“I guess I like to live on the wild side sometimes.”
Who are you and what have you done with my no-fun-having, rule-following brother?
“Hey now!”
You know it’s true.
Braden smiled, and once he had everything he was cooking where he needed it, his eyes flitted to me. “One second, Sis.”
He pushed buttons on his screen that I guessed muted him and turned off the camera, and then his eyes were on me.
“Wanna meet her?”
There it was again, that stalling of my heart, that jump of butterflies in my stomach. “Doyouwant me to meet her?”
His smile was wide and easy, his nod instant. “Of course, I do.”
“Again, not very secretive.”
Braden shrugged. “We don’t have to say we’re more than friends. Besides, who is my family going to tell? Unless you don’t want to,” he added instantly, panic on his face.
“No, I do. I do.” I hopped up from the stool, padding over to where he was and fixing my hair a bit along the way. I was glad the camera view would only be from the belly button up and hoped none of his family would find it odd that I was wearing his shirt.
Fool.
You’re being a fool.
But I didn’t care.
Maybe it was foolish, but Braden wanted me to meet his family — the most important people in the world to him, the ones he sacrificed everything for.
It felt as big as him handing me the key to his house.
When I was next to him, Braden’s smile grew even more, and he stole a swift kiss before turning his mic and camera back on.
Ginny came into view, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe.
She looked enough like Braden that I would have known exactly who she was even if he hadn’t told me — same dark hair, same warm brown eyes, same bone structure around the mouth — but where Braden carried a kind of quiet steadiness, Ginny practically sparkled with mischief.
She sat in a sleek black power chair with a tablet mounted in front of her, one hand resting near the controls. Her frame was slight beneath an oversized t-shirt, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, and there was something immediately sharp and alive about her expression, like she was already three steps ahead of everyone else in the room.
The synthesized voice from her device might have been mechanical, but there was nothing flat about her. Her personality came through instantly — in the glint in her eyes, the way one brow arched, the smug little smile she wore like she already had a roast lined up and ready to go.
“Ginny, I want you to meet my friend. This is Emily,” Braden said.
Ginny paused, her eyes bouncing around the screen.
Friend, huh?
I fought back a laugh, exchanging a look with Braden before I waved at the phone. “Hi, Ginny! So nice to meet you. I’ve heardamazing things. Mostly that you love to roast your brother. We have that in common.”
He’s an easy target. Takes the fun out of it sometimes.Has he told you about his shoe collection?
“Easy, now,” Braden warned his sister.
“He didn’t have to tell me. It was spilling out of his closet the first time I came over. Man has more shoes and hats than an entire Foot Locker store,” I said.
At least he outgrew his fascination with belt buckles. That was a dark time.
