“Nick, I didn’t know what you were doing with her. But like you didn’t want to lose us, I didn’t want to lose you either. I stood out of it.” He put his hand on his shoulder. “Look at me.”
Nick lifted his head and looked at his friend. “You can’t change the past, you can only make good on the present. I’m only going to ask you once, and then I’m going to give you my blessing, and pray for the fucking best.” He paused. “You seriously want to give it a go with Sam?”
Without skipping a beat, Nick replied, “Yes.”
Jake rolled his eye; his brother was torturing the poor bastard, but he didn’t say a word.
“Then figure shit out and go for it.”
Nick nodded, swallowing. “Thank you.”
“I love you, Man. Be good to her, though.” Luke said sincerely.
“Ahem.” Jake cleared his throat. “Can I make a request?” Both men turned to him. “No locker room talk about, our sister?”
Nick laughed slightly. Jake looked at him seriously. Hell, he would give his blessing, lord knew he was going to need it, if he was going to reel their firecracker of a sister, in, but he wasn’t kidding about hearing the details.
“Deal,” Nick said and grabbed Luke and pulled him into a hug. “I’ll be good to her.”
“I know you will.” Luke said, sure of it.
Jake blew out a breath and broke the two of them up and shoved Nick a little, kidding around. “Now you just have to get her to look at you without staring daggers at you. Good Luck brother, you’re going to need it.”
Luke laughed at him, “Well, I’m sure you’ll be there adding your two sense in the whole way.”
Jake shrugged. “Naturally.” He grounded out his cigarette with the heel of his shoe and threw his hands up exasperated. “Now that that’s cleared up, can we go grab a shot or two or three,” To hell with the reason for him coming here, he’ll discuss it another time, right now all he wanted to do was pull up a stool with his favorite girl and thank god their friendship was the way it was.
“Sounds good to me, I wanted to talk to Rudy about renting that apartment Cara was talking about.” Nick said.
“I’m out, have to pick up Ava.” Luke said. “You two have fun and try not to get into any trouble.
“I can’t make any promises.” Jake said and straddled his bike. “I’ll meet you over there, Foti.” He revved his engine, and without giving his brother or Nick a chance to say another word, fearing his headache would return, he peeled out of the parking lot.
Chapter Five
Cara was muddling through her shift at Rudy’s, she couldn’t wait to get out of there, just so she could go to bed. She hadn’t slept at all the night before and it was finally catching up to her. To her dismay, she still had another six hours left of her shift. All the espresso in the world wasn’t going to help her. Even exhausted, she still couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss, she shared with Jake the night before, or how her body had responded to him. She scolded herself, because she was supposed to drop it, and let things go back to normal, but she didn’t trust herself to do just that. How was she supposed to drop it, when it’s all she thought about? If she dared to close her eyes, it would be as if she was right back in his bed.
It was times like this she wished she had girlfriends. It killed her when Sam walked into the bar, because when she sat down, the first thing Cara wanted to do was tell her what had happened. Sure, she considered Sam to be her friend, but she couldn’t just blurt out that she crawled into bed with her brother and they had kissed each other senseless. Especially, not after she told her she didn’t see Jake in that way, just last week. Cara sighed and walked over to where Sam was sitting, she couldn’t avoid her. She would just have to keep her big rambling mouth shut, fat chance of that happening.
“Hey Sam,” Cara said, trying her best to be her cheerful self.
Sam raised one perfect eyebrow at her as she shrugged her jacket off. “Nice to see you too.” She laughed when Cara frowned, apparently her fa?ade wasn’t working.
“Sorry. It’s been a shitty day. I didn’t sleep last night and I keep staring at the damn clock. I have another six hours before I get off and I feel like I’m going to fall on my face.” She wasn’t rambling too much.
Sam grinned. “Hot date? You little vixen! What did you do when you left last night, ‘Miss I’m beat guys, thanks for dinner.”
Cara’s eyes widened. “No I really was tired! I just went home and I couldn’t sleep. Please, I wish it was because of a hot date and mind blowing sex, instead I took an ice cold shower.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh my God, I did not just say that.”
Sam laughed. “Oh yes you did! Girlfriend needs some action!”