I’ve never had anyone make something just for me. Not once.
“Hey, why the fuck is he so special, huh?” Luke asks, pulling my mind away from my parents and their lack of parenting.
“Because,” Aunt Del says. “Caleb has never brought someone home. We’re trying to get him tostay.”
That makes me peer over at Caleb, who just grins. Is this a joke to him? What the hell has gotten into him?
“Aw. That’s so nice.” He slings an arm over my shoulders and pulls me to his side, nuzzling his face against my head.
I don’t even try to escape. There’s no point now. We’re in this. And he’s playing a game I don’t really understand.
“We have to entice Whit in any way possible,” Aunt Del says.
“Damn. Harsh,” Sem says with a chuckle.
“Wait. Are you saying I can’t keep my man?” Caleb asks, and when no one replies, he huffs.
“Oh, fuck off,” he mutters, his arm falling from me. He reaches for a cookie quickly and shoves it in his mouth.
Crumbs fall down his shirt, and instead of looking ashamed, he just turns to grin at me.
I can’t help but wince at the mess he’s making on the floor. But then again, this is so quintessentially him.
“Listen, he adores me,” Caleb tells everyone.
The moment those words leave his mouth, mine parts in horror, and I choke on everything I can’t bring myself to say. Like what the hell is he saying and why?
Is he toying with me?
“Looks like it,” Luke says with a chuckle. “Whit, you can sleep with me tonight if you want.”
But before I can answer him, Caleb is grabbing my hand and holding on to it tightly.
“No. He’s mine, asshole. I keep him very satisfied.”
That makes color bloom on my cheeks, and it bleeds down my neck.
“Oh, hell no. Keep it down in here tonight,” Luke says with a hoot, and then he nudges me. “I bet he’s a screamer, huh?”
Before anyone can answer, Caleb slugs his cousin right in the chest.
Luke wheezes and rubs at where he was just clocked and lets out a slew of expletives, just as Aunt Del shoos everyone out of the kitchen.
“Off you all go. I need to clean up. Go settle in,” she tells us, and Caleb links his hand with mine once more and leads me upstairs and into the guest room, locking the door behind us.
It’s silent for a beat, my eyes taking in the small bed, my throat clicking with nerves.
“Well, that was…” I begin to say, but my words are cut off when he holds his hand up.
He brushes the crumbs off his shirt, wiping a hand down his face, and asks, “Do you have siblings?”
I shake my head, feeling some sort of way about that. Siblings might’ve been nice. At least someone else could’ve shared in my misery. Then again, I’m not sure I’d wish my misery on anyone.
“Then, just know that they’re my cousins and can be overbearing, but I love ’em.”
I lean against the wall and watch as Caleb upends his plastic bag, and all the crumpled contents fall onto the bed. He doesn’t look at me, and my chest tightens. I don’t want him to think that I was going to insult his family, that I don’t like them.
“I wasn’t insulting them,” I explain. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
