm Austin." He extends his hand and they shake before I can stop them. I didn't want Ivy shaking his hand. I know what my little shit brother does with that hand, and I know he does it almost every time he wakes up. The walls in this house are way too thin.
I take Ivy's hand and hold it in mine so she doesn't touch him again.
"I'm Ivy," she says. "I work for Nash at the library."
Austin smiles. "Yeah. I know. That's why Jake always goes there for lunch."
"Shut up," I tell him. "And pull up your damn shorts."
He yanks them up and says to Ivy, "Sorry. I don't usually wear much to bed."
He glances at me and I almost punch him. The little shithead. He'd never try to take my girl, but he loves getting under my skin.
"It's okay," Ivy says, trying not to look at his eight-pack abs. "I don't mind."
Callie and Jen are snickering again, then Callie says, "I have to get back to the kitchen." She stands up. "Dinner should be ready in a half hour."
She leaves and Nash follows, but stops next to Austin and says, "Go clean up. You're not showing up to dinner like that."
"Yeah, I'm going." He makes his way back down the hall.
"I'll go see if Callie needs help with dinner," Jen says, getting up and leaving Ivy and me alone in the living room.
"So that's my family," I say, putting my arm up behind her on the back of the couch. "But I guess you've already met them before. I don't know where Bryce is. Probably out in the garage. He's fixing up a car."
"Does he live here?"
"No. He has an apartment, but he uses the garage to work on his car. It's a junk car that he's trying to fix up so he can sell it. If he makes enough, he might try to fix up another one."
"I didn't know he could fix cars. Why didn't he fix Jen's? She said she took it in for repairs last week."
"She wouldn't let him do it. She likes to be independent and take care of stuff herself. It drives Bryce crazy. The guy would do anything for her, except date her. If he'd date her, maybe she'd let him fix her car." I shake my head. "Those two are such a mess."
"So Austin still lives at home?"
"Yeah, but he's hardly ever here. He's either at work or with his band. I'm guessing he'll move out in a year or two, especially if he gets a girlfriend. He won't want to hang out here with his girlfriend. He needs his own place."
"He must work out a lot." She smiles a little.
I turn to her. "Yeah, about that. What the hell were you doing checking out my brother?"
"I wasn't checking him out," she insists.
"Oh, please, you couldn't stop staring at him. It's like you forgot I was in the room."
She rubs her hand over my chest, still smiling. "Are you jealous?"
"I'm not jealous of that little shit. I have better things to do with my time than spend hours at the gym. And it's not like I don't go to the gym. I just don't go every day."
She laughs. "You're totally jealous. But just so you know, I like your body." She reaches up and kisses me.
"Oh, yeah?" I kiss her back.
"I love it." She whispers in my ear. "It totally turns me on."
I'm instantly hard from her words and the feel of her breath in my ear. "Shit, don't do that here. Wait until we get home."
Home. I said it as though we have a home. Together. That's not what I meant.
"To my apartment," I say, correcting myself.
"I thought you were taking me back to my place after this." She kisses my cheek, bringing things back to a more innocent level of flirting.
"Do you need to go back there? Because I was thinking you could stay with me again."
I just asked her to spend the night, making it two nights in a row she'd be at my place. What am I doing? I don't invite girls to spend the night, especially girls I'm not sleeping with. It's too intimate. Like last night. Having Ivy wrapped in my arms all night was causing all kinds of feelings to emerge. Feelings I'm not supposed to be having for her. I'm supposed to like her and that's it. I can't let myself get anywhere near that other L word.
"Um, I don't know," she says. "I think I should just stay at my place tonight."
So she doesn't want this getting too serious either. She always says her priority right now is her career, which means she's not interested in getting serious with a guy. She just wants someone to date, which works out well because that's all I'm looking for too. And yet, I feel a twinge of disappointment that she won't be with me tonight.
A half hour later, we're having dinner around the dining room table that has two leaves in it in order to fit us all. The food is amazing as always. Nash is right. Callie should open a restaurant. But instead she's going to college, studying math. She wants to be a high school math teacher.
As we're having dessert, Ivy jumps in her seat and grabs my arm.
"What's wrong?" I ask her.
"Something furry just touched my leg under the table," she whispers, but everyone heard.
"It's Cat," I tell her.
"Sorry about that," Callie says. "He likes to come over and say hi to new people. You aren't allergic are you?"
"No." She peeks under the table at the black cat. "I didn't know you had a cat. What's his name?"
"Cat."
We all try to keep a straight face because it's funny when people first hear his name. We can see Ivy's confused. We all were too when we found out his name. Now we think nothing of it, until someone new comes along.
"So um...what's his name?" Ivy asks.
"Cat," we all say at once, except for Dad. He's just shaking his head at us, not approving of us teasing Ivy.
Austin bursts out laughing. Then the rest of us do.
