Flirting with the Frenemy (Bro Code #1)(31)

No, I need to go before I start seeing Wyatt as the man I glimpsed the night we hooked up in my parents’ basement six months ago.

The angry father who just wants to be with his son.

Because that man is dangerous to my heart.





Eleven





Wyatt



There’s exactly one sound that I will move heaven and earth to stop, and that’s the sound of my son in pain.

Except as I sit here with Tucker sleeping peacefully on me, listening to Ellie limp up the stairs, I want to tear something in half to make her pain go away too.

I shouldn’t. We’re not exactly the enemies we were as kids, but we can’t be much more than casual friends, or one of us will start wanting something the other can’t give.

And she won’t be the one unable to hold up her end of making something work.

No, that would be all me.

I hear every step as she makes her way slowly from the kitchen to the bedroom upstairs. Not because she’s walking loudly. Not because there’s a lack of insulation. But because I’m listening for it. When the distinct sound of running bathwater carries through the pipes behind the walls, I get hard as a brick.

She’s taking a bath again.

And there’s nothing I can say to my dick to convince it she’s getting wet and naked for therapy and that there’s nothing sexy about her soaking in a tub of hot water and bubbles.

I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times I’ve heard someone say Ellie’s annoying, or god knows, the number of times I’ve thought it myself in my lifetime, but at Christmas, and again now, I’m getting pissed thinking about it.

She is smart. She is brave. She is strong. She is determined.

Why does that have to translate to annoying?

Why does she have to be disparaged for wanting something and going after it?

She’s not power-hungry. She doesn’t tear people down. She just wants her own bar set higher, and she doesn’t apologize for it.

I force myself to sit through the rest of the game, which is painful more for knowing Ellie’s upstairs naked than it is for watching the blowout. Tucker doesn’t wake up when I carry him upstairs and tuck him into the queen-size bed that makes him seem even smaller, and my heart lurches even though I know he’s getting the childhood every kid deserves, safe, happy, and loved, despite the hiccup with me not being able to leave Georgia to join him in Virginia yet.

He’s not growing up hiding in shadows.

He has a capable mom who takes good care of him when I can’t.

He’s not me.

And I’m sure as fuck not any of the sorry excuses for human beings my mom used to date.

I should go to bed too, but I’m restless, and I want a snack, so I creep softly downstairs. I expect Ellie’s in bed, but I hear her voice drifting down the hall when I get to the kitchen. “Don’t even try to play innocent. You did this on purpose.”

I swallow a grin, because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know who she’s talking to, and I’m not surprised to hear the echoes of Beck’s voice, even though I can’t make out the words.

None of my business—he can tell her whatever story he wants, and she won’t believe him, because she shouldn’t—so I dig into the fridge instead.

The same carton is sitting there, right in front, calling my name, just like it has been since I spotted it yesterday.

A take-out carton of banana pudding from Crusty Nut.

Ellie would probably kill me if I ate it.

There’s a line between annoying her and going too far, and I can’t decide which side of the line eating her leftover banana pudding would fall on.

On the one hand, it’s not a donut. On the other, it’s still banana pudding.

“He has a what?”

The surprise and sudden hush in her voice makes me pause.

“You’re lying,” she says. “Because it doesn’t make any sense. He freaking carried me to my room last night.”

And now I’m interested.

I grab the banana pudding, pop the lid, and snag a spoon and meander down the hallway. Beck’s voice gets clearer.

“—undiagnosed cardio-telepathy-rhymmeria. He’s being fucking stubborn and refusing to admit something’s wrong, so we need you to be extra nice to him. And watch out for his kid too.”

“Rymmeria? What’s a—Beckett Ryder, so help me, if you’re lying to me—”

“Ellie, it’s three in the morning here, I have a ten-hour plane ride tomorrow, and I’m talking about one of my best friends. Do you think I’m lying to you?”

“Yes.” There’s a hint of doubt in her voice.

Beck grunts in frustration. “You really want to take that chance? If he has a heart attack on your watch, you’re going to feel like an asshole for the rest of your life. He might even get kicked out of the Air Force.”

I knock and don’t wait before pushing the door open. Ellie gapes at me wide-eyed from the bed, holding her phone out in front of her. “What the fuck are you—do you have a heart condition—is that my banana pudding?”

She starts to leap, winces, looks down at her white tank top that leaves little about her nipples to the imagination, and pulls the covers up to her neck. “You are dead,” she tells me.