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“Well, we have to plan for the worst-case scenario, don’t we?”

She knocked over a lamp. “Jacob!”

I was grinning. “Nope.”

She made a guttural shrieking noise and tipped over a planter. It fell sideways and dirt spilled onto the hardwood.

I started cracking up.

She squeezed down the hallway, knocking picture frames onto the floor the whole way to the plant room. It was so funny I didn’t even care she was leaving a path of destruction in her wake.

A moment later a door slammed, and she came back looking flustered. She stopped in front of me breathing hard, her ponytail crooked, and she jabbed a finger at my chest. “You and me? We are about to have our first fight.”

It was all I could do to try and keep my face straight.

Someone knocked again.

She gave me a narrow-eyed glare and stomped to the door and opened it.

It was Jewel.

“Hey! What a nice surprise!” Briana said, a little too brightly. “Come in!”

My sister stepped inside and paused to take in the scene. A lamp on the floor, frames all over the hallway, plant on its side, Briana’s hair a mess. I came up behind her and slipped an arm around her waist.

Jewel looked back at us. “Uh…what the hell are you guys doing in here? Your house is trashed.”

Briana smoothed her hair down. “We were having sex. Things got a little wild.”

“You should see what she did to the bed,” I said.

Briana snorted.

Jewel nodded slowly. “Okaaaay. Well, good. Gwen says you guys look sexually frustrated.”

Briana and I blanched in unison.

“Here’s the melon baller I borrowed. I’m gonna go now.” And she left.

I turned to Briana after the door clicked closed.

I cleared my throat. “I’m not sexually frustrated,” I lied.

“Well, I am,” she scoffed.

I felt heat rising up my neck. There was such an easy solution…

She crossed her arms. “I’m not talking to you for five minutes. I am very mad at you.”

“Am I getting the glitter?”

She sucked in air. “Thin ice, Maddox.”

My lip twitched and she tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help it.

She went to my room, presumably to unpack her bags into my closet. I grinned after her.

An hour later I was at the kitchen table with her, eating a plate of the food she brought. It was the best meal I’d had in as long as I could remember. Chicken thighs in a brothy sauce. Her mom was an excellent cook. “You said there’s going to be more of this?”