“Do you need any help with anything?” I asked as I cracked a couple of ice trays to fill the baggies.
“I’m just waiting for everything to finish cooking. Why don’t you go with Soren and let him give you the grand tour?” She pushed her sleeves up higher as she finished arranging the flowers. “Make sure he keeps those bags of ice on longer than thirty seconds, would you? I have a feeling you’ll be a more convincing nurse than I could be.”
Soren tipped his chin out of the kitchen at me, looking like he was even more uncomfortable with the conversation than I was.
As we moved toward the stairs, I whispered, “Your mom’s really nice.”
“She’s also really pushy when it comes to her family,” he whispered back. “Sorry if any of that made you uncomfortable.”
“I’m good.”
“Yeah, she just knows you’re great, and she thinks I’m great, so she’s going to try really hard to get all of that greatness to come together.” He sighed, rolling to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. “If it gets to be too much, just let me know. I can talk to her.”
“Soren, it’s fine. You are great. She’s totally right in her estimation.”
His hand caught mine as I started up the stairs. “I’m great?” His eyebrow disappeared into his ball cap. “Me? Is this your opinion or you repeating my Mom’s?”
“Please. You know you’re great.”
“But you just said ‘you are great.’ So does that mean you think I’m great too?”
My instinct was to turn and disappear up the stairs before I had to answer. I forced myself to stay and look him in the eye. “I don’t think you’re great. I know you are.” I wiped at a smudge of dirt streaked across his cheek. “Happy now?”
He blinked a couple of times. “Bewildered now.”
I laughed, pulling him up the stairs. “Come on. Let’s get you iced up.”
“Hey, Butt Munch? Is that you?” a voice boomed from the room behind the stairs.
“Of course it’s him. He laughs like a girl,” another voice replied.
“You heard what your mom said. Be nice,” an older male voice rumbled next.
Soren looked like he was bracing himself as a thunder of footsteps moved toward us.
“Did your imaginary model roommate bail on you, little brother?”
“Yeah, did she have some photo shoot she was at and couldn’t make it?”
Soren turned, putting his back toward me as three guys appeared at the base of the stairs. Their smirks disappeared the moment they noticed me lingering behind Soren.
“Hey.” I waved at the three of them, about as different-looking as brothers could be. “I’m Soren’s imaginary model roommate.”
One of them elbowed the brother on his right. “I’m seeing things, right? Please tell me I’m imagining this, because if baby brother tagged and bagged a mega hottie before any of us, I’m going to kill myself.”
The other brother blinked at me a few times then shook his head. “You’re not seeing things. Mega hottie at your twelve o’clock.”
“You live with Soren?” the first one asked.
“We’re roommates,” I answered slowly.
“You do anything else with Soren?” he continued.
That was when Soren went into action, shoving the three brothers back like he was trying to create a perimeter.
I decided to play along though. “I do plenty of other things with Soren.”
The scuffle came to an instant halt.
“Do explain,” one of them asked. “In great detail.”
I had to look down to keep from smiling at the scene in front of me. Limbs and fists tangled all together, four heads turned my way, waiting. “Why should I explain when your imaginations can do a much better job?”
Soren’s mouth was the first to fall open. Three more followed.
“I use my imagination all the time—”
“Every night . . .” one of them muttered, which was answered with a fist to the arm.
“My imagination would love a break, so please, do tell. Talk slowly. Use particulars.”
Soren grunted as he shoved the brother who was currently speaking. “Are you kidding me right now? You guys promised you wouldn’t behave like a bunch of miscreants if I brought Hayden home. What do you call this?” Soren gave the other two a shove for good measure.
“Chill, baby bro. We’re not cursing, we’re wearing nice shirts, and we haven’t starting spilling all of those juicy stories no dude wants his girl to know about.”
“She’s not my girl. She’s my roommate.”
Three sets of eyes lifted toward me. I answered them all with a shrug.
“Since paranoid and possessive here isn’t going to get around to introducing us, let me do the honors.” The tall, dark-haired one shoved around Soren with one of those smiles that had probably charmed the pants or skirts off a good handful of girls. “I’m Ben, firstborn and the favorite. Let me add that I’m also single. Very single.”
His dark eyes were drifting down my body when Soren slid in front of me, stepping onto the stair below me.
“That’s Michael, number two, and Tobin, number three.” Soren’s finger counted off the other two before finding my hand and moving up the stairs. “You’ve met everyone now except for Dad. That can wait until dinner.”
“We hate to see you go, Soren—”
“Not,” another grunted.
“But we love to watch Hayden leave.”
Soren’s hand went behind his back, his middle finger waving down at his three brothers. I didn’t realize he’d been walking up the stairs instead of hopping until we made it to the top.
I glanced at his ankle, shaking my head. “Macho much?”
“You just met the heathens I was raised with. Macho was a side effect of growing up with them.”
The jeering and whistling had come to a quiet downstairs, but I was still shaking my head over the whole thing. I had that much more respect for Caroline that she’d survived twenty years of that.
“Sorry about them. I tried to warn you, but there’s just no way to warn a person about that.” Soren’s hand stayed in mine as we moved down the hall. “They’re animals, and they clearly don’t know how to act around a girl, so yeah. If you want to leave right now or hide out in my room with a stomachache or something, I get it.”
My arm bumped his as we stopped in front of a closed door. “I don’t scare easily.”
His eyes dropped to where my hand was still secured in his. “Obviously.”
“Plus, they make you look good. Really good.”
He fought a smile as he opened the door. “Then maybe we should hang around them more often.”
“I think I’ll like your brothers best in small doses.”
“That’s something we have in common.” He moved inside the room, his limp more pronounced thanks to his jaunt up the stairs. “The room of my boyhood. In all its sports paraphernalia and denim glory.” Soren grunted as he waved at his room.