The Summer Deal (Wildstone #5)(44)

BRYNN DIDN’T LEAVE her moms’ house when Kinsey did. She needed a minute.

Or a bunch of minutes.

So she and her moms spent the next few hours marathoning Bachelor in Paradise. When Brynn’s eyelids got too heavy, she knew it was time to go.

“Here, baby.” Raina had packed her up a bunch of leftovers.

Olive handed over her duffel bag.

“Are you guys giving me the bum’s rush out?” she asked, amused.

They exchanged a look that had Brynn putting hands on hips. “Okay, spit it out. What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” Raina said. “We just really think you should go back.”

“So you don’t want me here?”

“No,” Olive said gently, reaching for her. “Well, yes. We want you here, but we also want what’s best for you.”

“And that’s being back in Wildstone,” Raina said. “We’re so happy you’re back, you have no idea. But . . .”

“But we think you’ll be happier at the house with your friends,” Olive finished.

Except they weren’t her friends, not really. She didn’t know what they were yet. Well, okay, she adored Max like she would a younger brother. As for how she felt for Eli . . . well, that was distinctly un-brother-like. Kinsey she mostly wanted to strangle. But she looked into her moms’ sweet, hopeful faces and it was like being a kid all over again.

All they’d ever wanted for her was to be happy and safe. Except the only time she’d been those things had been when she was here, in this house. But as she’d always done, she simply hugged them tight and said as she always did, “I’m happy, I’m fine, you don’t have to worry about me.”

Then she kissed them good night and drove back to Eli’s place. Which, she supposed, for now at least, was hers as well.

ELI SHUFFLED THE deck and dealt. It was midnight. He, Deck, and Max had gone surfing, and they now sat on porch chairs around a makeshift coffee table of an old wooden surfboard laid flat on two stumps of wood.

They were playing Cards Against Humanity. Or at least their version of it, which involved betting cash.

Eli tossed down a card. All three men looked at it.

“What do old people smell like?” Deck read out loud. “Heh.” He tossed one of his cards down.

Max grimaced and read it out loud. “The ball-slapping sex your parents are having right now.”

Eli winced.

Deck grinned. “Once in a while, it pays to have dead parents.”

At the sound of soft footsteps, they all turned toward the stairs. No one.

Then came Brynn’s voice: “And once in a while, it pays to have a place to live where you don’t have to know if your parents are having sex, ball-slapping or otherwise.”

Eli quickly craned his neck and found her standing just outside of the reach of the porch’s light, and felt relief go through him. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” she said, coming up the steps and into the light. She was wearing her strappy denim sundress and white sneakers, her hair piled on top of her head.

Just looking at her stirred something deep inside him, and it wasn’t anything as simple as hunger or affection. But what had him standing and reaching for her duffel bag was the sheer exhaustion and stress on her face. He shouldered her bag and smiled at her. “Want to play a round?”

He got a very small smile in return. “Of drunken Cards Against Humanity?”

“Hey,” Max said. “And also, only one of us is drunk.” Max pointed to himself. He shot Brynn a welcoming smile as he shuffled the cards. “You in, sweetness? Got plenty of beer.”

“Another time.”

“Don’t blame you.” Deck tossed down his entire hand and stood. “I’ve gotta hit the road.” He nodded to Brynn. “Good to see you back,” he said quietly, and with a gentle tug on her ponytail and a genuine smile, he vanished into the night.

Brynn watched him go. “So he sleeps with Kinsey, but doesn’t sleep with her?”

Max shook his head. “Don’t even try to understand it. It’ll just give you a headache. I’m actually thinking of enrolling the both of them in an English as a second language class.” He stood too and stretched. “The waves wore me out tonight. This guy”—he pointed to Eli—“kicked my ass out there. I’m going in.” He gave Brynn a quick hug. “Don’t you kids do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“There’s nothing you wouldn’t do,” Eli said.

“Exactly.” And with a laugh, he was gone.

Eli looked at Brynn. “Seems like this is our time. Late at night.”

“I want to know how sick Kinsey really is.”

Okay, so she wasn’t feeling playful. “She didn’t tell you?”

“Come on. You’ve met her. After I found the meds, she told me she had transplant rejection, not much more. She wouldn’t even if the sky was falling.”

He took in the seriousness of her gaze and cursed Kinsey for being so closemouthed and secretive. Not to mention difficult. But he was done playing by her rules. She needed this, needed her sister, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

And he thought maybe Brynn needed Kinsey too.

“She was born with chronic renal disease. She got a transplant when she was fifteen, but the kidney’s slowly failing.”