Spence is leaning against the counter between my sisters, and his gaze finds mine as I enter the kitchen, sharp and assessing, quietly questioning. I give him a tiny smile, and some of the tension in his shoulders relax, before his gaze goes back to Ruby. It happens so quickly, I don’t think any of my family notices, but then I see the smile Mama is hiding in her lemonade.
It makes my stomach sink. I just came home and she’s so fucking happy—and I’m lying to her.
Ruby smacks me, jerking me out of my thoughts. “Give me a hug, dammit,” she snaps, ignoring my glare and pulling me into her.
My older sister is five inches shorter than me, and weighs maybe one-thirty soaking wet, but she’s all strength and demands, and I learned a long time ago that it’s best to go where Ruby directs and let the rest of the world flow around us.
So I hug her tight and she makes a quiet, happy sound in my ear that we’ll both ignore when she pulls away, but for a second, I bask in the too big hug of my first friend and bully and co-conspirator, the only person beyond my mother I’ve had my whole life.
“‘Bout fucking time you got here,” she grumbles, releasing me and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before ducking back to the stove.
“Ruby,” Mama says, voice just slightly disproving, and I grin.
“Where’s Violet?” I ask, and Ruby’s face goes dark. I’ve been fielding texts all week from Ruby, who has been dealing with our baby sister’s increasingly demanding wedding requests, and apparently it’s reaching a fever pitch.
“She didn’t like my cake,” Ruby snarls, aggressively stirring the chili con carne.
“Don’t ask, baby,” Mama says, “Why don’t you take Spence up to your room and get settled? Lunch will be about ten minutes.”
I nod, and Spencer hops down and starts for the door.
“We’re gonna talk about that,” Mama adds, serene, and we both freeze. I hear Ruby snicker, and I shove Spence out of the kitchen before either can start the conversation I’m already dreading.
Chapter 9
WHEN I WAKE UP, I can’t remember where I am. The room looks strange but familiar, and there’s the comfortable warmth of Spence pressed against my back, the reassuring sound of his weezy snores in my ear, and I don’t put it together immediately.
Then I hear Ruby’s voice in the hallway, loud and ringing, and I’m thrown back to when I was in high school and my sister was the obnoxious alarm clock that woke me every day. In that small moment between waking and hearing her, I realize where I am.
It hasn’t been bad, being home. Ruby was pissy about Violet and the wedding, and her ranting kept Mama distracted through a late lunch. I dragged Spence out to show him the ranch before either could corner one of us to demand all the details of our new relationship.
And it’s gone just as well, being on the ranch. Showing it to my best friend is like seeing it for the first time, experiencing it anew with him. There’s something intoxicating about the way his eyes light up and the grin he gives me, delighted as he teased me about being a cowboy.
The only hitch yesterday was after dinner, while Spence took a call from Cara and I strummed idly on the guitar I found in my bedroom. Mama said, quietly, “You’re good together, Ethan. Better than I thought, and I always suspected you’d be perfect together.”
I swallowed down the guilt, ignored how it made me want to blurt out the truth, and just smiled at her until she kissed me goodnight, lips twisted in a smile as they pressed against my forehead.
Even sharing my room—my bed—with Spence isn’t bad. We’ve lived with each other for enough time that sleeping in close quarters has long since lost it’s magic. So falling into bed next to him, tired and anxious, was comfortable. I barely heard his whispered, “G’night, E,” before I was asleep.
It’s different, waking up next to him here, though.
It’s cozy, the room and the man, and I twist my head, looking at him. He’s sleeping still, his lashes long and soft against the swell of his cheek, his mouth open and lips dry. There’s a pillow crease on his cheek and I thumb it gently, before I sigh and push myself up.
“Ethan,” Spence slurs, still more asleep than not. He moves in bed, toward the empty space where my body heat lingers, and I try very hard not to think about what that means.
“Go back to sleep,” I whisper. He hums contentedly, burrowing into the pillow as I stand and slip out of the bedroom. I duck into the bathroom I used to fight with Ruby over, and brush my teeth while willing my erection down, because I’m not going to breakfast with my sisters with a goddamn boner.
