Page 19 of Off the Post

“Next up is Case Lyons.” Case glances up from his phone and gives me a wave. “You’ll be posing for March in the whole ‘in like a lion, out like a lamb’ theme.”

Tanner lets out a lion’s roar, and everyone laughs. My brother is such a crack-up. He didn’t inherit that trait from our father, though, who was always far too serious. That might be what led to his early death. He never laughed enough.

“Are you making him dress up like a lion or a lamb? It could be iconic,” Duncan suggests, holding his palms under his chin to frame his face as he bats his eyelashes.

I chuckle. “Nod a bad idea. I think we have both options available in wardrobe.”

“Or, ” Tanner pipes up enthusiastically, his fake white beard bobbing up and down as he speaks, “you could have the lamb and the wolf pictured together, the wolf devouring the lamb.”

Soren’s face turns to pure horror and Case shivers. “Jesus, Rossy. You’re a sick fuck.”

“What?” Tanner says incredulously, raising a shoulder as if befuddled by their pushback.

“Thanks for playing, big brother.” I snort, patting him on that same shoulder. “But our objective with this calendar is to raise money, not shock the donors. Why don’t you leave all the ideas to me?”

He drops his chin to his burly red chest in defeat. “Fine, fine. I’m just trying to help, eh.” Then his head pops up again and he snaps his fingers. “But how about in the scene with Ax, he’s not just chopping wood like a mountain man? Instead, there’s a bloody head on a stump and he’s a serial killer!”

The entire room groans and fills with expletives, and I stifle my laughter. My brother can sometimes be a weirdo. A scary one, at that.

“Alrighty then. I’ll go check on the scenes. Soren, you’re on deck.”

I walk out the door and turn to my left when I find that Soren has quietly snuck up behind me. Sneaky as a wolf.

“Oh, you startled me.” The green in his eyes has lightened exponentially from the more intense dark color I noticed earlier.

“Do you need something before we begin?”

His proximity to my body causes a visceral reaction. The tips of my nipples pebble against my bra and my tummy flutters with a strange sensation.

“You and Tanner… you are siblings, ja?”

The question throws me off-kilter, coming out of left field like it does.

I turn to look over my shoulder to where Tanner now sits on the floor playing with Thora, and I nod.

“Um, yeah? He’s my older half-brother.” I nervously tuck a stray curl of hair behind my ear. I guess I assumed everyone knew about the nepotism. But maybe it wasn’t a big deal to anyone but me.

I’m about to say more—when I get nervous, I have diarrhea of the mouth—but I don’t have a chance because Soren grunts something in a gruff mumble and then turns and walks away.

Again.

That man sure needs to learn a thing or two about ending a conversation the right way. Geesh.

10

Soren

Ali is Tanner’s sister?

Well, that certainly explains a few things. A sigh of relief expels from my lungs, allowing the inexplicable jealousy I’d felt to dissipate from my body. My shoulders relax at this new bit of knowledge. Tanner and Ali aren’t together in the sense I initially thought they were.

Why do I feel this way? I don’t even know Ali beyond our brief phone conversation last night and our short interactions today.

Yet there is this sizzling, wild energy that circles between us and draws me into her. At least, I feel it. I don’t know if Ali does, but it’s a magnetic force pulling me to her.

At the moment, I feel like a rag doll as I’m posed and positioned by the photographer, who was introduced to us all as Joelle. Anna and the kids left a little while ago to track down some breakfast and said they’d be back shortly. I was told to get dressed in a ski jacket and ski pants, which are very snug, and now I’m burning up, sweat beading and clinging to the middle of my back.

But it’s nothing like the heat I feel from Ali’s eyes on me. Each time I see her, those blue eyes quickly turn away, as if she’s avoiding my gaze.