Flirting with the Frenemy (Bro Code #1)(48)

And I think I get it now.

Just like we called Davis to fix Frogger, any one of the guys from the neighborhood could call Wyatt, and he’d have their backs. He’d do anything they needed done.

Including keeping an eye on a sister they’re worried about.

Once the dishes are put away, I fix myself a cup of tea—a new habit since the accident—snag my doodle pad from the bedroom and carry it out to the living room. Tucker’s crying upstairs. Wyatt’s talking to him softly, steady, calm, his deep voice reassuring me too even though I don’t realize I need reassurance, nor do I have any idea what he’s saying.

It’s just the calming cadence of his voice.

Nothing could be that calm and soothing if there was actually a problem. Poor kid’s probably exhausted from too much fun.

I glance at email on my phone, decide there’s nothing that can’t wait until next week, and toss it aside to open my doodle pad instead.

I doodled all the time when I was a kid, but sports, clubs, and other extra-curriculars didn’t leave me much time for it in high school or college. It wasn’t until I was forced to take two months off work for recovery this winter that I picked it up again.

And it turns out, I realize as I flip through the pages, I had a lot of anger to work through this year.

Dick and the Nuts was supposed to be fun, about a schlong and a pair of peanuts—no, not testicles, actual peanuts, like the legumes—who set out to take over the world despite one of the nuts being on crutches.

Dick was supposed to be a funny, lighthearted evil genius.

He’s actually everything I hated about Patrick by the time he broke up with me. Addicted to his job first, his phone second, his bloodline third, and everything else was just gravy. I met Patrick at a fundraiser for Jason’s company—clean water and green energy pretty much go hand-in-hand, and my parents like to send corporate dollars from Ryder Consulting toward various nonprofits every year—and I thought we shared a lot of the same passions in life.

I don’t know if I looked at him through rose-colored glasses that first year, or if he slowly changed away from the man I thought he was when we met, but by the time this past Christmas rolled around, I was more angry that he’d kept me from meeting my goal of being married and pregnant than that he hadn’t proposed.

I should’ve realized that meant I wanted the wrong thing out of our relationship, but it took a car accident and, honestly, this week for me to fully connect the dots.

There’s more to life than marking off checkboxes.

I’m smiling to myself over the Nuts—I named them Joe and Bob, because I’m creative like that—and their plan to put Dick in a trance so they can run the controls on the spaceship to blast the earth with a laser beam that’ll give everyone the giggles so they can rob all the chocolate shops they want without anyone raising an alarm, when Wyatt steps down the stairs.

He disappears into the basement, and when he returns with an armful of sheets and the comforter for Beck’s bed, I start to get up.

“Move one muscle, and I’m calling Beck and telling him we’re getting married.”

“That would show the Dixons,” I reply. “And you know that’s the fastest way to get Beck here. He loves weddings. And me. And sometimes you.”

Wyatt grins.

I grin back.

He’s not winning this round.

“I’ll swap out your bubble bath for itch powder,” he offers.

“You would not.”

“Wanna bet?”

“You don’t have itch powder.”

“Last time I stayed here, your brother salted my sheets and put a life-size taxidermied bear in my bedroom to scare the shit out of me. I owe him. So yeah, I brought itch powder.”

And I’m suddenly quite certain I don’t want the man making the bed I’m going to sleep in tonight.

I start to move again. “Sit,” he orders.

Damn, that military order voice is hot.

Hot hot.

And that’s why I sit.

Because if I follow Wyatt into the bedroom, the mattress won’t be the only thing undressed.

“Thank you,” I say, conceding with a regal nod. “Also, if you itch powder my sheets, I’ll itch powder your underwear.”

He just grins again.

Which is also freaking hot.

I go back to flipping through my doodles. After a few minutes, Wyatt appears again. He stops in the kitchen before joining me with a water bottle in one hand and the rest of the banana pudding in the other. He claims the recliner angled to give him a view of both me and the scenery of the town below—or it would, if dusk wasn’t falling—and props up the footrest. “Trade you,” he says, lifting the banana pudding and pointing to my doodle pad.

I hesitate only a moment before I lean over, ignoring the twinge in my hip and thigh, to snatch the pudding and toss him the notebook.

“I was kidding, Ellie.” He holds out my book for me to take it back, but I shrug.

“I was going to show you anyway.”

“Why?”

“To scare you into your senses so you’ll quit trying to kiss me.”

He smirks and settles deeper into the recliner as he flips the cover open. “Do I want to know where you got the inspiration for Dick?”

“You don’t recognize him?”