I spotted it on the other side of the room and tossed it toward him. “Here.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
“For the belt or for the sex?” he teased, eyes glinting as he threaded it through the loops.
I raised a brow. “Are you thanking me for the sex?”
“Oh, I’ll be thanking you for that for the rest of my life—if you’ll let me.”
I blushed furiously, trying to regain any shred of composure I had left. “We really need to go downstairs before people start wondering if we died.”
Josh nodded, but the way his eyes lingered on me said he wasn’t ready to stop looking just yet. “Do you see my shirt?”
“Um.” I looked around on the floor. I was still tucking my sweater into the front of my jeans when I heard the last few footsteps come down the hall and push open the door.
“Bri? Are you in there? Brenden said?—"
And froze.
Gina stood there, mid-step, her face slack with shock. Her eyes bounced between us—from my flushed face to Josh’s still-unkempt hair to the barely concealed guilty expression we both wore.
Then her gaze locked on me.
Her chest rose visibly, like she was trying to inhale enough air to make the moment make sense.
“What …” she asked slowly, voice pitching high at the end. “What am I looking at right now?”
thirty-one
“Oh my God.What am I looking at?” The same voice said the three words again before I managed to respond to it.
Or think about responding to it.
Josh was already striding forward to block me. “Gina.”
“No.” She put out a hand toward him, turning her face away from the two of us. “I don’t even …no.You’re not serious. You two—here—now—during theChristmas party? You’re not even dressed, so I don’t want to look at you right now. Fix that.”
I swore her eye twitched.
“Oh my God,” she repeated. “You’re sleeping with my brother?”
Josh raised his hand sheepishly. “Technically … we just finished.”
“Joshua!”
He winced both from the pitch of his sister’s voice and the way I swatted him. “Sorry. That felt funnier in my head.”
I stepped forward, reaching for Gina’s arm. “Gina, I’m so sorry. We were going to tell you. It just … happened.”
“Clearly.” Her eyes narrowed again.
Blinking, she shook her head, already turning away.
“Gina!” I called after her, but she was already moving.
Finally, near her room, she stopped.
