Page 18

I clear my throat and cross my arms. Emery is looking back at me over his shoulder. I should be alarmed that he caught me checking out his ass, but Emery looks more confused than anything.

“What was his name?”

Emerson blinks, then turns to look at me properly. His shirt is two sizes too big and three button’s too open. I can see a faint shimmer on his smooth chest. Makeup? Glitter?

“What? I was talking about cupboards, Dillon. Are you…feeling okay? Did Penny give you the plague? You’re a little flushed.”

Oh, I’m plagued alright, baby B, and it’s your damn fault.

“Your date. What was his name?”

Now he’s the one flushed. His cheeks turn the prettiest shade of pink, a tell of his I’m sure he loathes, because despite the blush, he scoffs. More than half of me is sure he lied, but it’s the fraction that wonders that kept me up last night.

Which is so goddamn stupid. I’ve barely thought about Emery’s dating life in years. He’s not brought anyone around, though I’m not dumb enough to think that means there’s been no one for him. The Bennet family is great, but they’re not the bunch you bring just anyone around to meet. Love them like they’re my own family, but they’re all wild with no sense of personal space or privacy. They don’t know what a secret means.

So, while maybe I haven’t thought about his dating life much, I didn’t have a reason to. He hasn’t brought anyone around, and I haven’t heard about anyone either. Any of the Bennets dating is always a hot topic over Sunday dinners. When I manage to make them anymore, it’s always amusing to sit around and listen to them bicker and spill each other’s business.

“You’re still going on about this? Gosh, Dilly Willy, it’s almost like you’re jealous.”

Not going to top myself.

That’s what he said. He put the fucking thought into my brain yesterday when he went running out of my house after saying that. Just because there hasn’t been a peep about him dating going through the Bennet gossip mill, that doesn’t mean that Emerson doesn’t have sex.

Emerson and sex together in the same thought is what bought me my one-way ticket to hell a few years ago. But it was always Emery and me. Now I’ve just spent all night and half a day dodging thoughts of him with some random, faceless douchebag.

Emery, wearing his pretty pink blush and not a damn thing else. Olive skin bare, thighs spread, moaning for a man that’s not me.

I stick my hands in my pockets and smile, narrowing my eyes. “Penny asked about you; I had to tell her you ditched us.”

Emery crosses his arms, narrowing his brown eyes right back at me. “Is this a fucking interrogation or something? I’m an adult, dickwad, I’m allowed to date if I want to date.”

I push off the wall with my shoulder and stalk closer. I shouldn’t get a thrill seeing the way his chest hitches with a stuttered inhale or the way he has to tilt his chin to keep eye contact with me. Emerson Bennet isn’t one to meekly gaze through his lashes.

“Watch your mouth.”

His body is warm, yet a shiver runs down my spine when he closes the last of the gap between us.

“Watch my mouth? Watch my mouth? Oh, sorry, Daddy, please don’t spank me.” He mocks, then presses a pointy nail into my chest. “Wasn’t it you who told me to mind my own fucking business just the other day?”

“Wasn’t it you who was snooping through my mail and looking through my drawers yesterday?”

“You punched my brother in the face,” he hisses, full claws digging into my chest. It’s fucking sick how much I love it.

“Did you think the reason for that would be hidden in my kid's toys?”

“Warren said he tried to call yesterday to talk to Penny, but you wouldn’t pick up.”

“I was too busy trying to calm her down and explain that Unc Em wasn’t there when she woke up because he had a date. She pouted and cuddled with pik cow and asked about you four hundred goddamn times.”

“Oh, low fucking blow, you ass clown. Don’t use your kid to guilt me. And it was a pink unicorn!”

His fingers are curled, gripping my shirt in his fist. My chest grazes his knuckles on every exhale. I want to grab his face and kiss the angry look right off of it.

But I can’t. Because as much as I don’t like my best friend much right now, this is still his baby brother. This is still Emerson Lee Bennet.

He’s still off limits.

I keep my fists tucked in my pockets.