I have to remind myself that no matter how tempting, going back to bed and curling up around Spencer isn’t even an option.
Ruby is alone in the kitchen, beating something in a big silver bowl into submission. She flashes me a quick grin as I enter, nodding at the counter. “Coffee’s still hot. Muffins in the oven. I’ll have breakfast ready in about forty five minutes, if you wanna wake your boy up.”
“Family breakfast?” I ask, a little startled. We usually only break those out for special occasions.
Although, Violet getting married probably qualifies.
“Vi will be here with Danny in an hour. It seemed like a good choice.”
“Mama in the barns?” I ask, taking a sip of coffee and reaching for an apron.
Ruby nods, brushing a strand of hair out of her face.“Start the pork chops,” she says decisively, and turns back to her banana bread. “I’ll do the eggs and hash as soon as this goes in.”
We settle into a familiar rhythm, moving around each other with ease, even after all these years apart. But Ruby was the one who taught me to cook in the first place, so it’s not terribly surprising to realize that it’s muscle memory to work in the kitchen with her.
“Do we like him?”
“Danny?” Ruby asks, eyebrow rising. “Didn’t Spence tell you about him?”
“I want to know what you think,” I say patiently, testing a porkchop.
“He’s . . . I think he’s good for her, like Spence is good for you.”
I groan a little.
Pleased with herself, she smiles. “When did that happen, baby brother?”
I shrug, feigning nonchalance. “A month ago?”
Ruby stares at me, eyes wide and a little bit hurt. “A month? Ethan, you’ve been dating him a whole month and you didn’t mention it? We talk every fucking day.”
I keep my eyes on the porkchops, on the bubbling oil.
“I—it was new. I didn’t want to break it.”
“Telling me would break it?” she says, and ok, yeah, bad word choice. That was definitely hurt in her voice. “Christ, Ethan.”
“It was my fault, Ruby.”
I startle, badly, and twist to see Spencer there, sleep tousled, hair a mess, wearing one of my t-shirts.
“It was new, and I just—I didn’t want to tell anyone. We haven’t told my dad either. Only Cat knows.”
His voice is so sincere, his eyes wide and earnest, and the shy smile he sends my way makes my heart jerk, hard.
He’s selling this so goddamn well I’m buying it.
“You know,” Ruby says slowly, “this isn’t exactly unexpected.” I go still and tense, and Spence pauses in the middle of getting his coffee. Ruby doesn’t see it—she’s too busy pouring batter for the banana bread—but I do.
“Good,” he says, after that second-too-long pause, grinning as he turns back to her. “Then you shouldn’t mind waiting a few extra weeks to find out, if you were already expecting it.”
“I just—you know I’m happy for you, right?” she asks, once the bread is safely in the oven. Her eyes are bright and slightly worried, like this matters to her for some reason.
Spencer’s shoulders relax a little and he smiles at her, the bright, uncomplicated smile I love most on him. “Yeah, Rubes. We know.”
***
The day passes faster than I expect. Violet shows up and for a second, looking at her, I forget all
the years that have passed, all the reasons I stayed away, because my baby sister is bouncing up to me, grinning and beautiful and already bickering with Ruby.
Danny is quieter, easy to ignore in the background, and I find myself near him when Violet screams and throws herself at Spencer.
“They’re friends,” Danny says, a smile in his voice as he watches her.
There’s a quiet devotion in him that makes my last reservations settle—if Mama, Ruby, and Spence like him, and he watches Violet like she hung the moon, then I can tolerate this man slipping into our family and Violet’s life.
It’s when we’re sitting at dinner that Violet looks at me, and says, voice a sharp demand, “You’re going to come with us tonight, right?”
I raise an eyebrow and her smile goes sly. “A bunch of us are going to Austin for the night. You have to come.”
I feel Spence tense next to me and I glance at him.
