AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“About what?”
“Well, about them talking about your family like that. I mean, I don’t know if I’d like it if my marriage was put in the paper with a heavy insinuation that it’s arranged.”
“You’d mind, because it wouldn’t be true.”
She shifts in my arms, turns over on her back. “It’s true?”
“True enough.” My brother had known Delia his whole life. So had I, for that matter, and my opinion hasn’t changed much since I’d met her at sixteen. “But how my brother chooses to live his life isn’t any of my business.”
“Are you close?”
“Isaac and I?” I ask, as if there’s a third brother she might be referring to. Buying me some time. I look down at my hand, smoothing over her flat stomach, circling her navel.
“Yes,” she says.
“We used to be close when we were younger. It was us against our parents. Now we live pretty different lives.” Not to mention I’ve been an ass around everyone who isn’t Summer for the past two years.
It’s pitiful how unused I am to having these conversations. Any conversation, really, that requires me to respond in more than monosyllables.
“Are you going to the wedding?”
“Yeah.”
She nods, looking down at my hand. Covering it with her own and slipping her fingers through mine. “Families can be tricky. Friendships, too.”
Does she have a sixth sense for when I need her to drop a subject? Because she manages every damn time.
“Yes. Well, not if you’re Summer Davis, and your parents are the ideal representation of true love, raising puppies for a living.”
She bursts out laughing and I prop myself up on my elbow, enjoying the show. Freckles decorate her nose, courtesy of the summer sun. “You make me sound like I have little birds helping me dress in the morning.”
“Don’t you?” I ask. “No, don’t tell me. You would’ve, if domestic cats hadn’t decimated their populations.”
She bursts out laughing and I move my hand up across her ribs, tickling. Summer doubles up, shrieking.
Ace looks up from his sprawl on the couch opposite ours. Cocks his head.
“I’m just teasing your owner,” I tell him, trying to keep a grip on a squirming Summer.
“No, he’s not,” she shrieks. “He’s torturing me. Help, Ace!”
The golden puts his head down with a sigh. He’s over our antics.
“No help is coming.”
Summer pleads for mercy, finding my lips with her own. My hand smooths out on her skin. “Peace,” she murmurs.
“Peace,” I agree.
But then she slips out of my grasp and bounces away across her living room, a triumphant smile on her face. “Success!”
“Damn your wiles, woman.”
She laughs and takes the few steps toward the kitchen. Opens her fridge. “Do you want a refill?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“I was actually thinking,” she says, opening the half-drunk bottle of wine, “about this weekend.”
