“Yeah.”
We were both liars. We jumped out, simultaneously slammed our doors shut, and ran to the door. Noah looked to me, so I knocked. Even though I was living here temporarily, it didn’t feel right to just walk in.
When no one opened the door after a full minute, Noah tried the handle and we stepped inside. I was expecting to break up a fight or something, but it was quiet with no one in sight.
Denver’s house had a lot of wasted entryway space and oddly sized side rooms with no doors. Like someone had watched about a hundred Chip and Joanna Gaines episodes and decided to blow out some walls and see if they could make the magic happen.
One of the side rooms had a pool table and a dart board in it, and the other had a handful of mismatched chairs of varying heights around an old poker table. Basically, it was a total bachelor pad.
“Hello?” I called.
“Back here,” Sadie answered from the kitchen, sounding very chill.
The kitchen was in the back of the house, with big bay windows facing out into the yard. I’d give the house this much—it had a good kitchen.
We walked back to find Sadie, Dan, the roommate who’d stared at me over breakfast, and Denver sitting around the kitchen table eating tacos. Based on all the empty wrappers, they’d decimated a lot already.
“Everyone getting along?” I asked.
“She brought us tacos,” Denver said in answer, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did. “Like fifteen different kinds.”
“Are they from Mangos?” Noah asked.
Denver nodded. “Yeah, dude. For Taco Tuesday I guess they do—” He paused midsentence and stared at Noah, tilting his head. “Are those panties sticking out of your pocket?”
Chapter 17 – Noah
I was exhausted from all the packing and moving. Jenny seemed exhausted too. And so very grateful. But a cautious grateful. She didn’t hug me goodbye. Sadie hugged me goodbye. Dan even hugged me goodbye. But not Jenny. She gave me a sheepish fist bump and said she’d owe me forever.
I felt really bad about it until I sat down in my truck to go home and felt something in my back pocket. I pulled out two carefully folded twenty dollar bills and smiled in wonder. Did Jenny have pickpocketing skills I didn’t know about?
Part of me was tempted to run them back to her right then. She clearly didn’t have a lot of money to spare. She couldn’t even afford to live alone in a one bedroom apartment if she wanted to. And that killed me. She was supposed to have a nice bump in pay along with her promotion. I was tempted to ask her about it, but there was no tactful way to do that.
No, Jenny would not appreciate me asking how much she was making, and she would not appreciate me giving back her gift. So I’d hold onto the money, at least for tonight. And I’d find a way to get it back to her one way or another. A tank of gas, a lunch or two, money to replace her clothing items that blew out of my truck.
I whistled as I climbed the stairs up to my apartment, attempting to distract myself from the thought of Jenny’s underthings. Not that I’d intentionally checked them out. It was just hard to not notice what was in my hands… and pockets. Sadie and Dan had teased me about trying to take a souvenir home with me, while Denver gave me murder eyes. Jenny might accuse me of jealousy, but I wasn’t the only one with that particular problem.
Somehow I’d need to explain to Jenny that calling it jealousy was oversimplifying the issue. Denver and I were both being protective of her, and yeah, maybe a little bit territorial, too. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t try to explain it to Jenny. She couldn’t even accept we had real feelings for her. She seemed baffled that either of us would see her that way.
Dang, maybe I should have just kissed her. I groaned, thinking about how close we’d come and how badly I botched that.
I unlocked my door and walked in to find all four of my brothers sitting at my kitchen table eating tacos from Mangos, giving me a weird sense of déjà vu. The restaurant must have been hopping tonight.
“Where have you been?” Trace asked. He picked up a taco wrapped in paper and tossed it to me. I dropped my keys just in time to catch it. I’d eaten a few at Denver’s house, but I hadn’t wanted to take too many of Sadie’s peace offerings, considering they worked so well. Not that she and Denver were buddies now.
As I had predicted, Sadie was already on bodyguard duty when I left. She’d told Denver’s roommate to stop staring at them unless he wanted an eye exam he’d never forget, and she told Denver he needed to round up his other roommates so they could have a house meeting and set rules.
Denver had told her there was only one rule, and it was that she wasn’t allowed to set any.
Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to hear the update in the morning.
I took a bite of the taco my oldest brother had tossed me and ate it thoughtfully. It had some kind of green tomatillo thing going on which was definitely not bad. I wolfed the rest down and went in search of another amid the empty wrappers on the table.
“I helped a carpool buddy move. Why are you all here?” I asked, immediately deflecting the attention away from myself.
“Clark’s girlfriend bailed on him, so we’re here to eat his tacos and cheer him up.”
Clark looked indignant. “She didn’t bail. She got sick.”
