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My jaw tightened. Once. I’d thought about it once, and I felt like a total jerk afterward because we’d never crossed lines. Never even flirted with the lines.
She’d come out of a dressing room in her prom dress, a tight, silky thing in black that made my best friend look sexy and sophisticated. And for the briefest of moments, I’d had a flash in my head of what her body might look like underneath. What it would feel like to hold her on a dance floor when she was wearing it. What her skin would feel like under the impossibly tiny straps that held it up.
But that moment passed, and I went to prom with my date, she went with hers, and I made sure to be nowhere near her when the music shifted to anything slow and sweet. I knew better than to ask her to dance.
“Nothing ever happened between us,” I said smoothly.
“Maybe not then,” Jax said. “If you keep playing house every night, it’s only a matter of time. First, you’ll notice the little things. Then the big things. And then she’s all you can think about.” He took a step. “You ready for that, Ian?”
Something simmered underneath his words, and I tried to pluck out what that might be.
“You projecting your own shit onto me, Jax?”
The big man went quiet, and now it was his turn for his jaw to clench.
Cameron held up his hands. “All right, enough.”
“Your concern, while touching,” I said, “is unwarranted. But I’ll consider myself warned.”
After another long look, he walked out of the room, and Cameron watched him with a thoughtful expression.
“What was that?” I asked.
My brother shrugged. “No clue.”
“You two been gossiping about my living situation?” I asked. “Here I thought Mom would be the one who nagged me the most.”
Cameron smiled a little. “Not gossiping. But we were all a little surprised you jumped right into this. It’s not like you to do things impulsively.”
Except with her, I thought.
“Except with her,” Cameron added a split second later.
My face gave away nothing because there was no way I’d give him the pleasure of knowing he was right.
After Jax’s exit outside, the crew slowly got back to work, and the volume increased to a dull hum. Pops of a nail gun punctuated the air, and someone pressed a saw down onto a piece of wood. Cameron stepped a little bit closer to me so he didn’t have to yell.
“I remember watching you two,” he said. “Dad had just married Sheila. All of us kids were figuring out our place in this new big family, but you had her. And I never realized how much that relationship meant to you, but you never really tried to get close to Sheila’s kids. Not at first.” He studied my face. “Because you had Harlow.”
Thoughts crowded my mind, and I could hardly make sense of any of them. I’d never thought of it that way, but he was right. She needed me more than any of my siblings did because they had each other. But in her family, she was alone. Which meant she was always my priority.
In our new, blended family, I wasn’t the oldest brother anymore. Erik stepped into that role for everyone. Cameron and Greer and Adaline formed a little trio that was still the closest in our family. Parker was looked after by everyone as the youngest, and once Poppy joined the family, there wasn’t some big empty space waiting for me. The roles were so clearly defined by then, it didn’t really bother me.
I had her, and that was all that mattered at the time.
“I guess,” I managed. “You think it’s stupid too?”
Cameron’s face betrayed only the slightest flicker of surprise that I was asking. He might have been younger than me, but my brother had stepped up with our family, with Sheila and Dad in ways that usually only the oldest child would.
“Stupid isn’t the word I’d use,” he answered carefully. “I can understand why you’re doing it. You’ve always looked out for her.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask.
But I was an idiot, so I asked.
“What word would you use?” I asked. The question came out like I’d chewed up nails and spat them out.
His mouth hooked up in a grin. “Predictable.”
