“I think you’re flirting with me,” she said as an announcement, which was a touch ridiculous, what with the way he was getting his flirt on.
“Then you’d be right.” He shifted to relieve a bit of the pressure in his crotch that started when he thought about her naked skin in his bed.
Sonofabitch. There he was, doing it again.
She scrunched her forehead. “Why?”
He tried to get some blood flow back in his brain to figure out what they were talking about now. “Why what?”
“Why are you flirting with me?” she asked.
Um. Was this a trap? It sort of felt like a trap.
“Because you’re a beautiful woman who makes me feel nice.” Nice and normal and… he smiled a lot when she was in the room.
“Nice?”
“Yeah, nice.”
“Define nice.” She crossed her arms over the Dimefront tee he’d left for her as though “nice” was not a descriptor she appreciated.
He made a mental note to ask his sister about that later. He rarely asked her about women because there wasn’t much he didn’t know. Cocky, sure. But also, true.
In this case, he couldn’t quite figure out why nice was a bad thing. He scratched at his ear and filed away the question.
“I like life when you’re around,” he said. They didn’t need to make a thing about it. Usually, when he was on a forced hiatus from the band, he was as grumpy as Gibson coming home from the veterinarian. Whenever Becca was in the same space, he didn’t feel…pissed off. Most of the time he straight-up forgot to be pissy. Instead, he bought past-midnight milkshakes and talked about driving his sports car in his birthday suit.
“You’re a good guy, Linx.” She wrapped both hands around her mug as though she were warming them there.
His own hands itched to reach for hers. Hold them in his palms. Hand holding hadn’t been something he was interested in since he was in the seventh grade.
His phone rang, breaking the moment.
He glanced to the screen. His sister.
“I need to grab this.” He pointed to the phone.
Becca nodded while nibbling at her lip, which made him seriously reconsider answering.
Except, sometimes Courtney needed a bailout from whatever predicament she’d tucked herself in, so he made it a point to be available for her. Also, she was a helluva lot of fun.
“Hey,” he said into the phone.
“Hey,” she said. “You will not believe where I am.”
“Yeah, where?” He grinned. She could be at the Piggly Wiggly in Arkansas or the Louvre. “Tell me you’re not in Los Angeles.”
Because Bax was in LA with his wedding plans, and Courtney and Bax created a chemical concoction similar to mixing bleach and ammonia. Things exploded in a bad way when they were in the same city.
“No,” she practically sang to him. “I’m not.”
“Don’t sing, baby sister. We all like our ear drums un-ruptured.” He couldn’t help it. Yes, he razzed her. It was their thing. She was a brat. But she was his brat, and they were two peas in a pod.
He considered himself a non-traditional older brother who, instead of encouraging her to make good choices, supported her bad choices. It’d always been this way. She did the same for him.
It’d worked out for him when he had all the girly shit he kept on hand for her so she didn’t have to pack it when she came to visit.
“It’s my sister,” he whispered to Becca. “It’ll just be a second.” Most likely.
