Page 82 of 6 Clues Your Nemesis Loves You

“I did not dare him to do that,” comes Delilah’s panicked voice. “Babe. You can’t.”

“I can and I will. This is the guy who dared me to eat a cactus.”

“But you’re the idiot who actually ate the cactus.”

Maggie morphs into a fiery she-devil intent on razing the earth. “If he unzips this tent, I will fucking kill him.”

“Not if I kill him first.” I lean over our mostly finished food and cup Maggie’s cheek. “If I don’t make it out the other side of this alive, please build a very muscular statue of me to immortalize this battle.”

She clutches her chest in rapture. A woman sending her beau off to war. “You better come back to me. But if you don’t, you’ll look like a bearded version of Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson.”

God, I adore this woman.

I kiss her hard on the lips, then turn as the zipper starts to slide down. As expected, E’s butt pushes through—thankfully clad in jeans—and I don’t wait for the moron to let one rip. I lunge forward and punch his butt cheek, sending him sprawling on his face.

He recovers quickly, running away from me. I’m hot on his heels, blasting from the tent and hitting my stride. The asshole is going down. E laughs while he’s running, dodging left and right as I lunge for him. I grab his jacket, but he slips away. Changing tracks, he glances at me over his shoulder, heading back toward the tent. In his cockiness, he doesn’t see a wayward branch on the grass. The second he stumbles, I’m on him, dragging him down, panting and growling and getting him under my control.

Unlike Des or Jake, I don’t punch E in the kidneys like he deserves. I get on top of him, hold my forearm against his throat, then shove my hand up his shirt and find his nipple.

I twist. He yowls.

I jump off him, fist punched up, and do a mini victory lap.

“I won’t be able to breastfeed now,” E whines from the ground.

“Serves you right.” I help him up, the two of us dusting grass off our clothes. “I can’t believe what a dick you are.”

“Since when can’t you take a joke?”

“Since every moment with Maggie is a balancing act, like I’m one wrong move from losing her.”

We stand together, far enough from the girls that they can’t hear us. They’re having their own private gossip session, stealing glances at us while whispering to each other.

E slaps my back. “She’s smitten. When women do the whisper thing with their friends, it means they have feelings. Big feelings they can’t say out loud yet.”

“Yeah, well. Maggie’s big feelings are wrapped in bigger feelings, and those bigger feelings have feelings of their own. Suffice it to say, convincing her to trust herself with me isn’t straightforward.”

“And yet you’re still crazy for her.”

I let out a roughened grunt. There isn’t much else to say.

E picks a dead leaf out of his hair and flicks it on the ground. “Are you dreading our family meeting as much as I am?”

“Nothing good will come out of the tell-all. Also…” I haven’t shared the details of Dad’s bank account with any of them yet. Dealing with them all at once seemed like an easier prospect than getting hit with random buckshot at different times. Except E’s the most sensitive of us. He’ll understand why I shut down after that reunion. Why I’m still struggling to decide whether I should use Dad’s book money to buy my house.

He squints at me. “If you want to share in the sharing circle before you’re faced with Desmond’s wrath, I’m all ears.”

“Probably the smart move,” I say, suddenly antsy to unload the drama.

I give him the truncated version of the meeting with Dad and his brutal apology: Raymond S. Bower only caring about himself, the money we now have, my issues using it, and the text I haven’t answered, skipping the part where he cheated on Mom. I don’t have the stomach to watch E get extra angry while in the middle of an interrupted date.

He shifts on his feet and kicks at the grass. “Our father really is a piece of work.”

“He’s something, all right.”

“As far as the money goes, I have no qualms using his cash.”

“None at all?”