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Lexie
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I squeezed my eyes closed.
Please tell me he hasn’t found where we live.
I crept to the peephole and peered through.
“Who is it?” Eric whisper-hissed.
I screamed.
Eric screamed.
“Lexie,” Lincoln shouted.
“Lincoln!” Eric yelled back. He muscled around me and opened the door. “You’re here.”
Had he known he was coming?
“Why were you both screaming?”
I threw up my hands. “Still no hello.”
“I scared Sis.” Eric was brighter than he had been since the run-in with my father that afternoon. “Then she scared me.”
I may not be pleased to see Lincoln, but if he had this effect on my brother, I’d take it.
He made a satisfied noise. “What are you wearing?”
I looked down at my pajamas. Flannel pants and a fluffy white sweatshirt that looked like it was made out of cotton balls. Oh, and two socks that didn’t match.
“My relaxing outfit.” I blocked his path inside. “If you’re going to be ugly, you and your insults can turn right back around and go.” I’d reached my limit for dealing with nastiness for the day.
“I’m here for strawberry ice cream.”
I blinked up at him. Without my heels, he was a head taller than me. Stress lines radiated from his eyes and mouth. And while he still looked like the same beautiful put-together man he always was, something about him was tired. Like he’d taken one too many punches today.
“You’re in luck. We only ate most of it.” I moved to the kitchen, grabbed the carton from the freezer, and slid it across the counter. Stop noticing how good-looking Beau’s brother is, Lexie.
He looked at it as if he wasn’t sure what to do.
I offered him a spoon. “No need for a bowl when that’s all that’s left.”
Our fingers brushed when he took it. We might both be exhausted, but the electricity that zapped through me at his touch was full of life and fire.
While I tingled, he didn’t seem to notice the shock and dug straight into the ice cream.
Good to know. My ice cream is more appealing than I am.
Probably was for the best anyway. I only had room for one man in my life and that space was already occupied.
“We missed you at dinner.”
Lincoln hesitated at Eric’s words. They weren’t malicious. They weren’t a reminder of a transgression. My brother simply meant what he’d said.
I imagined for people who weren’t used to that kind of genuineness it was hard to process and accept. And it made it difficult for me to give Lincoln a piece of my mind for standing us—mostly Eric—up. He had a phone and I was pretty sure he knew how to use it. How hard would it have been to send a text? Lincoln should be thanking my brother that I wasn’t chewing him out right about now.
