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“Come on!” Jax shouts as he joins the others. “We gotta go or we’re going to be late.”
“Boys!” Rain shouts. “Come say goodbye.”
The boys all run in like a herd of cats, jumping all over, laughing, and smiling at our parents as they wish them a good night and say their goodbyes.
Toby comes in, a smile on his face as if he wasn’t just shouting at his dad, and Theo comes in after him. They share a look before Theo says goodbye to the boys.
“Alright,” Toby starts when everyone leaves. “What do we wanna do?”
“Video games!” the twins shout at the same time.
“No,” Bennett groans. “We always play video games. Can’t we do something outside?”
“Pool!” they shout and beeline for the back.
“Are you okay with that?” I ask Bennett.
“Better than video games.” He shrugs.
“Dude. Are you okay?” Toby chuckles. “Nothing is better than video games.”
Bennett gives him a weird look then looks at me. “Do we still hate him?”
My eyes widen, and Toby’s face drops, hurt morphing his handsome features. “Bennett,” I hiss. “We never hated him. Ever.”
“Okay, fine, are we still mad at him?” he huffs, crossing his arms.
My eyes flick over to Toby, he too seems to wait for my answer. “No,” I finally confess after an intense moment. “We aren't.”
“Okay,” Bennett says wearily. He gives Toby a glare. “I’m still watching you, though.”
Bennett heads outside, and I let out a heavy sigh. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.” Toby moves to stand next to me as we watch the boys go into the pool house to get changed, and I pray the little shits don’t touch my stuff. “He’s protective of his big sister. He loves you. You're his best friend, I get it. I hurt you, therefore, he was mad at me. He had every right. But I meant it when I said I want things to change between us. Asking you to forget what happened was wrong and mean. I could never, and would never, forget it. I don’t want you to either, because that would mean it meant nothing when it did. It meant everything to me. But there's a lot of reasons, that I’m not going to go into right now, that led us to where we are. So can we start fresh? We will go as slow as you want. At least have a fun night with the goobers?”
“Deal.” It’s all I can say because this is not the right time to overthink things or get emotional.
SWIMMING WAS A BAD idea because for the last hour, I’ve been trying to keep my eyes off Toby. It’s hard, okay? He’s so damn hot, and his tattoos are actually really cool, and well... they are even better because of the person they are on and, ugh!
“You got a little drool there,” Bennett teases. My eyes snap away from Toby and over to him.
“Bennett!” I huff out a disbelieving laugh.
“I don’t see how our parents haven’t seen it yet.” He shakes his head and goes back to reading his book.
“Rain knows.” I sigh, my attention going to check on the twins. Toby is playing with them, tossing them around in the pool.
“Rain knows a lot of things,” Bennett replies. “I love the Dads and Mom, but... there’s just something about Rain. It’s like how I feel with you. I can tell her anything and I don’t feel like I’m talking to a parent, but a friend.”
“It’s the same for me.” I smile over at him. “But then she turns on mama mode when need be.”
“Yeah.” He nods. “She can be scary.”
We both burst out laughing. “Want to order some pizza?” I ask.
“Yes!” he says excitedly, slamming his book shut. “Mom has been on this weird healthy food kick, and we’re all dying over here.”
“Well, damn, I’m glad I’m not here then.” I laugh.