Spencer loves my sisters. He always has, from the first time I dragged him to go skiing with us the week after Christmas. And he’d love this. But he leans towards me, pitches his voice low, and says, “We can stay home, big guy. I don’t mind.”
I can feel all of my family watching and Spencer’s quiet waiting, and I know it’s a bad idea.
Hours of Spencer, dressed for clubbing, dancing—it’s the worst thing I can possibly think of right now.
“Sure,” I say, smiling slightly, “When do we leave?”
***
By the time we reach the club, I know I am well and truly fucked.
To be fair, I knew that when Spence emerged from the bathroom in the skinny jeans and ripped up white t-shirt he wears when we perform, his eyes lightly lined and hair a perfectly tousled mess I wanted to sink my hands into. Spending almost an hour pressed up next to him in the backseat of Ruby’s truck—it’s a special brand of torture.
Spence leans into me, his arm a warm weight around my waist, grinning as we follow Ruby into the club—so fucking bright he’s almost blinding. For the first time since we started this whole damn charade, I’m grateful for it.
When I touch him—and I couldn’t keep my hands off him if I fucking tried, and I’m definitely not trying—no one says anything. Spencer only tilts a sly smirk in my direction as he gives our order to the waitress and leans back into me.
“You should dance,” Ruby yells over the music.
“I’ll watch the table,” I say, and Spencer’s hand slides up my thigh, short circuiting my brain. His smile has a hint of begging and promise of filth, and Jesus fuck, I want to see that look in his eyes when he’s naked in my bed.
“I’ll watch the table,” Ruby laughs, and shoves me lightly. “Go dance.”
Spence grins at me, and I shrug. His smile goes wide, and he pulls me from the booth, bouncing on his toes as he drags me to the dance floor.
I’ve seen Spencer dance before. He does it on stage at gigs, this sexy shake that drags in the audience and makes me fumble my rifts.
I’ve seen him dance at the Wolfden, a mouthwatering bump and grind with Cat and Peter and pretty sorority girls who giggled and hung all over him.
I’ve seen him dancing, spastic and carefree and happy, around our kitchen and Christmas tree, a happy dance in his desk chair when he’s figured something out, a mocking dance with Cat around the yard under the dark summer sky.
I’ve seen him dance a thousand times, in a hundred situations.
But this—this is a different kind of dance.
This is him pressed too close, knocking down every boundary and barrier I’ve ever put in place, his hips moving in a sexy roll that makes me groan and drop my head, bury my face in his neck and grip his hips too tight.
I match him, move for move, the slow dirty grind that makes my dick pulse, hide my face in his neck, and if I moan, if I make hitching hungry noises, it’s swallowed up in the music and his skin, and no one but me knows.
His hands are in my hair, tugging and teasing, and I lose myself in this, in him, in the feel of him pressed so close I can’t tell where he ends and I begin, in the music that’s so loud it feels like a shield, holding us in a cocoon, a world away from everything else.
He’s blinding and bright when he smiles at me, so alive it hurts—and I don’t think.
I kiss him, a hand on the curving arch of his throat as he twists to smile at me, the other splayed over his hip. I nudge him when his rhythm falters, keep his hips moving as I lick into his mouth, swallowing that tiny gasp, taking the taste of him. He makes a noise I feel against my hand on his neck, my lips on his, and I groan an answer, bite at him as he shifts towards me.
Someone slams into my back and I reel, stumbling a step before Spence braces me. He blinks up at me, his mouth wet and swollen, eyes dazed.
“Ethan? Fucking Ethan Henry?”
I blink and tear my eyes away from Spencer, the last damn thing I want to do. Two guys and a tiny blonde are staring at me, one grinning broadly. Spence moves against my grip and I shift to reel him into my side even as I smile at the three strangers who look vaguely familiar.
They’re chattering at me, about school and Mason and football, and I put together that I’m supposed to know them, even manage to fill in a few gaps in conversation with where I’ve been for the past decade. The blonde keeps stealing glances at Spence, who’s pressed tight and quiet to my side. I smile awkwardly at them, finally able to get a word in,, and nudge Spence into motion. “We gotta find my sisters,” I shout apologetically, and they let us slide past.
