I DON’T KNOW how long I sleep, but boisterous shouts coming from the living room downstairs wake me from my nap. I blink rapidly, trying to clear my eyes, as I drag myself out of bed and walk to the bathroom. My reflection is a mess, so I brush my elbow-length hair, and put drops in my eyes until the pink clears and they’re back to bright hazel. After applying some make-up, I readjust my black Elvis is King shirt so that the loose part at the top falls off my left shoulder, and brush off my fashionably torn jeans before heading down to the living room. It isn’t until I’m already there that I realize I’m still wearing my Darth Vader slippers. It’s too late to turn around though, since I’ve already been spotted.
“Hey, Elle,” Jenson calls out, making all heads turn my way.
“Hey, Jenson. Did you move back?”
“Nope, but I’ll be around a lot for the next couple of months,” he says.
“Cool. Hey guys,” I say, looking around the room and waving at Oliver, Vic and some blonde guy I’ve never met.
“Hey,” they all say unanimously.
“Elle, this is Bobby. Bobby, this is my sister, Estelle,” Vic says, not taking his eyes off the television.
Bobby stands and offers me his hand, which I take. He’s actually pretty good looking in a preppy, boy-next-door kind of way, which makes me smile because I was wrong—he’s not like all of my brother’s friends. He’s not tall and athletic like Vic and Oliver. He doesn’t have the bad boy thing going that Jenson has, but he flashes a huge Colgate smile as he shakes my hand, and I am treated to the charming vibe that they all share. It’s one that makes women do a double take, regardless of what a man looks like.
“When you said little sister, I was picturing a teenager with braces,” Bobby says as his eyes travel down my body.
I drop my hand from his. “I’m sure that’s what he sees when he describes me.”
“That’s definitely not how I would describe you.”
At the hint of flirting in his tone, I look over his shoulder to look at Vic’s reaction, but instead my eyes land on Oliver’s. It kills me that I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He doesn’t look upset or jealous, or even curious; he’s just staring.
“I’m not sure I want to know how anybody would describe me,” I respond.
Before he can say anything else, I step away and walk to the kitchen to get the stuff I made and place it on the table, somehow managing to dodge the beer bottles that cover it.
“She’s beautiful, and she cooks?” Bobby says, reaching for a chip. “I think I might keep her.”
“Yeah, right,” Jenson says, slightly bothered. My brother’s friends have this thing. They think they’re all supposed to protect me from outsiders, as if the danger lies beyond their lair. I think my engagement with Wyatt threw them over the edge since none of them saw it coming.
“You’re not going to give Bobby the whole spiel about staying away from your sister?”
My eyes find Oliver’s again, and I smile when he pats the space beside him. My body stirs, wanting to move toward him, but my brain zaps sense into me. I take a seat beside Victor instead.
“Drop it,” Vic says in response to Jenson’s comment.
“When we were young, we all got this huge lecture about it,” Jenson explains. I lean forward to get a better look at him while he tells the story, since I’ve never heard this before. “When we were little, we didn’t care because Elle was totally like our own baby sister . . . but then she grew up, and any time any of us would make a comment about it, Vic was all don’t look at her, don’t touch her. If I find out you did, I’ll break your arms, and you’ll never be able to come over to my house again.”
“For the record, I would have gladly gotten my arms broken,” Bobby volunteers with a smile, as his blue eyes flick to mine.
“It wasn’t the arm breaking that was the issue; it was the ban from the house! He had the best parents! We practically lived in that house.” Jenson says, laughing and taking a swig from his beer, which he raises toward me. “And I had a good throwing arm, so I couldn’t risk it for a girl. Sorry, Elle.”
“Trust me, I’m not sorry.” I sit back and stretch my legs while they chuckle.
“Elle knows to stay away from you idiots. None of you are good for her,” Vic says, taking a handful of chips and going for the dip.
My eyes find Oliver in time to see him wince slightly at Vic’s words. Our gazes stick, and a million things run through my mind—was that the cause of what happened? Did Vic’s approval mean more than mine? They’re questions I know the answers to. They’re thoughts that shadowed me for years, despite my attempts to sidestep them.
“Serious question,” Jenson says, jolting my attention back to him. “Growing up, who would you say was most your type?”
I try not to laugh at the question and the face my brother makes. Victor has always been a guy’s guy—the one everyone wants to take to a game and hang out with at a bar. Junior, Jenson and Oliver are all pretty similar in that sense. Out of the four, Junior is the only one married with a family, while the other three are forever bachelors. Or so it seems. Jenson is the epitome of what you don’t take home to your parents. He’s good looking and has the whole tall, dark, and handsome thing going, but he also has that dangerous edge to him with his motorcycle, tattoos and bad boy persona.
I look at Oliver, who has always had this easy way about him, from the lazy smile to the disheveled, sandy brown hair that makes you want to run your fingers through it. He has a way of looking at you that makes you feel like you’re the only female in the room. And those dimples . . . God, those dimples. All my friends wanted to date the unattainable Oliver. He has that magnetism that powerful men have. Even when we were young, charisma oozed out of him in bucketfuls.
“Yeah, Elle,” Oliver says, giving me a slow, sexy grin as his eyes bounce from my mouth to my eyes. “Who was most your type?”
I shoot him a look before tearing my eyes away from his and toward Jenson, who’s watching me with amusement.
“Honestly? Jenson,” I say, shrugging.
“Boom!” Jenson yells. “I always fucking knew it! So you would have hooked up with me?”
“I didn’t say that. I only said you were most my type,” I say, laughing. I don’t mention that he was pretty much every teenage girl’s type at the time.
“And this is exactly why I had to threaten them,” Vic says, looking at Bobby, who’s shaking his head in amusement.
My eyes fix on the Cowboys-Forty-Niners game on TV, and I jump slightly when I feel a tap on my foot.
“Really?” Oliver mouths, placing both hands over his heart as if he’s wounded. I smile and shake my head. “I like your shoes,” he says, flashing that half-grin of his.
“I know you do,” I respond with a wink, then mentally kick myself for winking at him. We’re still looking at each other when Bobby speaks up, and this time Oliver’s eyes narrow at the question.
“So has the ban been lifted? Am I free to ask her out on a date?”
“I don’t date,” I respond, dropping my eyes from Oliver’s.