The Summer Deal (Wildstone #5)(32)

“It’s been days and you still haven’t talked to her,” Eli said.

She turned her head and slid him a look. “What, are you and Deck a gang now?”

Eli didn’t let her derail the conversation. “Why haven’t you told her?”

“I don’t know, Eli, why haven’t you told her that you’ve got a hard-on for her?”

“Stop,” he said quietly.

“Stop what?”

“You always try to shove people away when you’re frustrated.”

“And yet it rarely works, because here you still are,” she said wearily.

He ran a hand down her arm. “Go to sleep, Kinsey. You look exhausted.”

“You look exhausted,” she muttered, knowing she sounded like a three-year-old, but she was so tired of her life being beyond her own control that she couldn’t stop herself.

When she opened her eyes, she realized by the daylight slanting into the room that a few hours had gone by. She’d actually slept, no bad dreams about dying and floating in gray matter for the rest of eternity—she wasn’t sure what she believed about the afterlife, though she was one hundred percent certain she’d find out far before she wanted to—no waking up to a panic attack and not being able to put her finger on which of her problems had caused it. No shakiness, no urge to throw up.

“What are you smiling about?”

She realized Eli was still sitting there next to her. “I like napping,” she said. “It’s like being dead without the commitment.”

He didn’t smile. He always smiled at her commentary, so she now lost her grin. “What?”

“Tell her.”

She sighed. “You do realize that when I do, she’s going to get mad at both of us and leave, right? Then who will you moon after?”

Eli stood up and then bent low to brush a kiss to her cheek. “You’re so brave, Kinsey. Don’t run from this, one of the really great things to happen to you.” And then he was gone.

BEING WITH KINDERGARTENERS all day every day was teaching Brynn a lot. Such as the importance of tightening the lids on all the paint bottles when they put them away, so that the next day, when they shook them, they didn’t spray the entire room. Or how five-year-olds felt every emotion loudly and publicly.

And that patience was nothing more than an illusion.

Or a delusion.

She’d also learned that no matter how careful she was, by the end of the day she’d be covered in at least some of that paint and food, and a whole bunch of disturbing other things, making her a walking, talking germ vestibule.

But mostly she’d learned . . . she loved teaching little kids.

They looked at the world differently. They were marveled by everything, curious, happy . . . honest.

It was the end of her first week back in Wildstone and still early morning. She went downstairs to the kitchen to grab the breakfast and lunch she’d made herself ahead of time so she could sleep an extra ten minutes—yes, she’d finally gone grocery shopping—and found the entire gang.

They’d all shared a few dinners, and had spent a couple of evenings together, one playing a vicious game of Pictionary on the porch, which had ended with Kinsey throwing her pad of paper at Max; the other, they’d all sat on the beach watching the sunset.

Since that first night, Max had been a perfect gentleman. Kinsey had been . . . muted, but pretty much her usual sarcastic self. And Eli . . . well, if anything, the days had only ramped up the tension between the two of them. A sexual tension, one she had absolutely no idea what to do with. And since nothing had happened, she could only assume he didn’t either. Except . . . that didn’t feel right. Eli wasn’t an unsure man. He was confident, capable, and strong-willed. If he wanted her, there was a reason he was holding back.

She wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Now Max stood at the coffee maker in nothing but board shorts, pushing buttons on the machine and swearing. Kinsey was eating a piece of toast and speaking in a professional work voice into her phone, dressed to perfection as always in a suit dress and strappy heels that Brynn would die for—if she had a shoe budget. Which she did not.

Eli stood in front of the opened fridge in a suit, orange juice in one hand, a tie fisted in the other. She’d seen him in everyday clothes and she’d seen him in nothing. And now she’d seen him in a suit, so she felt uniquely qualified to say he always looked good.

He didn’t move or speak, just cut his eyes to her.

Max looked up from the coffee machine and laughed. “Dilemma, bro?”

Brynn felt confused until Kinsey, who’d finished her call, looked over. “Whenever you see him standing blankly in front of the fridge like that, he’s dealing with low blood sugar. It dulls his thought processes and slows him down. I’m pretty sure he was just about to drink right out of the OJ bottle for a quick sugar fix, but now that you’re here, he can’t. His manners have kicked in.”

“Wait,” Brynn said. “So it’s okay to drink from the container if I’m not looking?”

Kinsey snorted. “No one ever told you that you had normal roommates. With two of them being of the male species, you had to know the odds were stacked against you.”

“Yeah, we’re the not-normal ones,” Max muttered as Eli put the OJ back on the fridge shelf.