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“Here’s a less smelly idea,” she offered. “Why don’t you just tell her you like her?”
My stomach pitched at the question. The bitter taste of panic filled my mouth, and a cold chill raced over my suddenly too hot body.
The visceral fear of exposure always left me thinking I was going to be physically sick whenever anyone mentioned my feelings toward a certain person.
So I lifted my chin astutely and announced, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh really?” Bella sniffed at me before turning her attention to Trick and Fox and asking, “So who’s Bentley on a date with tonight?”
“Ridgely Thornberger,” Fox answered immediately.
“Ridgely?” Bella wrinkled her nose. “Eww. Then more power to you guys. Ruin that date. I don’t want his perviness hanging around any of our family functions either. He dropped a book in front of me last month, for the sole purpose of trying to get me to bend over in front of him when I picked it up.”
“What?” Gracen spun to her in outrage. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that? I would’ve knocked the shit out of him.”
Bella merely shrugged. “I just now remembered it.”
“Hey, why don’t you two get your sweet revenge on him now and come help us sabotage this date?” Trick asked, running up to the edge of the deck and climbing it. “It’ll be fun,” he added as he wrapped his arms around both his cousins’ heads in a strange group hug that had Bella and Gracen crying out in protest and squirming away from him.
“Because we actually have lives,” Gracen answered, patting his hair back into place.
“Why are you two helping him is the better question?” Bella asked, glancing between Trick and Fox as she straightened her shirt.
Trick just grinned. “What, and pass up an opportunity to cause mischief and mayhem? Never.”
Bella sniffed and glanced toward Fox. “And you? What’s your excuse?”
Fox pressed a hand to his heart. “Why can’t I just be concerned about my sister hooking up with a total jerk face?”
“Meh.” Bella shook her head. “I’m not buying it. What’s your real motive?”
“Self-preservation,” he immediately revised. “Beau’s going to be my brother-in-law someday, and I need to get on his good side now, or he might
play one of these shitty pranks on me.”
My heart stuttered at the term brother-in-law, and that same anxious, sick, but hopeful feeling swept over me again, taking control of my senses until I could return to normal and send Fox a scowl before smacking him on the back of the head with my free hand.
“Cut it out,” I muttered. “I am not going to be your brother-in-law.”
“Yeah,” Bella concurred, nodding at Fox. “He’d actually have to stop being an asshole to her and do something nice so she’d stop hating his guts for that to ever happen.”
“Hey, I’m not a—”
But no one was listening to me. Fox was too busy challenging Bella. “Five bucks says they end up married. Before they’re twenty-one.”
“Oh, you’re on.” As she leaned down off the deck railing, Bella held out a hand to shake with him.
Gracen lifted his own hands, palms out, and backed away slowly. “Count me out of this wager. I say it could go absolutely either way.”
“If you all are done betting over stupid things now,” I said dryly, beginning to sweat over the mere idea of being married to Bentley in less than three years. “Can we go? They could be back any second, and this shit stinks to high heaven.”
“They left, like, only fifteen minutes ago,” Fox argued, even as he backed away from the deck and turned to follow me. Trick hopped off the edge of the deck to fall into step beside him, and we waved goodbye to the Lowe twins before carrying on our way.
“Yeah, that would be the worst date ever if he was already bringing her back home now,” Trick agreed.
“All the more reason for us to be ready,” I argued. “Because he’d really deserve this if the date went that wrong.”
“God, you have it bad, don’t you?” Trick teased.
