Page 45 of More Than My Hometown

She stops short, the smile on her face slamming on its brakes faster than a car who just passed a cop while going sixty in a thirty.

“Milo Jasper Hayes!”

“Oh, triple named!” Anton exclaims from across the room.

“It’s funny!” Milo defends. “Brenna bought it for me.”

Miss Belle turns to Brenna, wide-eyed at first, like she can’t believe that this beautiful young woman would ever do such a thing. Then, a split second later, she softens, knowing exactly who her child is, and that he found his perfect match in said brunette.

“For the love of all things, you two…” She sighs. “Just do not wear it any place that someone will see.”

Milo shrugs, as if he may or may not heed our mother’s warning.

“Cummins Cider. They related to Dickens Cider?” Jace asks, pushing up off the couch and walking over to the fridge.

I grab a couple of Cokes, handing him one, then cross the kitchen to join Maisey. Without thinking, my smart-ass response bubbles up.

“All part of the same pub crawl.”

“Oh!” Milo exclaims, giving me a high five. We laugh, the two of us already able to feel our mother’s eyes rolling behind us, tired of our shenanigans.

“A pub crawl you’ve never been on,” Anton quips.

Shots fired.

I freeze, a sharp chill shooting down my back at my older brother’s clapback. As the instigator of the family, Anton’s always been right there to push everyone’s buttons and have some kind of comment about something. Very little is off-limits when it comes to what he won’t tease us about, but in the months since he met Sawyer, he’s toned it down quite a bit. Part of me likes to think it’s because he’s grown up some, or maybe it’s that he learned his lesson after losing the bet that his stupid mouth got him into in the first place.

Then he does something like this.

A hush falls over the room, no one seeming to know how to react to that comment. No, that’s not true—they’re all waiting on me. So I do the only thing I can think of.

I flip him the bird. With both hands.

It’s a cliché response, but it’s all I got right now. The rest of me is too busy trying to tamp down an insecurity I didn’t realize I had. Something that hadn’t even occurred to me to be worried about. Until now.

I swallow hard, maintaining my outward composure so that no one has any idea that internally I’m a little freaked out. That a perfectly normal, brotherly insult would send me reeling.

I look to Maisey, our eyes locking, and that’s when I see it—her question.

Shit.

Despite what my brother’s comeback implies, I’m not totally inexperienced. My list of experiences and partners is just short. Really, really short. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Unless the woman you love has been all over the world and potentially has had all sorts of international lovers who probably know a myriad of incredible sex tricks you don’t.

Maybe I didn’t blow her mind as much as I thought this morning…

“You’re not really my type,” he replies, pulling me back into the moment.

“Knock it off. What’d he do to you?” Sawyer smacks him with the back of her hand, before giving Maisey a nod.

I smile, liking that those two have already formed a bond. Rounding the counter, I hand Maisey her Coke, the insecure voice in my head still whispering away. My sexual history was never going to be a secret from her—I don’t plan to have any secrets when it comes to Maisey—but it had never occurred to me until this moment that I might not live up to her expectations.

I turn to go join my brothers on the couch, but Maisey grabs my wrist, stopping me. Her brow furrows, those beautiful blue eyes going a shade deeper, as her mouth turns downward, her silent question as loud as can be. I shake my head, trying to just as silently communicate back to her that it’s nothing, but she’s not having it.

Tightening her grip on my wrist, she pulls me into her. “What did Anton mean?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head again. “He’s being Anton. That hasn’t changed either. Still an instigating shit.”