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“Right, yeah.” He shrugged. “I might kick back with some games for a while. Maybe order a pizza.”
Our conversation was stilted, and Wes and I had been a lot of things over the years, but awkward was never one of them. I wasn’t a fan.
“Just don’t get any pineapple on that pizza,” I joked, “or I’ll have to kick you out of this house.”
Wes grinned, and something loosened in my chest. We could do this. Wecould.
“I wouldn’t want to call that bluff,” he said.
I went into my bedroom and tossed my duffel on top of my dresser against the wall. My neatly made queen-size bed looked inviting, but as soon as I stripped down to my underwear and crawled under the blankets, my mind wouldn’t shut off. A highlights reel of our time in Vegas played on repeat, making me burn with a mix of arousal and shame. How could I have let this happen?
I took out my phone, desperate for a distraction, but only ended up doom scrolling through the comments on the video we’d made. I had dozens of notifications from friends and coworkers. Most people really did seem to think we were full of shit. I’d never been so relieved to look like an idiot.
I pulled up a Google search and put in “divorce attorneys” and “Omaha.” No way I’d trust anyone in this little town not to blow our secret. Attorney-client privilege might exist, but it wouldn’t stop the questions from all the people who saw us visit their office.
Eventually I drifted off. When I woke, I stayed in my bedroom. Yes, I was officially hiding. I just needed some space and time…
Wes and I tiptoed around each other for the next day, until he rapped on my bedroom door Sunday evening.
“What’s up?” I called, trying to sound nonchalant, even as my heart pounded at the idea of seeing him again.
As if seeing my stepbrother, the man I saw on a daily basis and had foryears, was suddenly the most thrilling thing that could happen to me.
Wes poked his head in, doing me no favors by looking as gorgeous as ever with his stylishly messy hair and dark stubble along a strong jaw. My mouth watered at the sight.
“Hey, uh, Dad just called.”
Fuck. If the idea of seeing Wes had made my heart race, the thought of seeing Dad damn near gave me a heart attack.
Wes continued calmly, as if he wasn’t about to send me to my grave early with this shit. “He was trying to get us to come over for dinner tonight, and you know what that would mean.”
I grimaced. “He’s gonna tear us a new one.”
“Yeah, so uh…” Wes looked a little sheepish. “I panicked and made an excuse not to go.”
I exhaled with relief. “Well, that’s good, right?”
“Well, yeah. But my excuse was that we had trivia tonight.”
I winced. “So instead of facing Dad we have to face all our friends? Not to mention everyone in that pub?”
“I know, man. I’m sorry. But I figured the lesser of two evils, you know?”
“I guess we can’t avoid it forever.”
Although I had hoped to avoid it for more than a day and a half. I should have known better. Our lives here wouldn’t stop just because I needed time to wrap my head around what happened between Wes and me.
“Sorry. I should have come up with something else. I was just…”
“I get it,” I said. “He put you on the spot.”
Wes’s gaze dipped to my chest, reminding me that I was barely dressed. My skin prickled with awareness, and a flash of lust swept through me at the look in his eyes.
“No one’s here,” he said, his voice lowering in register, as if he knew exactly where my thoughts had turned. “It could be our secret.”
“We can’t,” I said quickly. “It’s going to be hard enough with what happened in Vegas. But that’s Vegas. It’s like another life, you know? Or a dream. It wasn’t this life, wasn’t this reality. It can’t be.”
His forehead creased in a frown. “If that’s how you want it.”
