“Sure. Okay. Don’t you have some ongoing thing with Emma? Are you finally giving in to Mom’s hints about the two of you? She is getting less subtle by the day.”
“What? No,” I answered, clunking my head against the wall. “I mean, yeah, Emma and I are…something, but…” My voice trailed off as I regretted beginning this conversation. I glanced at Simon, eating a green apple with his hips resting on the edge of Brooke’s desk. He gestured to her daily crossword puzzle, waving the hand with the apple wildly as they discussed something.
“But what? I’m just glad you’re not with Madison or that chick you brought to Mom’s party,” Magnum said as my eyes snapped away from the desk and back to him.
“Was that a question or a statement about my sex life?” I deadpanned, tossing a strip into the growing pile with his. I wasn’t expecting the third degree—he’d been in denial about his feelings for Brooke so long that I figured he’d jump on the chance to persuade me to date around.Looks like that bit me in the ass.
“Both,” he scoffed, crawling forward to the last stretch of carpet. I followed his lead, tossing the strips away as he ripped them from the floor. “It makes me wonder if Emma’s why you’re thinking about online dating.”
Shit. Double fuck.
“She’s the one doing a shit-ton of the online stuff. Just thought she might be on to something.” I shrugged, dropping to a knee to grab the last strip of carpet from the floor and toss it on the ever-growing pile. The gray fabric came apart easily, revealing cracked cement that would have to be sealed before we re-floored the area.
“Why are you so concerned with what she’s doing?”
“What? I’m not. Just tired of hearing her bitch about her dates.”
“So, your answer to that was to have your own string of bad online dates? Perhaps add a stalker for good measure?”
I groaned, the noise sounding like an eighty-year-old grandpa standing in church after an hour-long sermon. Magnum backhanded my shoulder then stood, shaking his head.
“Oh, I remember back in the day, before I knew what real love was, and I got bent out of shape about a girl.”
“You bit my head off two weeks ago about Brooke.”
He ignored me, cracking his knuckles and buffing them on his shirt. All while smirking like he carried the secret of life in his back pocket. “To be young—”
“You’re older than me.”
“And dumb—”
“I beat you in college algebra and social science, asshole.”
“And not know the sweet embrace of the opposite sex.”
“I’m going to junk punch you, Mag,” I said, balling my hand into a fist and jerking toward him. He backpedaled, throwing his hands over his jeans and crossing his legs.
“That won’t protect you. When you least expect it—expect it.”
“Har. Har. Well, just remember that payback’s a bitch.”
“Whatever,” I said, shooing my hand through the space between us.
His gaze dropped to the floor, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Does all this dating she’s doing bother you?”
I took a breath, running the toe of my boot over a small crack in the concrete. “I don’t know.”
“Perhaps you’re starting to see what the family has been talking about for ages.”
“The family?” I said, rubbing my chin in a poor imitation of Don Corleone.
“Yes. The family,” he answered, tugging his phone from his back pocket and thumbing through his text messages. “See?” He turned the phone’s face toward me for a split second, long enough to see a GIF of exploding hearts. “We even have a separate message thread.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” I said, grabbing for the phone. Magnum crossed his arms, gripping the phone like his life depended on it.
“Oh. I’m sorry. Let me clue you in to some of the finer points of the conversation. Let’s start with the stalker-like way your eyes follow hers whenever she’s at the house or how you always rearrange place settings at Mom’s, so she sits beside you. I know,” he snapped, putting one hand on his hip and rubbing his cheek with the other. “How about the way you sniff the god damned air when she walks by?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded and stupid. How did my family have a message thread about this? Why had no one said anything? Why hadn’t I realized?
