The Summer Deal (Wildstone #5)(57)

“You fight dirty,” he said, but he was looking amused.

Relieved to see that tortured look in his eyes gone, she pressed herself up against him and kissed him, long and deep. “Dirty is the only way to fight,” she murmured when they broke free to breathe. “Wanna go have a late lunch with me?”

“Wanna have you for lunch.”

She laughed, because he always said that, but . . . this lunch turned out to be the best in recent memory.

BRYNN GOT TO her moms’ house by midday, knowing they’d be in full company mode about the night’s “family” enchilada dinner. Brynn herself was still thinking about the previous night’s dinner. After her and Kinsey’s impromptu volleyball game, Eli had taken her out. They’d had dinner on the water, then gone for a sunset hike to the top of the bluffs. And after . . . after, back in his bed by moonlight had been her favorite part.

Her moms were rushing around the house. “Don’t go to any trouble,” Brynn told them for the millionth time as she dug in to help.

“Of course we’re going to trouble,” Raina said.

“We want to get to know your friends,” Olive said from her perch at the table, where she sat with her laptop and a stack of bills.

“They’re all coming, right?” Raina asked Brynn.

“I think so. But, Mom, don’t read too much into this, okay? You know I’m a really crappy judge of character. I don’t really know them all that well.”

A fib, of course. Whoever had said that childhood relationships were the deepest relationships a person could ever have had been onto something. She and Kinsey and Eli were forever linked from all those years they’d spent at summer camp. Whether the three of them had liked each other or not back then no longer mattered.

Even after this short amount of time of being back in each other’s orbits, they now knew each other better than she did just about anyone else.

And then there were the current relationships. The adult ones. A few of them more adult than others. She’d slept with Eli now. They’d done things to each other that she’d only read about. Their chemistry was so far off the charts, she couldn’t even see the chart.

Terrifying.

Raina’s gaze softened and she cupped Brynn’s face. “You’ve known two of them forever, and you’ve made peace with your past. I’m sure they love you. You’re so lovable, how could they not?”

Brynn laughed and shook her head. And then spent the next hour running around doing Raina’s bidding. The food was just about ready and she’d set the table, twice—“The good silverware, Brynn, honey, what’s wrong with you?”—when the doorbell rang.

Raina clapped her hands with glee.

“Mom,” Brynn implored. “Please don’t get your hopes up.”

“I’m just saying . . .”

Brynn gave up and headed to the door, looking through the peephole. Eli stood there holding a bottle of wine and looking delectable in a pair of sexy faded jeans and an untucked Henley the exact color of his slate eyes.

Kinsey stood on the step behind him with Max, who was holding a small bouquet of flowers. Suddenly nervous as hell to have her two worlds collide, Brynn did a turnabout and rushed back to the kitchen.

Both of her moms stared at her as if she’d grown a second head.

“You’re not going to let them in for family dinner night?” Olive asked.

“I’m trying to decide.”

“Oh, no,” Raina said. “I made some seriously kick-ass enchiladas and I need an audience to fawn over them.”

“I’ll fawn over them,” Brynn promised.

Raina pointed to the door.

With a sigh, Brynn headed back to the door, hoping she wasn’t making a big mistake.

AFTER RINGING THE bell, Eli took a deep breath.

“He feels really nervous to me,” Max said to Kinsey.

Kinsey tugged on the back of Eli’s shirt. He turned. “What?”

She looked him over. “Yeah,” she said to Max. “You’re right. He’s nervous. Haven’t seen that since . . . ever.”

“I’m not nervous.” He turned back to the door so as to not give himself away. Because he was nervous as hell, and it was ridiculous, because he didn’t know why.

Except he did. He liked her. Too much. Way too much. He turned back to Kinsey. “You need to tell her. Why haven’t you told her yet?”

“I’m working on making her like me first.”

“But that could take forever.”

“Hey,” she said, pointing at him. “It’s not my fault you’re falling for my sister.”

Eli slid Max a look.

Max lifted his hands in surrender. “Not me.”

“Please,” Kinsey said. “Like I couldn’t see it for myself. She’s giddy, and you’re so mellow I nearly checked you for a pulse earlier.”

“Which is why you have to tell her.”

Kinsey stared at him. “You do realize that this is actually about me and not you, right?”

“Kins, everything’s about you.”

“So why haven’t you told her yourself if you think I’m so bad for not doing so?”

“I almost did.”

“Yeah? And what stopped you?”