Not really sure what just happened, Kristen made her way to one of the benches surrounding the firepit and sat down, taking in the men playing what she suspected was supposed to be touch football in the clearing only to wince when she saw one of Garrett’s brothers take out what she was guessing was one of his cousins, a teenage girl with dutch braids taking down a teenage boy with an impressive chokehold, and the men doting on their wives, and couldn’t help but sigh.
She loved people watching.
She could happily do it all day, Kristen thought as she moved to grab her burger only to frown as she watched a large, unfamiliar tan hand beat her to it.
“What do we have here?” the incredibly handsome man who looked vaguely familiar murmured as he helped himself to her burger.
“Why do you look so familiar?” Kristen asked as she took in his freshly shaved jaw, short black hair, and noted that Garrett had at least thirty pounds of muscle on him and guessed that he was nineteen, maybe, twenty years old.
“Matt, your neighbor,” he said, dropping her burger on his plate before he reached over and helped himself to one of her chips.
When she just sat there, blinking at him, he added, “I pulled you off the asshole last year when you tried to shove a hose down his-”
“Reed’s little brother,” she said, nodding even as she gestured to the burger in his hand. “You know that I spit in that, right?”
“It adds flavor,” Matt said as she grabbed a chip off her plate only to realize something important.
Everyone was staring at her.
She popped the chip in her mouth as she sat there, wondering if this had anything to do with the unfortunate incident that occurred last year when one of her boxes of books was delivered to Garrett by mistake and she was forced to grab one of her books and beat the hell out of him with it.
“Are you here to butter us up and lure us into a false sense of security so that we’ll spill all of our dirty little secrets for your books?” Jason, she thought his name was, suddenly demanded.
“No?” Kristen said, unable to help but frown as she tried to figure out why he thought she would do that.
“Why not?” the large man sitting next to her demanded, and for some reason, she wanted to say that his name was Travis or Trevor. She remembered seeing him take Jason down with a headlock on Garrett’s front yard years ago over a cupcake.
“Our stories aren’t good enough for you?” Jason demanded, narrowing his eyes on her.
“I mean…” Kristen said, letting her words trail off with a helpless shrug.
“You son of a bitch…” Jason said hollowly as he got to his feet so that he could glare down at her. “You would be lucky to write about us!”
“Jesus Christ,” the man that she was pretty sure was his father muttered as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face.
“I’m not some whore that you can toy with, woman!” Jason snapped only to gasp in outrage when the small woman sitting by his side said, “You really are, though,” as she pushed her glasses back up her nose.
Nodding, Jason said, “You know what? Just for that, you get a pen and some paper and write down every damn word that we’re about to tell you.”
CHAPTER 36
“About an hour after our parents left, Danny comes rushing into the room with a baseball bat and tells us that someone broke into the house,” his little brother Arik began as Garrett sat there, watching Kristen over the fire as she took notes. “Before any of us could react, he hands us the baseball bat and tells us to use it if the robber gets past him.”
“He then tells us that he’ll do his best to keep us safe, but in the end, it’s going to be every man for himself. With that, the little bastard leaves us there, huddled in the corner, hugging the baseball bat while we listened to him tearing the house apart,” Arik drawled as Danny’s lips pulled up into a shit-eating grin. “Turns out, the little bastard was searching for Christmas presents and wanted us out of the way.”
“You did not!” their mother gasped in outrage.
“Oh, but he did,” Arik said, chuckling.
“He even screamed out ‘Mercy’ a few times there to ensure that we didn’t come out of the room,” Garrett drawled, watching Kristen’s lips twitch as she turned the page and kept writing.
“How about the time that we thought Santa Claus kidnapped Garrett?” his brother Darrin suggested as Garrett watched Kristen go still.
“I’m sorry. What’s this now?” Kristen asked, blinking at him as she finished off the last bite of the Rice Krispies treat that actually looked pretty good.
“I think he was ten?” Darrin said, sending their mother a questioning look.
“Nine,” Garrett said, keeping his gaze locked on Kristen as he thought about that night.
