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I groaned. Did I say she fought dirty? She fought fucking dirty. I reached behind me and opened my passenger door. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it. Get in.”
TWENTY-TWO
Evie
We drove for a while in silence, and when we got to the edge of the suburbs, Nick pulled in to the parking lot of a strip mall and took out his phone. “I have to text him,” he said. “Andrew doesn’t like surprises.”
He flipped through his phone, keyed a few words. Fuck, he was good-looking. It was ridiculous. Wearing one of his worn t-shirts, this one dark green, a black ball cap on his head, pulled down halfway over his eyes. Jeans with a hole in one knee. When he bent to his phone, I could only see the scruff of his jaw and his beautiful mouth. I wanted to lick the taut skin of his forearm and then jump him, hard.Come back to my place and fuck me.What kind of black magic words were those? Because I almost did it. He had no idea how close I came. How close I still was.
He waited a second, rubbing his lower lip absently while my insides clenched, watching him.Be strong, Evie.Right. There was no point in just going back to his place and fucking his brains out all afternoon. That would be counterproductive. Right?
The phone bonged a reply, and Nick put it down. “All right,” he said. “He wants to meet you. He says we can come.”
I felt a little nervous at that. Were we meeting the Pope? For the first time, it occurred to me that Nick’s brother might have something wrong with him. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he had intellectual problems, or physical ones. Maybe he was mentally ill. In short, maybe Nick had good reason for keeping strangers away, and I was only intruding by insisting I had a right to barge in.
But it was too late now, and besides, Nick had agreed—and so had Andrew. So I sat quiet while he drove the rest of the way, through a suburb that looked a lot like Mom’s. “Is there anything I should know?” I asked finally.
“Sure,” Nick said. “He’s grumpy and sort of an asshole.”
“So he’s like you then, except you’re totally an asshole.”
He grunted. “You’ll see.”
We pulled into a driveway, and I saw the telltale ramp that led up to the porch instead of stairs. Oh, shit. Maybe I was the asshole here.
“My mother isn’t mad at you anymore,” I said when he put his hand on the door handle.
Nick looked at me. “What?”
“After you left, I told her that you were a jerk, but you were right. She does make me feel bad. Trish, too. We had it out. She ended up listening. We’ve talked on the phone a few times.” I shrugged. “Things are going to be okay, I think.”
His gaze on me was hard. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I thought you should know. That’s why I was texting you.” I put my hand on my own door handle. “Let’s go.”
He led me to the porch, where he waved at a security camera and there was a buzz in response. He opened the front door and brought me in to a house like a million others, except not. Where the living room should be was a room full of computers and screens, and in the middle of it was Nick’s brother.
I was surprised again. The ramp had made me think I was going to see someone helpless and sick, but that was an assumption. A stupid, clueless one. Andrew Mason was in a wheelchair, but he was good-looking and vital and strong. He had turned his chair to face the living room doorway so he could watch us come in. He was wearing a faded Hornets sweatshirt, so worn it could have come from Nick’s own wardrobe, and jeans, with socks on his feet. His hands were folded in his lap, the fingers interlaced, as if he was making an attempt to look polite.
But it was his face that struck me. He was Nick’s mirror image, except he was thinner and probably a few years older. His hair slightly darker, his jaw clean-shaven. But no one with eyes could mistake them for anything but brothers. It was like looking at Nick if his life had been different. I stood frozen for a second, shocked at the resemblance.
Then Andrew smiled, a wide smile I’d never seen on Nick, and he looked like a different person. “It’s the redhead!” he said.
I blinked.
“Oh, shit,” Nick said behind my shoulder. “Here we go.”
“The redhead?” I asked.
Andrew unlaced his hands and held one out. “Andrew Mason,” he said. “Nick’s older brother and possibly his greatest nemesis. Nice to meet you.”
“Evie Bates,” I said, shaking his hand. His was big and impossibly strong. “Nice to meet you, too. I’m really sorry to interrupt.”
“Interrupt what?” Andrew looked around. “I’m not doing anything. Fucking around on the computer, like I always do. I think”—he pressed his hands together, like prayer, then pressed his fingertips against his chin thoughtfully—“yes. I think you are the best-looking woman who has ever entered this house. Donna who helps me on Thursdays is an attractive lady, but she’s been married for twenty-five years and she always wears Crocs. You have her beat on footwear alone.”
I didn’t know if he was joking, or if I was supposed to laugh, so I said, “Thanks.”
“Shit, have a seat,” Andrew said, turning in his chair and pushing a pile of papers and debris off an old sofa. “Do you want coffee? Nick will make you coffee.”
