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She grins, with a glint in her eye. “I think you should stick with Kelly.”
“Only if we call you Fi,” Kellan says to Cleo. He waggles his eyebrows.
Barrett frowns, and Cleo puts a hand to her forehead. “Y’all’s dad heard Kellan call me Cle.”
“He called her Fi, and then Fiona.” Kellan shakes his head. “Dad says to have you call him, Bear.”
“You talking to that jackass?”
Kellan quirks an eyebrow. “He’s talking to me.”
Kellan sticks his hands into his pockets, looking cold—or awkward. Cleo gives me a ‘hi, other outsider’ kind of look, then looks at her boots and mumbles, “He is a jackass, though.”
I nod, my eyebrows arched in what I hope is neutral-curious fashion. Until I notice her brown boots. Then my mouth falls open just a little. “Nice boots. I like the little fringey things.”
“Marc Fisher.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“Yours are awesome, too,” she says. “Kors?”
“Yep.”
She smiles brightly. “I like you. I think we could do some damage in a shoe shop.”
Kellan puts an arm around Cleo’s shoulders, fixing Barrett with an exaggerated, brain numb kind of look, which is actually hilarious. I giggle, and Kellan raises a brow. Damn, he’s charming. He’s got this sort of…rakish vibe about him. Where Barrett is so quiet and mysterious, Kellan has this swagger…
“So,” he blinks at Bear. “You guys want to go get breakfast?”
“Sure.” Barrett looks at me, and I nod. He steps out of the doorwa
y and I move past him to lock the door.
“Cleo wants a breakfast burrito,” I hear Kellan say from behind me. Barrett’s hand strokes up my neck, sifting in my hair and making me shiver. The touch is brief and soft, a kind of touching base, I think.
I turn around, door locked behind me, and he folds his big hand around mine.
“I said I’d do waffles, too. Like Waffle House,” Cleo is saying. “Mmm, I’ve been missing me some Waffle House.”
And this is how it happens that, two hours later, the four of us are talking over napkin-covered plates and half-drained sodas at the nearest grease palace. Cleo and I are seated across from one another by the window, talking about Lularoe leggings and being from the South, and whispering about her and Kellan’s covert business—which is insane. And incredible.
“So you’re like the king and queen of…?” I mouth the “M” and “J” silently because I’m too nervous to say it aloud in public even though Cleo just told me the story herself in murmurs.
Long story short: the two of them get medical marijuana to cancer patients in states where it isn’t legal yet. At one point, they financed the venture by dealing to college students, but now, since Kellan got his bone marrow transplant, some of their friends are overseeing that part of their operation, while Kelly and Cleo live in California, by the ocean.
Cleo smiles at my question. “Maybe more like Robin Hood and Little John.”
I laugh, and Barrett’s arm settles around my shoulders.
“So wait up…how’d you guys meet?” Kellan cuts in, looking from Bear to me. I see his eyebrows quirk as his gaze settles on his brother.
Barrett squeezes my shoulder and smirks down at me. “Gwenna laid me out.”
Kellan and Cleo look from him to me, smiling expectantly. When Barrett doesn’t supply deets, Kellan lays his big palm on the table, leaning forward.
“All right Bear, what did you do?” At the same time Cleo tells me, “I’m impressed.” She shoots me a look of wonder. “Barrett is a badass.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” I give Bear a guilting look, earning a smirk. “I was working out in the woods early one morning and he scared me. I attacked.”
