Enemies With Benefits: Loveless Brothers, Book 1

by Noir, Roxie

  He stops and looks at me, alarmed.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “You’re not wearing socks,” I whisper, horrified.

  He looks down at his toes. His naked toes. They’re touching the floor without a barrier. They were just inside bowling shoes, also without a barrier.

  My stomach recoils. I’m not really germophobic — I don’t even own hand sanitizer and firmly believe that that’s how bacterial superbugs are created — but I cannot handle bare feet in bowling shoes.

  “Uh…” he says, glancing from his feet to my face and back.

  “You can’t do that,” I tell him as he wiggles his toes against the gray-blue industrial carpet. “That’s horrible. Kevin.”

  He gives me a look so clueless, so deer-in-the-headlights, that it could only come from a nineteen year old guy.

  “You need socks,” I tell him. Suddenly I feel like his mother.

  “I don’t have socks with me,” he says, like he’s still trying to figure out what the big deal is.

  “You can’t put those on without socks,” I say. I grab my purse and start rummaging through it. After a moment I find what I’m looking for and hand the small bundle to Kevin.

  He takes it and holds it in the palm of his hand for a long moment.

  “Are those pugs saying ‘I love you’?” he finally asks.

  I take a closer look at the socks I just handed him.

  “Yes,” I confirm.

  “And you just had these in your purse,” he goes on, still not putting the socks on his feet.

  I bend down and tie the laces on my own bowling shoes. They pinch, but I’ve decided it’s the right amount. Mostly because I don’t feel like trying on another pair only to inevitably switch back to these.

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” I say.

  I wore heels to work today, and I knew I’d need socks for the bowling outing after work, so when I grabbed myself a pair of socks, I also grabbed an extra just in case someone else forgot socks.

  Obviously it came in handy, because I saved Kevin from needing his feet amputated.

  “They use that disinfectant stuff,” he says, sounding a touch defensive, unfolding the socks from each other.

  I just shake my head, tying my other shoe. Kevin slides the socks over his feet, then looked down, wiggling his toes again.

  Then he shrugs.

  “Thanks,” he says.

  Across the lobby from us, Eli walks by. He’s already got bowling shoes on, along with jeans and a green t-shirt that says Don Antonio’s in faded script across the front.

  I’m still tying my bowling shoes and through my hair, I watch him walk past the lanes while pretending that I’m not watching him. His sleeves are tight across his arms, the shoulders of his shirt slightly snug. I stop tying my shoes and just watch him as he approaches the rack of bowling balls, glancing along it before picking one up.

  He tests it, facing away from us. He lifts it a few times, turns it back and forth, puts it back down. Even from thirty feet away I can see the muscles in his forearm flex as he locks his fingers into the holes, testing a few different ones.

  It feels deeply, deeply unfair that he looks hot while trying out bowling balls and wearing bowling shoes. That just shouldn’t be a thing.

  Finally, he picks one and turns away from the rack of bowling balls, glancing and Kevin and I, seated on the bench. Eli nods hello.

  I realize that neither Kevin nor I have moved since Eli started lifting bowling balls. We’ve just been sitting here, Kevin with his shoes in his hand, me bent over, not even tying my shoes.

  Very cool of us.

  I nod back quickly and sit upright, trying to hide the slight blush creeping up my cheeks. Eli heads into the lane with Lydia. Kevin still hasn’t moved.

  “He’s straight,” I say.

  That shakes him out of his reverie, and he snorts.

  “I know,” he says.

  “You do?”

  For a flash, I think yet again about Eli in the elevator. The maid of honor. His arm around her, her head against his chest. The glowering, smoldering, victorious look he gave me as the elevator doors closed.

  Something I can’t name stretched and tightened in my chest, a nervous, strained tension.

  Did Kevin see them in the elevator? Did he see something else?

  How many people has Eli slept with at work in his first week?!

