"Plates, Bane. Help,” Zero snaps with a devilish smile.
Bane gathers a stack of utensils. He carries them past me, drops a kiss on the top of my head as he goes, and disappears into the kitchen. Zero watches him go with narrowed eyes.
"Don't get any ideas, brother," he calls after him.
Bane's voice comes back from the kitchen, mild. "I have no ideas. All I know is that Max is sleeping in my bed tonight."
"He is absolutely not."
"He is. I called it."
"You can't call him, he's not a coin toss—"
"I called it at lunch."
"At lunch?"
"While you were at the bar. Quietly. To myself. But I called it." Bane reappears at the door of the dining room, drying his hands on a tea towel, perfectly serene. "Maxie. Tell him you want to be with me tonight."
I open my mouth. I have no intention of telling either of them anything.
Zero slams his hand down on the table, shaking the dishes we haven’t gathered yet. "He's been in your bed twice this week, Bane—"
"Yes, and he was in yours for an entire afternoon on Tuesday, and a Saturday morning the week before, and most of last Friday, which you know perfectly well because you sent me a photograph—"
"Bane."
"—of him asleep in your t-shirt. Which I have kept. So don't."
My cheeks burn bright red.
Zero opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.He’s loving this. What an asshole.
"...fine," he says, with enormous dignity. "Fine. He can sleep in your bed. But I get him for an hour first."
"Thirty minutes, and you wash the wineglasses."
"Forty-five."
"Forty. Wineglasses."
"Done."
I am standing in my mother's dining room with a stack of dessert plates in my hands being haggled over like a holiday rotation. Zero is grinning at his brother across my head, and Bane is shaking his head like he wishes he didn’t love his older brother so much.
"Plates," Zero says, turning back to me. "Move."
“You’re terrible,” I tell him.
He smacks my ass. “Every second you don’t move is time we lose together. You want me to take care of that bulge in your pants? Then move.”
I can’t hide my smile or the flush creeping up the back of my neck.
Dammit, how could I possibly say no to that?
Chapter 10
Iknow something is wrong before Atlas walks through the door.
