Fucking hell.How long should I wait to fill the tub, grab the toaster, and flip off the man upstairs to join the one down below?
“Brontë!”
I catch motion in my periphery and sigh in relief. It’s just Dantë.
Pausing the music, I glare through the clear glass door leading out to the dark garage, where my twin leans against his chameleon McLaren and avoids looking inside. “What do you want, Ghostface?”
Dantë risks a glance of what he can see through the door—me, in black cargo pants and a simple shirt with the sleeves rolled to my elbows, sitting on my rolling stool with an entire mountain of packages to be shipped behind me—to toss a glare my way. A risk he likely takes because of the vexing nickname I gave him when he hit his big break as a masked gamer.
“Quinn is here,” he drones, drawing his white hood over his equally white and slightly tousled hair with his hands inked in crimson tattoos. “Pissy as ever.”
“Probably because I missed her calls.” I grimace, clearing the notifications from my cell and slipping off my gloves. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Dantë nods, his phone screen a neon glow against his squint as he hangs by his car like a haunting vision of the past. My brother always reminds me of our darker days when he lingers like this. It’s a habit he never quite abandoned. When we were kids, standing within each other’s periphery was in anticipation of our father raising a bottle or blade or, worst of all, his fists. We would be there for each other after the beatings were done and the wounds needed to be cleaned. We reminded one another that neither of us were alone.
It’s why we live together now, all these years later. To feel less alone and remember that we both survived our own personal hells.
Dantë sticks to my side as we take the ascending stairs, murmuring from the corner of his mouth, “Are you fucking Quinn?”
I scowl. “Would it be a problem if I was?”
“Is that a no?”
“No.”
“Oui,then?”
“Why are you asking?”
“She’s hot.”
I pause mid-step, eyes slitting. “You hate Quinnon a molecular level.Your words, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Doesn’t negate the fact that she’s hot. Besides, I wasn’t asking for myself. I was asking foryou.”
I scoff. “She’s a colleague.”
“Whom you’ve known foryears.”
“So?”
“So,you should show her what she’s been missing.”
I scoff again. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Dantë’s wide mouth thins as he absentmindedly pinches his disheveled strands, the evidence of his afternoon tumble with his summer fling. Always a revolving door of women and men. Never anything serious. Not since his heart was crumpled up and burned by the only person he ever gave it to. “How long has it been, brother?”
“Since?”
His brow flattens over his red eyes. “Since you fucked someone other than yourself.”
At least a year. Or three…?
Fuck’s sake.Has it seriously been that long since the Swifty with the glitter obsession?
“You’ve made your point,crétin,” I grumble as I scale the last few steps and push through the door to the kitchen.
Overhead lights illuminate the sprawling driftwood and cerulean sea glass décor. A central island permeates the space smelling of summer heat and saltwater breezing through the tall bay windows. Beyond the strip of sand outside, the late July dusk shades the bare ocean with starry cobalts and moonlit maroons.