  “Of course I know,” Kevin says, standing. “Trust me, the first thing a gay kid learns is how to tell who’s straight and who’s not. I’ve got it down to an art. I could tell you everyone here who’s ever thought about putting a dick in his mouth.”

  He stops short, looking suddenly alarmed.

  “…Ma’am,” he says, like he just remembered that he’s talking to his boss.

  “Right,” I say. “Sorry.”

  He shrugs, then walks to the shoe counter in sock feet.

  * * *

  “Come on,” I mutter, still standing at the very end of the lane. “Come on, come on.”

  My ball creeps toward the gutter.

  “Don’t do that,” I coax. “Be a curveball.”

  The ball wobbles at the lip of the gutter. I cross my fingers on both hands.

  It falls in with a definitive whump.

  Dammit.

  Sighing, I head back to the seats at the end of the lane, glancing at the scoreboard.

  I’ve got sixty points. Eli’s still ahead of me, with sixty-six points. Lydia’s got fifty-five, and Naomi’s at forty-two.

  Kevin, who is wearing borrowed socks with pugs on them because he thought it was okay to wear bowling shoes with no socks, has almost a hundred and fifty points. It turns out that he was on his high school bowling team. I didn’t know high schools had bowling teams.

  I’m not annoyed that my summer intern has nearly triple my score.

  But I’m really annoyed that Eli’s beating me by six points.

  “We could ask for bumpers,” Eli says, sitting in the plastic seat behind the scorekeeping computer, his ankle crossed over his knee.

  “Would that help you?” I say, grabbing my beer and taking a long swallow.

  “Bumpers don’t help if you’re not throwing gutter balls,” he says.

  Lydia stands and grabs a bowling ball, frowning at the lane in front of her.

  “Follow the arrows on the lane with your fingers,” Kevin coaches, both of them ignoring us. “And make sure you follow through.”

  “You’re six points ahead, Loveless,” I say, sitting down on another plastic seat, facing him. “Don’t get cocky.”

  “Cocky? That was an offer made from the goodness and generosity of my heart, Tulane,” he says. “I’m not even winning. Kevin’s kicking all our asses. I just hate to see you upset like this.”

  He leans back on the plastic seat, hooking an elbow over it. He’s got that half-smile on his face, the one that reaches his eyes more than his lips. The one that makes them sparkle from within.

  They sparkle with the joy of being the most difficult man this side of the Mississippi, but they do sparkle.

  “Bless your heart, you sweet thing,” I say, taking another sip of my beer. “Always thinking of others.”

  Eli knows exactly what I mean by bless your heart. His smile widens to a grin.

  “All we’ve got to do is ask,” he says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m sure they can set ‘em up in no time flat.”

  “I’m starting to think you want them,” I say, mimicking his position, one elbow over the chair next to me. “What is it, Loveless? You think you can work the angles or something? Bounce balls off the sides better than you can throw straight?”

  I drink some more beer, trying to stay cool and cover the tangle of weird emotions crawling around inside me. That results in an empty beer cup, and I spin it between my fingers, still keyed up and nervy.

  “I just want to even the playing field a little,” Eli says. “Obviously it won’t help Kevin, but
it might make things a little better for you.”

  I get up and walk to the pitcher of beer on the table behind us.

  “As if you’re not six points ahead of me,” I call back, refilling my flimsy plastic cup. “As if my next turn couldn’t completely wipe that smile right off your face.”

  “Not unless we get bumpers,” he says, twisting around in his chair, one eyebrow raised. “Then, maybe —"

  “They only give bumpers to kids,” Kevin says, walking back from the lane as the machinery clears the pins. Lydia follows him, pointing at Eli.

  “You,” she says.

  He gets out of the chair, and I sit down in it, watching him as he selects a bright orange bowling ball from the return mechanism.

  He strides forward. I drink some more beer, acting casual. He winds up, crouches, and releases the ball down the lane.

  I watch his butt and keep drinking so I can pretend like I’m not watching his butt.

