“Did something happen?” Bishop cocks his head, his brows furrowed.
“Nothing happened,” I lie.
But it wasn’t nothing.
It was anything but nothing.
“Is this a football thing or…” Killian glances around at our brothers like they’re holding cue cards. Bishop shrugs helplessly, but Sebastian is eyeing me like he’s fucking Sherlock Holmes.
He leans forward and carefully says, “You fucked her, didn’t you?”
Three heads swivel toward me and I hesitate half a second too long.
Killian gasps and claps once. “Oh my God. The girl? You fucked the girl? The bartender?”
“Shut the fuck up, we didn’t fuck.”
Kill’s eyes bulge and he points at me with a shit-eating grin. “But whatever it is, it’s about her.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“I know you’ve got that same face you had when you accidentally sent Mom that text meant for your ex.” He winks.
I gasp. “I was drunk and in college.”
He shrugs “Same look, bro. It’s about the bartender, I know it. What’s her name again?”
“Her name is Sutton,” Sebastian tells them and if looks could kill, my baby brother would be all sorts of dead right now. He merely shakes his head, giving me a pitying look in response. “Dude, you may as well get it all out. It’s literally the reason you wanted us here. Something is bothering you.”
“How do you even know that?”
“Tell me it’s not then.” Killian steps closer, his eyes narrowed on me. “Tell me there’s nothing going on and you don’t really need us so we can get on with our day and not have to watch you building shit out of wood the way you do every time something is on your mind like we haven’t noticed ever since you were in high school because it’s just what you do when you’re emotionally constipated.”
I blink at him. “That was a fucking long sentence, bro.”
“Thank you. It’s my goal in life to see how many words I can say in a row before I fucking run out of breath.”
“Okay, okay.” I push the sander out of my hands and grasp the table as if it’s going to keep me steady. “She kissed me.”
The words hang in the air between us. All three of my brothers freeze like I’ve just announced I’m joining a cult.
“Okay,” Killian murmurs, his beer halfway to his mouth. “And?”
I run my hand over the sanded edge of the table. “And then she said it meant nothing.”
Sebastian winces.
Bishop crosses his arms. “And what do you think?”
I don’t rush my answer this time. “I think,” I say carefully, “that she kissed me because she wanted to.”
“And?” Sebastian prompts.
“And she said it meant nothing because wanting things scares her.”
Killian hoists himself up onto the countertop he’s been leaning on across from me. “Start from the beginning. Where were you?”
“Outside a thrift store.”
