AllFreeNovel
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Back when we were kids, we'd hang out with his family all the time. But our sexual relationship didn't extend further than a few heated kisses in the old barn, so any public displays of affection in front of his siblings were limited to handholding and the occasional arm slung over my shoulder.
Crew may have once been used to seeing us together, but this is new territory for all of us. He eyes the hand Cole has resting on my bare thigh with mirth.
“I assume you two have worked your shit out, then?” Crew asks, pulling on his beer. “Fucked and made up, and all that.”
“Think the phrase is 'kissed and made up,” I correct.
He shoots me a wry look. “Looked like you were doing more than that to me.”
Cole curses something inaudible but definitely offensive under his breath and tightens his hold on me. His protectiveness has me concealing a small smile. It makes me feel safe. Cherished. Special.
Draining the last dregs of his beer, Crew slaps his knee and stands. “Anyway, lovebirds, we gotta get moving if we don't want an ass whooping.”
“Oh.” I jump off Cole's lap and turn to look at him. “Yeah, you should go.”
He assesses me with a furrowed brow, casting his gaze up and down my barely dressed body. I've stolen yet another one of his t-shirts and a pair of boxers, and they hang baggy and loose off me. “Why are you talking like you're not coming with us?”
“Because I wasn't invited.”
“And?”
“And it's rude to show up places without an invitation. Besides,” I sigh, “I didn't want to assume you'd want me to come with you just because we slept together.”
His jaw clenches. “Well, you were wrong. How quick can you get ready?”
It's impossible to hide the flush that warms my cheeks or the butterflies that erupt in my stomach. I feel like a teenager again with a crush on the boy in my homeroom, drawing love hearts in the margins of my school books and scratching his name into the walls of the girls' bathroom.
“Have I got time for a shower?”
“No,” Crew answers at the same time Cole nods his head.
It's the latter answer I take.
“Go,” he says. “But be quick.”
Fifteen minutes later, I'm washed and dressed in even more of Cole's clothes. Drenched in one of his hoodies that falls to mid-thigh, I've thrown on a pair of my own gym leggings, thick socks and boots. With my hair piled in a loose bun on top of my head, red tendrils hanging down around my face, I look more like I live on the streets than a penthouse apartment in Los Angeles.
Shabby chic, I'm calling it.
“You got that coat I gave you?” Cole asks when I meet him by the front door. He's got his hands tucked into the pockets of his dark jeans, a white Henley pulled tight over his muscles. He must have gotten dressed while I was in the shower.
Nodding, I pull it off the hook on the wall and wrap it around my shoulders.
“Good to go?” Crew asks, car keys dangling from his fingers.
At our nod, he opens the door and the three of us bundle into his car. Cole takes the front seat, telling me that while he'd love to be chivalrous and offer it to me, he doesn't trust his brother's driving and would feel safer with me in the back. That sparks a ten-minute diatribe about how Crew could've had a career in NASCAR if his parents hadn't needed his brute strength for tree surgery on the farm.
“It's all good, though,” he tells us as we slam to a stop outside the farmhouse. “Chicks love a lumberjack. Have you seen that dude on TikTok, the one who splits wood? The women in the comments go nuts for him.”
Cole chuckles, shaking his head. “You gonna start your own TikTok channel, bro?”
Crew shrugs nonchalantly. “I'm thinking about it.”
Laughing, Cole climbs out the car and rushes to open the door for me, holding out his hand for me to take. It's as if he's taken lessons from the chauffeurs who take me to red-carpet events. He's always been rough around the edges, rugged, even uncivil at times, but since I laid out the truth for him yesterday, he's been the kind of gentleman I've only seen in movies about princes and princesses.
I put my hand in his and let him pull me from the car and into his body. His hand snakes around my waist, drawing me closer to him and I blink up at him, feeling suddenly shy. It occurs to me for the first time since Crew mentioned the cookout that, while this might not be the first time I'm meeting Cole's family, it's the first time they've seen us together since I broke his heart.
Although, I'm not even sure that's what we are.
