Too Sweet (Hayes Brothers #3)
I. A. Dice
ONE
Nico
FUCKING COLLEGE KIDS...
Cars line the curbs on both sides of the street: everything from flashy Ferraris, all-out American muscle to a baby-pink Fiat and even a yellow school bus some senseless moron parked at the bottom of the driveway, blocking the way.
Kids swarm the street, booze in hands, not enough clothes on their backs, and way too loud.
More are coming, flocking, fucking crowds of them.
Half the college football team strut up the driveway in purple jerseys, cockier than cocky, their arms around young babes in bikinis or miniskirts. It’s sixty-five degrees outside, but cool evening air doesn’t stop them from flaunting their lean bodies.
I rock back and forth in the driver’s seat, looking through a narrow gap between the mass of bodies for any free space on my driveway.
There’s none.
It’s packed.
Twenty-odd cars are parked all over the place as if the valet for the evening parked them wearing a blindfold.
I inhale a deep breath, shift into reverse, and whirl around the kids, trying not to run anyone over, even though I really want to when a drunk prick steps into the middle of the street, his hands outstretched.
I have no choice but to stop.
Why did I agree to this again?
Instead of honking, I rev the engine. The deafening roar of the V8 startles a few babes, who break into infantile giggles, twirling their long, platinum locks around their fingers. Two even wink in my direction.
Don’t fucking bother.
“Shit! Get off the road, you idiot.” Someone yanks the kid off my spoiler. “You know who this is?” he says, his hushed voice still audible through my open windows. “Don’t piss him off, dude.”
At least they know.
Of course they fucking know.
Everyone knows whose garden they’re raiding tonight.
They step aside, and I release the brake, reversing further down the street. Anger warms my chest until I’m talking myself out of reaching into the glove box for a pack of smokes. I quit four weeks ago—the seventeenth attempt during the last three years—but I ponder lighting one up twenty times a day.
Five minutes later, after leaving my shiny toy way too far from my house, I’m back on the driveway.
It cleared a bit.
Not of cars, though.
Fewer kids linger out the front, most in the garden by now, where a new-age techno beat pumps through a dozen tall speakers, making my bones shake. It took my brothers and the DJ the entire afternoon to connect the sound system.
I jog up the concrete steps to the main door but halt halfway there, catching movement in my peripheral vision... a porn clip in the making. One of the football jocks rams his dick into a drunk brunette who’s spread-eagled on the hood of my brother’s Mustang. Boobs, barely covered by a skimpy bikini bra, threaten to bounce out every time the obnoxious asshole rams into her like a machine gun.
He’ll have a goddamn coronary if he keeps up that pace much longer.
I should tell them to get the hell out of there before they dent Cody’s car, but if I say a word, he will, too. And that will count as an excuse to make him bleed.
I’m on a tight schedule. No time to throw punches this evening. My fuse has been way too short since I quit smoking. It’s never long, but it’s been almost nonexistent lately.
Better not to get involved.
If Cody didn’t want his car serving as a fuck-bench for the night, he should’ve parked in the garage. Although, he probably pulled the short straw with Colt and Conor, who form two-thirds of the Holy Trinity: identical triplets.
The garage has five spaces, but I own three cars, so one of my brothers parks under the clouds. They don’t complain. They can’t. I let them move in with me the summer after they graduated high school, so they could spread their wings like teenagers should, away from our overprotective mother’s watchful eyes.
That was two years ago. They’re twenty now, and that sure makes me feel old. I still remember the day they were born. They’re turning twenty-one in a few months, but Mom still treats them like they’re five at most. Maybe because they came as a surprise nine years after my parents decided four sons were enough kids to have.
Or maybe because they’re wild.
I insert the key into the lock and take a deep breath to cool my jets before I turn it, rather proud I didn’t smoke.
Stick to the plan.
Fifteen minutes. In and out. Shower, change of clothes, then out again, away from the mayhem till it passes, and my garden will be mine again by tomorrow.
I push the door open, and I’m fuming again.
Last year, after the triplets threw their first Spring Break Inauguration party, I remodeled the ground floor. Not by choice. The damage their idiot friends caused forced my hand, so this year, I set hard rules.
The main one: don’t let anyone inside the house.
Looks like that’s too much to ask for because the door to the guest bathroom down the corridor stands wide open. Conor is there, leaning against the frame. A puzzled expression taints his features, and he’s cluelessly scratching his chin.
Colt’s taking two steps at a time, almost flying down the stairs with a travel-sized bottle of mouthwash, toothpaste, and a toothbrush in hands.
And then, I hear it... someone’s puking.
“What the fuck is going on?” I boom, halting Colt at the bottom step. “Why are you here?”