Ivy's looking more confused than ever. My dad explains, "The cat's name is Cat. He lives with Nash and Callie, but he's part of the family so he always comes to family dinner. And as Callie said, he likes to say hello to new people. Sorry if he scared you."
"He didn't scare me. I was just surprised. I love cats. I had one when I was little, but his name was Buttons because he had spots down his chest that looked like buttons." She smiles at Callie. "So why'd you name him Cat?"
"My little brother named him. He was just a toddler at the time so he didn't know many words." Callie looks down at the table and Nash puts his arm around her. Callie still gets really sad when she talks about her little brother. He was only five when he died.
Ivy looks devastated for bringing it up, but it's not her fault. She didn't know. I hold her hand under the table and whisper in her ear, "It's okay. She'll be fine."
"Awesome cheesecake, Callie," Austin says, breaking the awkward silence. We can always count on Austin to get the conversation going again.
"Thanks." Callie perks up, smiling again. "The recipe's from a local chef. I found it on her website. She does cooking segments for one of the morning news programs. I can't remember her name."
"It's really good," I tell her. "Thanks for making it, and for making dinner."
"You're welcome."
I thank her every time she does this for us. I know she likes cooking, but still, it's a lot of work and I don't want her ever thinking we take it for granted.
Nash kisses her cheek, his arm still around her. "He's right. It's a great meal, as always."
"Speaking of the news," Austin says, looking at me. "I got a text from one of my friends saying you were in today's paper. Something about a contest? What's that about?"
Shit. I was hoping this wouldn't come up. I had no idea there even was a contest, and I sure as hell didn't know I'd won it until my phone started blowing up this morning with texts and calls from the women I've been with, and some that I don't even know. I wanted to tell Ivy about this later, when we were alone, but I guess that's not going to happen.
Ivy lets go of my hand and forces out a smile. "Apparently the women of Chicago have voted Jake to be Chicago's most eligible bachelor."
So she already knows, and from her tone and that fake smile, she's not happy about it.
"I just found out about it," I say. "I had nothing to do with it."
"Most eligible bachelor?" Austin laughs. "Why you? What about me? I'm the single one here. You have Ivy. Nash has Callie. Bryce has Je—" He stops before saying her name.
Bryce is glaring at him and Jen is fidgeting with her napkin.
"I mean, Bryce has limited appeal with all that ink," Austin says, trying to fix his mistake. "I have broader appeal. Muscles. No tats. And I play in a band."
"Can we not talk about this?" I say. "It was just a stupid contest. They shouldn't have done it, especially without letting me know."
Ivy seems less tense now that she knows I had no part in this. At least she believed me. I know she's still hesitant to trust me, but I'm not lying. I really had no clue this was going on.
Jen scoots her chair back and stands up. "I hate to go, but I have to meet with my group in a half hour and they get really annoyed when I'm late."
"Is this for statistics?" Callie asks.
"Yeah, I hate that class. Can't wait until it's over." She gets up, setting her napkin on the table.
"Be careful driving out there," my dad says. "That rain we had earlier could've frozen up by now."
"I know. I'll be careful." She goes around the table, giving a quick wave to Ivy. "Bye, Ivy. Good seeing you again. Callie, I'll call you later." She walks off.
"What about your brothers?" Austin yells. "We don't get a goodbye?"
She laughs and calls back, "Bye, guys. Love you."
"Love you too," we yell back, except for Bryce. He loves her differently than the rest of us, so he won't say it.
"I'll be back later," I say to Ivy. "Gotta help clean up."
"I can help." She scoots her chair back.
"Only the guys clean up," I tell her.
"It's a rule," Nash adds as he gathers up the plates.
"Come on," Callie says, motioning Ivy to get up. "Let's go in the living room and watch really bad reality TV. I love those shows."
The two of them take off, and Nash, Bryce, Austin, and I begin our clean-up work. Dad doesn't have to help because he helped make dinner, so he goes outside to take a smoke. I wish he didn't smoke. I keep trying to get him to quit, and he's cut back to just a few cigarettes a day, but still. He needs to quit completely. I already lost one parent. I'm not losing him too, because of some damn cigarettes. My mom smoked when she was younger, but quit when she got engaged to my dad and started taking care of Nash, who was just an infant at the time. Even though he wasn't hers, she raised him like he was, and she didn't want him around all that smoke. She wouldn't let my dad smoke in the house, and now, he still goes outside to smoke, as if he thinks she's watching.
"So you brought Ivy to family dinner," Austin says, smiling at me. "You finally settling down?"
"It doesn't mean anything." I open the dishwasher. "It's just dinner, so shut the hell up."
He shrugs. "I'm just saying. You got that same look Nash had when we went down to his house last summer."
Nash had only known Callie a few weeks back then, but we all knew he'd fallen hard for her.
