Flirting with the Frenemy (Bro Code #1)(14)

Cooper pounds his heart twice with his fist. “Dang straight. Your dad’s a smart guy.”

“You’ll get ‘em this year,” Tucker declares.

Cooper winces. Grady winces. Half the street winces.

Since Chicago won the World Series a few years ago, Copper Valley’s pro baseball team has taken over as the sport’s most lovable losers.

And they’re embracing the title with gusto this year.

“They will, won’t they, Tucker?” I say.

“They really will.” He beams at me like we’re going to be best friends, and I think he could be right.

Monica’s frowning. “I don’t know if Crusty Nut can fit two more people at our table.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her quickly. “Tucker will love the parade so much more from right here. He can’t catch as much booty if he’s up on the balcony with us. Wyatt’s okay with this, aren’t you, honey?”

I lift my eyes to his, and that’s a mistake.

Because he’s promising me a lot of retribution in that colorful gray gaze. And if you think gray can’t be colorful, you’ve never pissed off a gray-eyed man.

“Looks like I have to be,” he replies.

“But you have to join us for lunch tomorrow,” Monica announces. She squeezes my hand. “Oh my god, Ellie, I always thought this might happen.” She throws herself around Wyatt too, and the parrot wobbling on her shoulder, stitched to her pirate captain costume, pecks Tucker’s bare calf. “You better be good to her, or I’ll slice your nuts off with my pirate sword and tie a cannonball to your ankles and shoot you over the mountains.”

Tucker gasps.

“She’s teasing,” Wyatt tells him quickly.

Monica smiles.

It’s an ugly smile.

I like it.

Wyatt smiles back.

It’s a tight smile.

My life is going to be hell as soon as I get back to Beck’s place tonight.

“Can you drive me home?” I ask Monica. “Tucker has an early bedtime.”

“Of course!” she squeals.

Patrick’s still glaring.

And since Patrick’s glaring, Sloane the wonder nurse is also glaring.

Only Jason, Monica’s laid-back fiancé who’s been watching all of this with an amused smile, is still blissfully unaware of all the weirdness.

It’s remarkable that Patrick and Jason share genes, because that’s the only thing they have in common.

“You’ll drive safely,” Wyatt informs Monica.

She rolls her eyes at him. “First one to the hospital. I got it.”

He finally releases his grip on me.

“Go on, get that spot,” I tell him. “Tucker, you’re going to love the parade.”

“Can we all have a bubble bath tonight?” he asks.

“No,” Wyatt and I answer together.

The adults lining the parade route all chuckle with Grady, Cooper, Monica, and Jason. “You are adorable,” Monica informs Tucker. “We’re going to be good friends this week.”

She’s not going to see them at all this week if I have any say in it.

Far better to have a boyfriend who’s an amazing single dad from afar than to have to put on a show for my friend and my ex-boyfriend anyway.

Maybe this will work out after all.

“Enjoy the parade,” I tell Wyatt. “I’ll see you back at the house.”

His lips twitch, because Wyatt and I don’t do see you later.

We never have.

As kids, we’d part on me shouting shut up and let me do it my way to his fine, do it your way and lose, you crazy buttwipe. As adults, there’s less shouting, but generally more eye-rolling.

Until that last time.

Over Christmas.

He bends down and kisses my cheek. “I’ll miss you, schmoopsy-poo.” Quieter, he adds, “And we’re discussing this later.”

“I’ll miss you too,” I say breathlessly.

Monica loops her arm around mine and tugs gently, prodding me into falling into step beside her.

Well, limp.

These shoes were a terrible idea.

I give Grady a quick, “Sorry about that,” over my shoulder, but he just grins and waves me off.

“Good to see you happy, Ellie.”

I don’t look at Wyatt.

I can’t.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me he was hot?” Monica asks, because she came into my life after Wyatt was already gone in the military, and I realize with a start that she’s never actually met him.

“Most of my life, I didn’t look at him that way,” I answer honestly.

“I’m gonna need this bubble bath story.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing you’ve never done yourself,” I reply.

“Your leg hurts, doesn’t it?”

“What’s pain when I look like a million Spanish galleons?”

She rolls her eyes, then glances back.

I look back too, and spot Wyatt buying a foam sword for Tucker from a passing street vendor.

Except he’s not buying just one.

He’s buying two.

He swings Tucker down, squats and holds his sword in the ready position, and then staggers in mock pain as Tucker gets him in the gut.