Addicted(50)

One of the throw pillows off the sofa hits me square in the back. “Nobody likes a show-off, Chloe!”

“Oh, I don’t know. Ethan has never—”

A loud, authoritative knock sounds at the door, interrupting my teasing.

“You expecting anyone?” I ask Tori as I switch direction and head for the door.

“No.”

That’s all Ethan needs to hear before he’s stepping in front of me. “Let me get it.”




“Why?” I try to bump him aside with my hip, but he’s not budging. “It’s probably just one of the neighbors stopping by to talk to Tori. Happens all the time.”

“Well, then they can meet me and then talk to Tori. Surely they’re curious about your new boyfriend.”

“I just moved in. They’re not curious about any—”

“What he actually means is he’s such a hot commodity that it could be the press on the other side of the door, in which case, he doesn’t want you to have to deal with it.”

Ethan shoots Tori an approving look. “Exactly.”

“Come on, Chloe.” She pats the spot next to her on the couch as the knock sounds again. “Let’s watch the show.”

I roll my eyes but I cross to her as Ethan unchains the door. “How exactly are you so good at knowing what he’s thinking?” I demand.

“I told you, caveman speak.”

Ethan chooses that moment to open the door and before I can even see who it is, a fist flashes over the threshold and nails my boyfriend right in the nose.

“Huh,” Tori says right before she takes another bite of her apple. “Even for one fluent in caveman speak, I didn’t see that coming.”





Chapter Thirteen


“What the hell!” Ethan staggers under the force of the punch, but he doesn’t go down. Instead, he grabs the guy on the other side of the door and drags him inside by the neck, shoving his head down and bending him in half as he does.

I brace myself for it to be Brandon here, at my apartment—who else would just punch Ethan like that—but in the end I couldn’t be more wrong. Because it’s not his brother in the middle of our foyer, bent over at the waist and swearing like a sailor.

It’s mine.

“Miles!” I demand, leaping off the couch. “What are you doing here? Let him go, Ethan!”

“He’s the one who sucker punched me.” Ethan wipes a trickle of blood away from his nose. “How am I the one getting yelled at?”

“Believe me, I’ll yell at him, too. After I figure out what he’s doing here. But let him go, please.”

He releases my brother reluctantly, but I can tell by the way he’s holding his body that he’s ready for another attack. I know Miles, though—he’s an inventor not a fighter and unless things have changed drastically in the three years since I came to San Diego for school, that punch was pretty much all he has in him. I’m shocked my absentminded, nerdy brother had even that much, to be honest.

“Miles! What were you thinking—”

To my surprise and horror, he launches himself at Ethan a second time. And this time, Ethan shoves back, sending my brother sprawling onto the floor forcefully enough that he cracks his head on the hardwood.

“Stop it!” I’m yelling now as I get between the two of them. “Come on, Miles, please. What is wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me?” Miles climbs back to his feet. “I’m trying to defend you against this bastard. Do you even know who he is?”

“He’s my boyfriend. Of course I know who he is.”

“No! That’s why I’ve been trying to call you for the last three weeks! If you’d return my damn phone calls every once in a while, I wouldn’t have had to fly all the way out here to talk to you. Ethan Frost is Brandon Jacobs’s—”

“Brother. Yes, I know who he is.”

It’s Miles’s turn to gape. “You knew?” I don’t think he could look more shocked if I pulled out a gun and shot someone. “And you’re with him anyway?” A moment of silence, then, “Are you crazy? Or is this just another attempt to punish yourself?”

My first instinct is to jump down his throat, to tell him to mind his own business. But even though it’s been three years since I last saw him, he came out here to warn me because he was worried about me. Though I don’t want it to, that counts for something in the running tally I’m keeping in my head between my family and me.