Flirting with the Frenemy (Bro Code #1)(67)

“Fine,” I say hoarsely, and we both know I’m lying.

I can’t tell if he’s tired, frustrated, or all of the above, but I do know the yellowing bruise on his eye is all the reminder I need of the danger of the two of us getting together.

“Where’s Tucker?” I ask, and dammit, there’s another flame attacking the ashes in my chest.

“With your dad. He’s not too happy about the drive coming up.”

The drive.

He should’ve already left.

Instead, he’s still here, lowering himself to the couch on the opposite end of where I’m curled up, and it’s all I can do not to crawl across the cushions and into his lap to hold him and tell him how sorry I am.

For everything.

For being a shithead when we were kids. For seducing him at Christmas when we were both hurting.

For not answering his phone calls after the accident.

For pushing him away.

“I love you,” he says quietly, his voice husky but strong. No hitch. No hesitation. “I’ve spent my whole life afraid of what it would be like to love you, but I do, Ellie. I love you.”

“You shouldn’t.” He’s going to break me.

“I never thought I was built for marriage. I never believed in forever. But I look at you, and I can feel it. I can see it. You? You’re everything I never knew I wanted. Never knew I needed. I didn’t believe in forever until I believed in you.”

Break me? No. Destroy me. “We’re—we’re dangerous, Wyatt.”

“If there’s anyone in the world who can give the universe a middle finger and tell it to kiss your ass if it thinks it’s going to stand in your way, it’s you.” He sets a piece of paper on the cushion between us. “I don’t care if it takes you two hours or forty years. I’ll wait. You will always be the only woman I’ll ever love.”

My breath hitches when he takes my hand and kisses my cheek, because yes, he’s everything I want.

Everything.

But I’m terrified.

My entire life, all I wanted was to meet the goal.

Of course I dated Patrick. He checked all the boxes. Handsome. Successful. Smart.

We could’ve had a lovely marriage where neither of us actually had to love each other, where there was no danger of a broken heart, because all we wanted was someone to be married to.

But I could have so much more.

Laughter. Joy. Tears. Heartbreak.

With a man who knows me. Who gets me. Who accepts me.

All of me. The good and the bad. The pretty and the ugly. The broken and the whole.

If I’m willing to go for it.

Wyatt doesn’t pause on his way out the door.

He doesn’t have to.

Because he’s tossed the ball back in my court. And left his address, his home phone number, and his work phone number on the couch between us.

It’s my turn to decide what to do.

If I’m going to do anything at all.





Thirty





Wyatt



I fucked up.

I fucked up hardcore. And I hate fucking up.

I also hate hundred-degree weather with humidity so high you can’t get your balls dry when you get out of the shower in the morning, but that’s life in Georgia.

I hate hearing from my colonel that there’s nothing we can do right now to reapply for early release from my service commitment.

I hate that I’d be arrested for being AWOL if I left fucking Georgia forever anyway in August when I have to take Tucker back to Copper Valley.

And I hate that I feel like a shitty parent because I hurt, and I don’t know if I’m making this the best or the worst summer of my son’s life.

“Wow, Dad, you missed that by a mile,” he calls with a laugh as I jog after a baseball in my backyard. The live oaks provide enough shade to block the sun from helping the grass grow. Or maybe the grass has also lost the will to live in the fucking heat.

My hand’s sweating so bad my glove can barely stay on.

But Tucker’s grinning and squealing and laughing while we play catch, which is really more him flinging the ball wildly about the backyard while I try to aim to gently toss a baseball into his mitt.

I love Saturdays.

And I hate Saturdays.

“Does Miss Captain Ellie know how to play catch?” Tucker asks when I toss him the ball.

“Yep.”

“Is she as good as you?”

“Don’t know, bud.”

“Can I see her when I go back with Mom?”

“That’s up to your mom.”

“Ha! Dad, you missed again.”

I sure as fuck did.

I bend to grab the ball as my phone rings, and when I see who’s calling, I almost drop it.

Both the ball and the phone, actually.

“Hey, bud, I gotta take this,” I say. “Throw it at that back tree for a bit, okay? Be right back.”

“Okay, Dad!”

I angle around to the side of the two-bedroom brick house I’m renting a couple miles from the base and put the phone to my ear, my heart in my throat. “Ellie?”

“I thought of you while I masturbated last week and then I ran over a squirrel.”

My lungs freeze and I grunt out an unintelligible answer.