  When his turn is over, he’s gotten another seven pins. Now he’s thirteen points ahead of he, but if my bowling math is right, if I get a strike or a spare for the next two rounds in a row, I could catch up by the end of the game.

  He comes back and pretends not to notice that I took his chair. He’s perfectly casual, sitting in the row of plastic chairs, watching me with a smirk on his face because he’s throwing a ball at the floor a tiny bit better than me.

  His eyes don’t leave my face. I pretend like I don’t notice, but I feel like there are heat rays on my skin. I’m practically melting under the intensity of his gaze, and I don’t even know if it’s bad melting, like action figures under a magnifying glass in the sun or good melting, like chocolate in your mouth.

  “What?” I finally ask.

  “Want to make it interesting?”

  Isn’t it already?

  “How?”

  “Ten bucks to the winner,” he says, lifting his eyebrows ever so slightly.

  Naomi walks between us toward the bowling lane.

  “Boring,” I say. I take another sip, trying to drown this mix of nervousness and anticipation and competitiveness and meltiness in beer.

  “Twenty?”

  I roll my eyes. I’m starting to feel the beer, but it’s in my hand, and drinking it is a nervous tic I can’t stop.

  “Let’s hear your idea, then,” he says.

  I turn my legs toward him, leaning sideways against the back of the chair. Lydia and Kevin are chatting about something while Naomi bowls, studiously ignoring us. It’s probably for the best.

  I think about it. Money is fine, but if this is going to be interesting, it needs to be something else. I take a few more sips of beer and ponder.

  “Coffee,” I finally say.

  “How is that different from money?”

  “Because the loser brings the winner coffee every morning for a month,” I say.

  I like the thought of having a coffee manservant. Even though I’m not particularly bad at mornings, making coffee always feels a little bit too hard if you haven’t already had coffee first. It’s a caffeine catch-22.

  “Every morning, or every work day morning?” he asks, considering.

  With horror, I imagine opening the front door to my trailer in my pajamas and finding Eli standing on my tiny front porch, coffee in hand, at seven on a Sunday morning.

  Or, knowing Eli, he’d purposefully come even earlier. He’d probably bring me coffee at five a.m. on my days off, just to annoy me.

  And Eli — a man who looks hot while testing out bowling balls — absolutely does not need to see me in my pajamas at five in the morning.

  “Just work days,” I say. “I’m a benevolent bowling dictator.”

  “All right, Tulane,” he says, leaning forward, holding out his hand. “You got yourself a deal. Daily coffee. One month.”

  I reach out and take his hand: warm, dry, strong. I squeeze a little too hard and he squeezes right back, just like the last time we shook hands.

  “Cream, no sugar,” I say.

  That sparkle lights up his eyes again, my hand still in his, and it sends a quick rush of I-don’t-know-what through me.

  “I’ll take mine black,” he says, the hint of a smile flashing in his eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eli

  If I didn’t know Violet, I’d think she’s hustling me.

  The turn after our agreement, she gets a strike, then a spare. I still win by five points, but it’s closer than I thought it would be.

  After that, she offers double or nothing. Two months of coffee to the winner, from the loser.

  I accept, exactly like she knows I will.

  She wins the next round. By seven points. Somehow, the promise of having something to win makes her twice as good at bowling as she was before.

  That’s when Kevin, Lydia, and Naomi leave, but Violet and I barely notice, being way too involved in our bowling bet.

  I offer Violet triple or nothing.

  Free coffee all summer long for the winner. Hand-delivered fresh every morning, three months of coffee servitude dependent on the outcome of this final bowling match.

  She accepts.

  I’ve never bowled harder. I’ve never bowled with particular intensity before, to be honest — I like winning, but the last time I was here was years ago with my brothers Seth and Caleb. I don’t even remember who won.

  But now, bowling against Violet, I’m out for blood. Every pin she knocks down stings. Every one of her gutter balls is a victory.

  Whenever I get a strike I howl with glee and pump both fists in the air, like I’ve just won the Olympics.

  We’re starting to get weird looks from the other lanes.

