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Barrett shakes his head, mock shaming. “Split my scar open.” He taps his head.
“His head is so hard, I bet she hardly even dented it.” Kellan grins at Barrett, who commandeers Kelly’s coffee cup and gives Kellan a funny, mock-threat look as he steals a long swallow.
“Ah, shit,” Barrett says as soon as he lowers the cup.
I frown, confused, as Kellan holds his palm out. “I was finished.” He smiles, and his eyes glide to me. He smiles at me, but it looks…strange. Not self-conscious? He seems too confident for that, but…
Cleo leans her head against his shoulder and changes the subject. “We went to the beach. I wish you guys had come, too. It was so amazing.”
Kellan kisses her temple. It reminds me so much of something Barrett would do, my stomach flips a little. “Not like we live on a beach or anything,” he teases.
“The Gulf is different,” Cleo argues. “White sand versus cliffs; hot, hot, gloriously hot sun versus the breeze. They’re all good, but man…”
“I get it,” I nod. “If you’re from the South, the Gulf is everything.”
“We live overlooking the beach,” Cleo tells me. “And it’s amazing. So beautiful and breezy. But we don’t get out that much. I’m finishing my degree online—” she jerks her thumb toward Kellan— “and he’s working on his MBA online, too. We are not about the party these days.”
Minutes glide past like an easy breeze. By the time we get up, almost an hour later, I feel like I’ve known Cleo for years. Kellan, too. He’s not quite as open as Cleo, but he’s really nice. Charming, too. I can see why Cleo likes him so much.
I ponder the difference in their backgrounds, even their childhoods, I’m sure, as we wait for the check. Kellan’s so much easier to read than Barrett. His manner with Cleo is more relaxed than Barrett’s is with me. More natural, or maybe just easier.
Of course, all that is changing…
The whole time we were eating, Barrett kept his left hand on my leg underneath the table, or his arm around me. As we walk back out to Kellan’s ride, a sleek, charcoal Porsche Cayenne Hybrid Kellan claims Cleo made him get—something about The Lorax—Barrett wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me up against him, so close we almost can’t walk without tripping. When I stop to laugh and look up at him, his lips feather over my cheek.
I hear laughing and turn to find Cleo and Kellan smirking at us as Kelly heads around to her side of the car, to get her door, I guess.
Barrett gets my door—he’s been schooled by Cleo; this is what a Southern girl expects, she told him—and he and I sit holding hands, my right leg and his left one intertwined, as we ride back toward home.
“So how’d you end up buying a house here, B.?” Kellan asks. “That seems random as hell.”
SIX
Gwenna
I look at Barrett. I can’t remember what he told me about this, or if I even asked.
He shrugs. “Knew an Operator friend from here. Said it was a good place. Noticed that it didn’t have a mixed martial arts place.”
Cleo turns around in her seat, looking excited. “So are you going to open one?”
Barrett lifts a shoulder. “Thought I’d look at space.”
“That’s awesome, man.” In the rear view mirror, Kellan’s eyes look warm and caring.
Barrett’s fingers squeeze mine slightly as he gives his brother a small smile. I’m starting to learn his smiles, and this one is the sad one. Or maybe I should think of it as the forced one. Like, he’s trying to be nice, lighthearted, but he feels unsure or unhappy, so it looks a little strained.
I squeeze his hand back, wondering what’s up with that.
“He taught me some new moves,” I tell Cleo and Kelly. “That’s kind of how we got to know each other.”
Barrett’s brows arch, and he smirks, his handsome face showing his dimples.
“It’s true.” I look from Kellan’s blue eyes, in the rear-view, to Cleo’s green ones; she’s mostly turned around in the passenger’s seat. “The kick was a bad first impression,” I say, smiling at Barrett. “I’ll admit that. But afterwards, I helped him clean his head up and I got a crush on him. Which of course, he didn’t know about.” I grin at him. My cheeks are so hot they almost hurt, but Barrett’s grin is real now, so it’s worth it. “He offered to show me some hand to hand moves since I have a weak ankle and am limited with kicks, and I told him if he did, I’d bake him cakes.”
“Gwenna has an advanced black belt in Taekwondo.” Barrett’s eyes slide from Cleo to me. His smile is soft and indulgent, and also proud.
“I love it.” Cleo nods, turning a little more in her seat. “So you guys could run the martial arts place together. Not that anyone is marrying you two off or anything… Pinning you together indefinitely, because you are such a cute couple. Definitely not me.”