"He's right," Bryce says. "You do have that same look."
"What look are we talking about here?" Nash asks as he rinses the plates in the sink. "I didn't have a look."
"Are you kidding?" Austin says. "You couldn't take your eyes off her. You practically had hearts floating around your head."
I laugh, imagining that. "So fucking true. You barely knew Callie and you were already in love with her. Must've been love at first sight."
"Probably was. I just didn't realize it at the time." He tosses a dish towel at me. "Just like you, dumbass. You got hearts floating around your head for Ivy and you don't even know it."
"You're fucking nuts." I toss the towel back at him. "I've been going out with her for a week."
"Yeah, but you've wanted her for months," Austin says. "And if she'd agreed to go out with you back then, she'd probably have a ring on her finger by now."
Bryce chuckles. "Yeah, that'll be the day. When hell freezes over."
"You're one to talk," I say. "You'll never commit to anyone, unless you ever get off your ass and finally tell Jen how you feel. But instead you let her date other guys."
He gets in my face. "Shut the fuck up. Like I need a damn reminder that she's dating that asshole?"
"What do you expect her to do?" Nash asks. "She's not going to wait around forever."
"Especially when you're dating other girls," I say to him. "I hear you had a date last night."
Bryce backs away from me. "It was nothing. Just some girl I met at a bar."
He's starting to remind me of myself, dating random girls who mean nothing to him. I don't want him to be like that. It was fine for me, but not for him, which sounds odd, but I didn't have any other options. Before Ivy came along, I didn't feel a connection with any of the girls I was with, and I wasn't looking for one. But Bryce has a girl, who I know he loves, so to see him wasting his time with girls he has no interest in, both annoys and frustrates me. But talking to him about it is like talking to a brick wall.
"You guys want to go out back and play some ball when we're done with this?" Nash asks, loading the dinner plates in the dishwasher.
"I'm up for that," I say, handing him the dessert plates. "I'm sure your girlfriend's talking Ivy's ear off. It'll be a while before we can break those two apart."
"Yeah, they really hit it off." He points at me. "You screw this up, Callie's going to kill you."
"Yeah, I already figured that out."
Nash adds the dessert plates to the dishwasher. "Let's hurry and finish this shit up so we can get outside. Austin, wipe the counters." He tosses a sponge at him, then one at Bryce. "Bryce, you get the stove." He shoves a dish towel at me. "And you dry the pans and the platters."
"He's like a damn drill sergeant," Austin says as he wipes down the counter.
"Do you want to play football or do this all night?" Nash asks.
"The stove's already clean," Bryce says. "I think Callie already cleaned it."
Nash shakes his head. "She always does that. I tell her not to, but she always cleans half the kitchen so we have less work to do. She does it at home too, even though I'm in charge of cleaning up."
I dry the last pan and hand them all to Bryce. "Here. Put these away and I'll do the platters."
Nash
closes the dishwasher. "Dishes are done."
"Counters too," Austin says.
Nash smiles. "Time for some Wheeler football. Get ready to get your asses kicked, boys."
Dad walks in from his smoke. "Done already?"
"Yeah, we're going out to play some ball," Nash says. "Want to join us?"
He laughs. "No. It's cold out there and you boys are too rough for me. I'm afraid you'd knock me unconscious."
"We'd go easy on you, Dad," I say, patting his shoulder on my way outside. "Tell Ivy I'm out back."
"Will do," he says.
We play for an hour in the crisp, late winter air. I love playing ball with my brothers. They get on my nerves and sometimes we fight, but I still love hanging out with them.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ivy
"Sorry we took so long," Jake says as we're driving to my apartment. "You should've come out and got me."
"I wasn't ready to leave. Callie and I were watching TV and talking and I didn't even realize what time it was."
"Sounds like you and Callie are becoming good friends."
"Yeah, we made plans to go out next week. We're going to dinner on Wednesday." I pause. "I felt so bad when I asked Callie about Cat's name. She looked like she was about to cry."
Jake squeezes my hand, which he's been holding since we got in the car. "You just asked a question. You didn't do anything wrong."
"I know. I just felt really bad. I didn't want her thinking about her brother's death."
"She'll always think about it. He was a huge part of her life and most anything can trigger a memory of him. We both know what that's like, having lost our moms. Like tonight for some reason, watching my dad go take a smoke reminded me of my mom. She always made him go outside so us kids wouldn't have to be around the smoke. One time, when it was really freaking cold out, he tried to sneak a smoke in the house, and instead of yelling at him, my mom made him take all us boys to the arcade as punishment." He laughs. "And believe me, that was a punishment. Trying to keep track of the four of us by himself? Austin was only three. He threw a tantrum and Bryce broke one of the pinball machines. My dad thought the place was going to kick us out."
Give Us a Chance (Wheeler Brothers #2) Page 19