“Always,” he says with a wink as he turns away. I wait a second before I grab my own plate and follow him. My footstepsare light and, for a moment, it feels like when we were kids again.
My mother and Jace’s mom always joked about how I was his shadow.
“You know,” he says as he pauses by the back door, taking my plate from me so I can shrug on a light jacket. He hands it back and holds open the door for me as I slide my sock clad feet into a pair of old sneakers. “I should be thanking you for the sacrifice you made.”
My eyebrows tug together as I walk past him, stepping out into the cool night air. I’m greeted by the musky-sweet scent of decaying leaves and the burning logs in the fire.. Falling in step with Jace, we trudge through the grass, the crispy fallen leaves crunchy beneath our feet.
“What sacrifice?” I ask as we approach both of my brothers by the fire.
A smirk lifts his lips. “Grilled ham and cheese is your favorite and you gave it to me instead.”
“Noah, throw one of those logs on the fire,” Finn instructs as he arranges the small bowls on a makeshift tree stump table a few feet away from the fire pit. He twists the lid from the thermos and divides the tomato soup into the four bowls.
Finn hands me and Jace each a bowl of tomato soup. I walk over to one of the Adirondack chairs, lowering myself down as I watch the three of them. Jace stands by the table with Finn, both of them dipping their sandwiches into their soup as Noah dusts his hands on his jeans and sits down next to me.
“Thanks for dinner, Will,” he says, swallowing down a bite of his grilled cheese.
“Please, this is a little kid's dinner.”
Noah shrugs. “It still hits.”
“I’d take your grilled cheese over anything, honestly,” Jace chimes in.
Finn nods. “Comfort food at its finest.”
Heat creeps up my neck, threatening to spread across my cheeks. To conceal it, I duck my head and shove another bite of my sandwich into my mouth. “Well, if there’s one thing I can offer”—I raise up my bowl of soup and sandwich—“this is it.”
A string of laughter spills from the three of them as they all glance at me. I let myself chuckle just a little. Noah rolls his eyes, lifting his bowl to drink the remainder of his soup. Finn shakes his head, tossing his crust into the fire, and Jace’s eyes are on mine as he wipes the corner of his mouth with the side of his hand.
“I don’t know, Will,” he says as the flames flicker in his eyes. “You offer a lot more than that, but you do make a damned good grilled cheese.”
Pride swells inside my chest and a slow smile curves my lips. “Well thanks, guys.”
“Okay, enough blowing up her head,” Noah cuts in. He grabs the poker and steps up to the fire pit. Then he pushes it in beneath the burning logs and stokes the flames. “I know you’ve been busy since you got in town, so I’ll save giving you shit for not coming by sooner for another time. You said you’re in charge of the vet clinic for the next two weeks?”
Jace’s eyes linger on mine once more as he swallows the last of his food before looking at Noah. “Yeah, they needed someone else to keep an eye on things since their other veterinarian has something going on. They didn’t want to stress Joyce out with it and knew I was back in town.”
“Oh, Joyce. What would we ever do without her?” Noah chuckles and then waves his hand dismissively. “That woman is a saint.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Finn laughs, shaking his head at Noah. Jace grabs a beer from the six pack he brought and twists off the topas he walks over to the chair on the other side of me and lowers himself onto it.
“She saved your ass when we were in high school, in case you don’t remember,” Finn adds.
Jace laughs softly as he kicks his feet out in front of him and crosses his ankles. “I don’t think anyone in the damn town will forget about that.” I sneak a glance to my left and my gaze collides with Jace’s as he leans back in his seat. He lifts the bottle rim to his lips and cracks a smile before taking a sip.
A smirk breaks out across my face. “That poor woman. You’re lucky she was walking into the clinic when you were running down the street.”
“Well, if Wendell Jenkins wasn’t out of his mind chasing after me with a baseball bat, I wouldn’t have needed somewhere to hide.”
Finn arches an eyebrow. “You made out with his girlfriend. I think he’s justified there.”
“No, I didn’t,” Noah retorts, rolling his eyes. “They were broken up at the time.”
“Not according to Wendell Jenkins,” Finn says, lifting both brows.
Jace lifts his beer towards me to share, and I don’t take it until his dimples appear with a nod of his chin. Our fingers brush, but I pull the bottle to me before I allow myself to pay any attention to the way his skin feels against mine. His eyes stay on me as I press the rim to my lips and take a long swallow.
I don’t know why he keeps looking at me like that—like he’s studying me, but for what?
