I felt calm and settled and I liked this.
No.
I loved this.
Chapter 10
Dane
Smiling.It happened a lot now. Even at the most inopportune times. Such as shaving.
The sharp flick of pain on my chin announced a cut, but even as I winced slightly, I couldn’t stop grinning. What was a little pain and blood when your man was on a verbal tear?
“Also, speaking of space, did you know that a teaspoon of material from a neutron star would weigh over a trillion kilograms? That’s about equal to what Mount Everest weighs. Which is something that—” Chip paused as I wiped at the steamy mirror to see a tiny red dot amid the white shaving cream. My phone sat propped up against my toothbrush holder, now holding two brushes, during our video call. Yeah, things had progressed to overnighters. I hadn’t told anyone about us, which was a gut punch every damn day, but how did I even begin to open that conversation up with my station captain? So, I hid Chip and me being more than friends. It sucked. I hated it. And it hurt way more than this little nick. “You’re bleeding. Did you know that?”
“I kind of suspected it, babe,” I replied as I gave my jaw one final pass before calling it good enough. “That’s amazing.” I dabbed at my chin with the corner of the towel around mywaist. I was on duty today, which meant no Chip until late tomorrow night since I’d crash after those twenty-four hours on call. “Guess I won’t take a serving spoon to the nearest neutron star to scoop up a heaping helping of… what exactlyisneutron star material?”
I plucked up the phone to carry him into the bedroom so I could change for a long day at the station.
“It’s ultra-dense neutrons packed tightly by immense gravity after a?—”
“Hey, big brother.”
I nearly leaped out of my shower-damp skin at Devon’s chirpy little greeting. There he sat on my bed, wearing a smile that I knew meant he had overheard a lot of chatter.
“Fucker,” I snarled as my heart eased down out of my throat. “I want my fucking key back right now, you shit stain.”
Devon roared. Chip was deadly silent. If not for the soft yip of Sable, I’d have forgotten the phone in my hand as I contemplated ways to stuff my brother’s face into some dirt. Not that there was much dirt to be found in February, but I could wait. Payback would be mine.
“I don’t have your key,” Chip cautiously replied. Devon tossed a jar of pimentos into the air and caught it, his eyebrow raised.
“No, babe, not you. My asshole baby brother snuck into my place to pilfer pimentos. Leave them on the counter when you go, Devon, which is right now.” I waved the phone at the bedroom door. Devon didn’t move from my unmade bed.
“I’ll leave when you let me say hi to your new bae,” Devon said.
Shit. Shit. Shit. This wasn’t on my to-do list for the day. There was no backing out of it now. I’d have to let them meet. Fuck.
“Fine.” I brought the phone up to look at Chip’s confused face. “Chip, this is my little brother, Devon.” I turned the phone so they could glimpse each other.
“Chip. Nice to meet you. I haven’t heard a thing about you,” my brother said. He was so eating dirt come spring. Clods and clods of it, with earthworms still wriggling about inside it. I’d done it before. I could do it again. Might be tougher as he wasn’t seven anymore…
“Hello, Devon. Dane talks about you a lot. He is very proud of your accomplishments with the police department. He said you did well on your testing and were now the youngest detective on the force. Did you know that 50% or more of officers who apply to become detectives fail? That you made it at such a young age with only four years of patrol experience is quite impressive.”
Devon stared at the tiny image of Chip on my phone. “Thanks. Did you look all of that up?”
I couldn’t hide my smile. Chip was just so fucking awesome.
“I did, yes. After Dane told me about your testing. May I speak to Dane, please?”
“Sure, yeah, nice to meet you, Chip.” Devon gave me a wink that cemented the dirt clod in the piehole scenario. I flipped the phone to gaze at Chip.
“Sorry, my brother is a shithead. Did you need to go?” I asked, padding over to the dresser to dig out some clean briefs.
“I do, yes. I have morning skate. We play our final game tonight before the All-Star break. Then I have a week off so we can kiss and hold hands more if you’d like that.”
I refused to look in the mirror at my brother. “I’d like that a lot. We’ll set times later, okay?”
“Okay, that’s good. Goodbye.” And just like that, the call ended. I was growing accustomed to his sometimes-brusque ways. That was just Chip. It made him more endearing to me.I placed the phone onto the tray that held my wallet, keys, and some mint Life Savers.
