He jogged up the porch steps, leaving me grumbling and half-hard in my jeans. I returned to work, where I was wrestling with some spreadsheets that refused to come out in our favor, which deflated my dick in quick order.
By the time I double-checked the math, called one of our parts suppliers to yell about—er,negotiate—rising costs, and watched reels of pandas evading their zookeepers and tipping over baskets to decompress, it was time to clock out. My mood, miraculously, wasn’t shit.
I credited that to the pandas—and to the fact I’d be eating popcorn and candy for dinner.
I met the guys over at the house. We all cleaned up, pulled out the snacks we were contributing to the movie night, and headed into the living room.
This used to be just the four of us, and even that was a squeeze, but now it was seven. Plus five dogs, of course.
Axel and Dalton sat on the sofa, with Banshee sprawled over their laps to make up for lost time. She loved me, but she remembered her first daddy.
Axel’s rottweiler, Sugar, leaned against the side of the couch, while the German shepherd, Loki, lay at their feet. Taz, being a small Chihuahua, was dancing over the cushion beside Dalton.
Gray and his man had squeezed into a big, squashy armchair that matched the sofa Emory moved in last fall. The only piece of furniture in the room that was still original was a recliner I’d claimed as mine years ago so I wouldn’t have to worry about my touch aversion.
Emory patted Oreo, the border collie resting his chin on the arm of their chair and looking worshipfully at him, while Gray kept a wary eye on Taz. While I watched, Taz raised a lip, snarling at Gray with a tiny growl, until he averted his eyes.
Axel tickled Taz under the chin. “Relax. We don’t hate him anymore.”
“Thanks,” Gray said dryly. “Maybe try saying it with a little more enthusiasm.” He followed that up with a mutter that sounded like, “Dick-eating monster.”
Axel laughed and raised his beer to take a gulp, gaze falling on Shiloh. “Hey, you can sit with us. Taz likes you.”
“Oh, uh…” Shiloh cast an uncertain glance at me, and my chest tightened.
“Holden always takes the chair,” Gray said. “Right, bro?”
I hesitated. I hadn’t considered the seating arrangements, and it wasn’t like I could ask my brothers to move so that I could sit a few inches from Shiloh and maybe try to hold his hand.Gray and Axel were already all cuddled up with their men. Still, what would it be like to be comfortable enough to do that with Shiloh? I wished I could.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s how we usually do it.”
“Okay,” Shiloh said easily, moving over to take a seat on the far end of the sofa.
I sat my ass in the recliner with a little bowl of popcorn I wouldn’t share with anyone and tried not to sulk. No one was keeping me from Shiloh. No one but me, anyway. But every day, the isolation I’d taken safety in felt more like a prison.
Bailey came in last, glanced around, and swore under his breath. “The floor? Really?”
“Oh, take my seat!” Shiloh hopped up.
“You don’t have to do that,” Gray said.
“Yeah, it’s the price of being the youngest,” Axel added as he snuggled more deeply into the circle of Dalton’s arm.
His boyfriend chuckled and shook his head. “You’re so mean.”
Axel tipped up his face and kissed Dalton’s chin. “You love it.”
His goofy smile showed that yes, he did.
Shiloh grabbed a spare throw pillow and came over by me. “It’s okay. I like sitting on the floor, anyway.”
He tossed the pillow down beside the recliner, plopped down cross-legged—Jesus, no way could I sit like that without pulling something—and leaned against the side of my chair.
The gesture touched me. But it hurt too. Was this all I could offer Shiloh? Closeness, but always with a barrier between us?
I barely saw the movie, my mind too consumed with wanting. Yearning. Full-on angsting like a teen boy with a boner for his hot, untouchable teacher.
I ate popcorn on autopilot and drank two beers, watching my brothers talk shit and laugh their way throughThe 40-Year-OldVirgin, but that shit was hitting a little too close to home for me. I was thirty-one, and I didn’t really consider myself a virgin, not with all the things I’d done with Shiloh, but I’d never been inside another person or had them inside me. I’d gotten a hand job once, but I’d had to get so drunk first that I barely remembered it.
