Love, Tussles, and Takedowns (Cactus Creek #3)(35)

Right. So much for not getting her hopes up.

“Do you want us to go back to being friends without benefits?” His soft charcoal gaze ran over her features as if memorizing every last detail.

No. Definitely not. She couldn’t go back. Even if it didn’t last forever, it was worth having and holding onto. “We’re fine,” she told him firmly. “Remember, I like boxed stuffing. I’ll take ‘em over those military meal packets with the long shelf lives any day.”

He brushed a thumb over her lower lip. “So are you saying that once the stuffing expires, you’re not going to go out and find yourself a nice, reliable little MRE packet?” A flash of possessiveness darkened his gaze.

“Like one with a medical degree and a Mercedes?” supplied Caine from the couch, showing off his multi-talented ability to operate a virtual assault rifle alongside Max while also eavesdropping shamelessly.

“Caine!” huffed Lia in annoyance. Looks like her brother’s investigation had expanded to Hudson’s relatives after the Fiona thing was a bust.

Hudson growled. “Ben? That’s who your brother thinks you should end up with?”

This time it was Gabe who was the fountain of helpfulness. “Wouldn’t matter, dude, because according to her watch, that doctor cousin of yours doesn’t float her boat at all.”

“Gabe!”

What the—? She didn’t even know her watch could measure that sort of thing.

Meanwhile Max was still barking away on his Bluetooth, commenting this time on the sound quality of the wild animal noises in the game. Apparently, they weren’t wild enough.

It was any wonder Hudson hadn’t gone running for the hills already.

Max brought the volume of the game up to ear-pounding, but just below wall-rattling. “Hey, Lia?” he called out.

“Your rifle sounds are all wrong,” she bit back in exasperation, answering him before he got a chance to finish asking.

When she turned back to Hudson, she saw he was laughing.

Laughing.

And somehow that earned him an offer of another beer from Caine.

Max turned down the volume. “Seriously? They got the assault rifles wrong?”

“It’s too low and barky. Sounds too much like an M-16. You need more of a pop.”

“Tell them to adjust the clip-fed rifles, too,” added Hudson. “The ones the villagers were coming at you with earlier? They were missing that metallic ping.”

Caine rolled his eyes between Hudson and Lia as he headed over to the kitchen. “Oh good lord, there are two of them.”

Lia did a double take. She’d totally missed it, but Hudson was absolutely right. Yes, it spoke to some profound weirdness in her that she found the accuracy of his assessment sexy, but she didn’t care. She was all but swooning replaying it in her head.

“Dammit, Lia!” complained Gabe, who was tap-tap-tapping his index finger on his beeping phone screen like a violently traumatized man. “At least take your watch off before you have those kinds of thoughts!”

Hudson snickered. “My cousin Ben wouldn’t last a day here.”



*



DINNER WAS ENTERTAINING, to say the least. For Hudson, definitely. For Lia’s brothers, exponentially. They were funny as hell, and rather masterful at pushing her buttons.

“And that’s why Lia’s absolutely right,” replied Gabe to Hudson’s earlier question…a passing comment, really, which had resulted in a ten-minute highlight reel of all of Gabe’s best pranks. “I am the reigning prank master in the Spencer household.”

Max gave a peeved grunt from the other end of the table. “Have we forgotten that I’m the one who taught you everything you know?”

“Yes, but I was the one who got Lia to laugh for the first time after she moved in with us,” retorted Gabe. “Remember? It was the night I finally got you back for writing my name on the waistbands of a bunch of tighty-whiteys—size small—and shoving them in my middle school gym locker for all the guys to see.”

Max beamed. “Hehe, good times.” Then his eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Which reminds me, I don’t recall pounding your ass for pouring skunk oil into my cologne bottle the weekend of the homecoming dance.”

Lia giggled, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

A sudden, affectionate look of remembrance broke over Max’s expression as he tossed Gabe a grudging look of respect. “You’re right. That was the first time we saw Lia laugh. I remember not even minding that it was at my expense.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” promised Lia, eyes twinkling with a long-kept secret. “Or even because of Gabe’s prank.”

“You weren’t?” echoed both Max and Gabe.

Hudson watched her amused gaze fly over to her foster parents who were both suddenly looking at the crown molding around the dining room, fascinating as it truly was. “I was actually feeling bad for you, Max, until I saw these two trying so hard not to crack up in the other room.”

Jack and Grace Spencer finally broke, their chuckling quickly turning into full-on laughter.

Max crossed his arms over his chest and pinned his parents with a look. “You two knew about that prank? I smelled for two days!”

Gabe frowned. “Come to think of it, I spilled some of it in my room and had to live with the stench for two weeks.”