Spence pulls away from me, and I catch him by the wrist. He doesn’t pull away, but I can feel the tension vibrating through him as he tugs me through the club. Ruby is curled in the lap of someone who looks like a male model, and she gives me a smug smirk when I drag Spence into the booth after me. He’s leaning into me, but I can tell the difference now—there’s a tenseness to him that wasn’t there before.
He’s acting again, and he doesn’t seem to give a fuck if he’s actually selling the lie.
My stomach twists, and I take his weight, listening to him laughing with Ruby and hoping like hell I didn’t fuck everything up.
He’s still animated and engaged, chattering at Ruby as Violet dances with Danny, but it’s different. He’s different. He’s not as comfortable, and when we get to the car, he’s tense and distant as we drive home. I reach for him and his eyes dart to me, sharp and hurt, and I jerk back, stung.
I can still taste him on my lips, the sweat and sweet flavor of Spencer, and he’s staring at me like I’m a goddamn stranger. It makes me want to pull my hair out.
I sit on my side of the truck while he nods off against the window, his face softening in sleep. I let myself watch him like that, as Ruby drives and his face is briefly lit by the passing road lights.
When we bump down the drive toward the Henry house, I shift, and she looks back at me. “You want to wake him?”
“Go on, Ruby. I’ll take care of him.”
She nods and slides out of truck. I pull Spence out of the cab and half carry him upstairs. I’m not drunk enough to stumble, which is why it’s definitely his lips against my throat that makes me almost fall on my ass and send us both toppling down the stairs.
“Spence? Buddy?”
He hums against my skin, and I shiver.
Ignoring it as much as possible, I carry him the rest of the way upstairs and dump him in my bed. He huffs a little, a petulant little noise that kicks right in my gut, and mumbles my name as he burrows into my pillow. I haven’t had nearly enough booze to deal with this, so I shove to my feet and out of the room.
Mama keeps the good shit in the barn, and I definitely need it before I fall into bed next to Spencer.
Chapter 10
MY HEAD IS POUNDING WHEN I wake up and my mouth tastes like ass. I whine and wiggle deeper into the pillow, trying to remember why the fuck I thought drinking with the horses to keep me company was a good idea.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
I twi
st a little and Spence blinks at me.
He’s still in his skinny jeans, although he’s come out of his t-shirt and his eyeliner has smudged dark shadows under his bright golden eyes. He stares at me, sleep soft and warm, and I have no fucking clue what to say to the guy I love—the guy who sacrificed to be here with me, to lie to my family, to support me when I was, frankly, acting like a lunatic.
The guy who I kissed.
I fucking kissed him. My stomach twists again, the bourbon from last night—shit, Mama is going to kill me—burning hot in my gut.
Spence makes a low noise in his throat, shifting a little closer, a smile turning up his lips a little bit, and I let out a sigh—
And he goes stiff, something like panic flashing across his face, so quick I almost miss it, before he rolls away from me.
I reach for him and his eyes cut to me, furious, stopping my hand before it can land.
“What was that?” he demands.
I shrug.
It was everything—everything I wanted, and not nearly enough, because I wanted more, I wanted him, I wanted everything he’d give me and all the things he wouldn’t.
“I just—too much to drink, and the atmosphere? Ruby was watching and it seemed like a good idea.”
Lie, lie, lie.
Dirty fucking lie.
“You didn’t think you should, you know, maybe run it by me before you tongue fucked my mouth?” he asks dryly. I tug on his arm lightly, pulling him into me until he huffs and settles in my embrace, his eyes almost soft again. Almost. There’s still a hint of wary concern in them that I want to kiss away, but this will work for now. He leans against my side as I lay on my back, arm propped under my head. His finger pick cords over my ribs, a familiar twitch that makes me smile.
“Dude, you get why that wasn’t ok, right?” he asks softly, like he’s worried.
It’s because of Cara. It’s because he’s my best friend and never wanted to be more.
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