It’s fun to watch him squirm in a puddle of discomfort and disgust.
Rough, he mutters, “Do you like the bed or not?”
“Yes, our wedding bed is lovely.” Her hand reaches for his; he evades religiously. She says, “You should try it with me. Make sure it’s big enough for the both of us.”
Red scalds Wynnter’s freckles as he jerks back. “It’s for theguestroom. You know it’s for the guest room. Stop being inappropriate. And, for the love of sanity, be more alert when you’re in revealing clothes.”
December, my best friend in the whole world, flutters her stunning dark lashes cluelessly. Then she gasps as italldawns on her. “You don’t like my clothes. You want me to take them off for you!” And then?
Thenshe drops her skirt to the ground.
Wynnter cusses and loses seven years of his life before he realizes that dear sweet December…is wearing shorts. “Why…you…little…” he seethes.
She yelps and runs, prompting my brother to chase her around the mattress store, yelling curses andput yourswearingclothes back on thisswearingsecond.
Thank goodness we’re the only ones in here, otherwise we’d really be disrupting folks.
Meandering, I make my way over to the pretty boy having a pretty crisis and poke him in his pretty shoulder.
He stirs, still alive.
Eyes dark and lidded, Dominic draws his arms up from his sides, pillows them beneath his chin, andpeersat me, looking exactly like a cut-away full art depiction in an otome game. “Mm?” he murmurs.
“You’re being awfully quiet over here. Don’t tell me. My casketisn’tactually comfortable, and you’re trying to get some real sleep while you can?”
His attention skims beyond me, toward Wynnter and December’s roughhousing. “With…all that going on?”
“I do not know how advanced your sleeping skill is. I, personally, put every point I earn into mine.” Turning, I sit on the mattress beside him. It’s practically a rock. “Yikes. You prefer hard mattresses. Maybe the casketiscomfortable.”
“Hard mattresses are easier to escape in the morning when it’s time for work.”
That’s a concerning answer. “You’re a workaholic then?”
“Yeah.”
Between last night and today, something in Dominic’s mood seems to have shifted. Ever since he got up, he’s been less refined, less regal. Earlier, I was willing to blame the change on his unusual sleeping arrangements, but I wonder if there’s something else at play here.
So I ask, “Everything okay?”
“Just…regretting my life choices.”
Oof. Buddy.
I glance over my shoulder at him and find his eyes fixed on my back. Slowly, one hand unravels from beneath his head, then he catches a strand of my hair around one finger.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He neither regains lucidity nor stops. “Your brother seems very in love with that friend of yours.”
I choke on themaybe don’t touch meI was about to say as that comment crashes into my skull. “What?”
His gaze skates up to my eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Um. No? “Wynnter only hangs out with tall, tattooed women. Like the other bikers who head down to Florida for Biketober and all that. He’s shown me pictures.” Although…now that I’m thinking about it…I cannot confirm whether those women were romantic flings or just friends. Has Wynnter ever had agirlfriend? I’ve not been particularly invested in my brother’s love life, so I have no idea. He’s far more brusque than I am, so Granee’s attempts to matchmake him hit a brick wall every time she tries, and I’m fairly sure, at this point, she’s all but given up.
Regardless, though, none of that matters. I say, “December’s like a little sister to him.”
“That—” Dominic nods ever so slightly toward my bestie and brother. “—is not how you treat a little sister.”