  I don’t even let myself get distracted by watching her ass as she bowls, even though it’s right there. Even though I have nothing else to do on her turns, I make myself focus somewhere else.

  No distractions.

  No surprises.

  Just victory.

  Well, mostly no distractions. I do look a few times, because Violet’s ass is unfairly spectacular, even when bowling, and especially in jeans.

  When we get to the final round of the game, Ken’s Bowl-o-rama is closing. The lights are already off over the other lanes, they’re vacuuming the lobby, and the guy behind the concession stand is scraping gunk out of the popcorn machine.

  We’re tied.

  It might be the highest-stakes, most stressful moment of my life.

  By this point in the game, we’re barely talking, only competing. I’m completely focused on the matter at hand, and Violet is as well, only moving to occasionally sip from her plastic cup of beer.

  I declined to drink anything. I don’t need alcohol stealing this victory from me.

  It’s my turn, the last frame of the game. I stand from the uncomfortable plastic seat. I grab the bright orange bowling ball I’ve declared lucky.

  I linger at the mouth of the lane, collecting every ounce of bowling savvy I’ve got.

  Fly straight. Fly true.

  I bring the ball up in front of myself.

  Bring it home, lucky ball.

  I rear back, crouch, and unleash it.

  Eight pins fall. There’s a pin still standing on either side of the lane. Laughing at me. Mocking me. I take a deep breath, shake out my hands, and ignore Violet’s gaze that feels like needles pressing into my skin.

  My ball comes back. I take it back, ready myself, and bowl again.

  It sails straight down the center of the lane, a perfect strike ball if only the pins had cooperated.

  I glare at them as the apparatus comes down, knocking them into the gaping mouth at the end of the lane.

  Eight. As long as Violet scores less than eight, I’m golden.

  I turn. I lock eyes with Violet. Her beer cup is empty, and she nods once, rising.

  We say nothing. I sit where she was sitting, her warmth still in the plastic. Another light flicks off in the alley, but neither of us turn our heads.

  She gra
bs the ball, steps forward. The vacuum stops. The scraping in the popcorn machine continues.

  Seven pins. Two on one side of the lane, one on the other.

  My heart clenches. I hold my breath. She doesn’t look back at me as she waits for her ball to return, and I wonder what happens if we tie this game.

  Her ball comes out of the return. She grabs it, hefts it carefully, goes back to the lane, all without casting so much as a glance in my direction.

  I’m literally on the edge of this seat as she crouches, swings her arm back, and releases the ball. It veers sideways, closer and closer to the gutter. Neither of us is breathing. I’m on my feet now, staring at the ball like I can will it into the gutter.

  Halfway down, it veers back. My heart sinks. In front of me, Violet is clutching her hair with both hands, standing on tiptoes as the bowling ball traverses the lanes, cutting clear across the wood.

  It hits the two pins on the right perfectly, knocking them both down with a hollow smack.

  Violet screams.

  “YES!” she shouts, pumping both fists into the air. “YES! YES!”

  I slide back into the plastic seat, my defeat settling over me like a heavy blanket. One pin. One stupid bowling pin.

  It’s not even about the coffee. Coffee itself isn’t such a huge deal. It’s the fact that I have to deliver it every morning, like I’m her personal butler or something. It’s the fact that every single morning for the entire summer, I have to give her coffee and see her I’m better at bowling than you face.

  It’ll be absolutely, completely, one hundred percent terrible to see her every morning. I’m not secretly looking forward to it even the slightest amount.

  I wish I could go back in time and smack myself before I offered to make it interesting.

  She walks back, grinning. Her face is pink with glee, her hair a little wild, and she’s laughing. Still cursing myself, I hold out one hand, and she shakes it.

  “Good game,” I say, trying to mean it.

  “Cream, no sugar,” she says, looking me right in the eye.

  “You already said.”

  “Just making sure you know,” she says, a glint in her eye. “And I like it hot.”

  “How hot?”