Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(59)

It was not that he was jealous. Bev was hot, and he wished he could take advantage of it, but Mark was his shy, geeky brother, and the trauma of having an outwardly sweet and stacked girl nursing him back to health was going to be too much for him. Mark was probably already thinking he was in love.

He slammed the medicine cabinet shut and was peeling apart the Band-Aid when it occurred to him that Bev may have been trying to make him jealous. The thought should have made him angrier, given how protective he was of his little brother, but it did not. In fact, he had to wipe the grin off his face to fit the bandage over his split upper lip.

When he got back to the two lovebirds in the living room, his temper and his offending blood were out of sight. “Help me pack up the car, Mark,” he said, “and we can be at the store right when they open.”

“Store?” Mark stared at Bev next to him in a matching armchair.

“REI,” Liam said. “My pack.”

Not looking away from Bev, his darling brother said, “You can have mine. It’s in great shape.”

“Then you won’t have a pack,” Liam said.

“Oh, I’m not going.”

Liam walked over and whacked him on the side of his head. “Fill up the water bottles while I check the tent. The mice only got into my pack, right?” He whacked him again. “Right?”

“Jeez.” Mark got up and headed for the kitchen. “No need to get violent.”

“Tell that to the neighbors. Kind of got me in the mood.”

Bev stood up and came over to him. “How’s the lip?”

“Oh, now you care.”

Eyes bright, she bit back a smile and studied his lip. “Looks like you’ll live.”

He swallowed, feeling his pulse pick up again. Her hair was up in a pony tail, straggly and lopsided, and he had to dig his nails into his palms to stop himself from tearing the rubber band out and combing the long, black strands with his fingers. “Your sister will be disappointed.”

“Nothing new there,” Bev said. He liked the way her eyes could smile without the rest of her face moving.

Mark came back into the room. “How many Nalgene bottles are you bringing, anyway?” He saw Bev standing close to Liam and the slow social calculations on his face were visible from fifteen feet away.

“All of them. The creeks are dry this time of year.”

“That’ll be heavy,” Mark said.

“Better to be tired than dehydrated.”

Mark sighed and went back into the kitchen.

“He’s sweet,” Bev said, and Liam imagined shoving his brother off a cliff, which was all wrong. It was Bev who was trouble.

“Stay away from him.”

“What?” Bev asked, incredulous.

“I mean, please stay away from him. He doesn’t know you’re not as nice as you look. You and your violent relatives.”

She frowned at him, shaking her head. “I think you should rest for a bit before you climb any mountains. Your brains are rattled.”

Agreeing with her, he put an arm around her shoulders and led her to the door, annoyed at how badly he wanted her.

“See you at the office,” he said, and suddenly wished it was Monday.



He did see her at the office. Specifically, the office next door to his.

“I’m moving down here,” she said Monday morning, while George and Rinaldo from the warehouse followed behind her with boxes and computer equipment and a rolling rack of samples.

“Whatever the hell for?”

She frowned at him. “That ivory tower wasn’t working out. My grandfather’s frat lounge, not practical.”

“What are you talking about? It was a perfect way to don the mantle of power.”

“Too cut off from the action. And I kept bumping into the foosball table.” She walked past him, tore a paper towel off a roll in her hand, and began wiping off an old desk. “I’ve put the room to a much better use.”

“Do you want the exercise ball chair?” Rachel wriggled past Liam to talk to Bev.

“God, no. You want it, you got it.”

Rachel nodded. “It’ll be awesome for my abs. And if anyone bothers me, I’ll just throw it at them.”

“Just lock the door to your office if people are bothering you.” Bev smiled at her then turned her attention to Liam. “Oh dear, did you forget your sunscreen?”

Liam crossed his arms over his chest, well aware he had a white mask around his eyes. “Problem with the gear.”

Rachel came over to stare at him, too. “It looks cool. Like Kung Fu Panda. Except the reverse.”

“The sunscreen fell in a pit toilet.” He’d never hike with his brother again. Thirty hours of continuous misery. When Mark wasn’t dropping essential gear into latrines or whining about how tired or hot or cold he was, he was asking about Bev: Is she married? Dating? Sleeping with you?

Wanting to sleep with you?

“It’s kind of cute.” Bev was still staring. “Takes the edge off.”

Liam scowled. “I don’t want any edges off.”

Rachel laughed. “I’d give you some foundation to cover it up, but I don’t have quite that shade of lobster.”

He gave her a cold look down his crimson proboscis then strode back to his own office. Ever since Bev had shown up, he’d found his authority chipping away. Just that morning Carrie at the front desk had actually said hello to him.