“Unless Knox here wins her over with his stealth hugging campaign,” I said, and Denver and Tonio laughed.
“It’s always the quiet ones,” Tonio quipped, and Knox shot us a smug smile.
“Seriously, though…” The others looked toward me, hoping I had an answer. “Let’s keep an eye out for any opportunities that come our way.”
Denver looked suspicious. “What do you mean? I thought we agreed not to pressure her.” So much for trust among brothers.
“I’m just saying that if the opportunity arises to let her know that it’s okay to like more than one man at a time, let’s take it.”
Tonio shook his head ruefully. “Isn’t your entire twin striptease a testament to that fact? You’d think that alone would’ve clued her in.”
I shrugged. “She had a lot of things on her mind that night.”
A comfortable silence fell for a few moments before Denver spoke again. “We could be projecting. Maybe she doesn’t like any of us as more than friends.”
My head tilted to the side and then I couldn’t help but laugh, the others joining in. “I think she likes us, all right. I think we have plenty of evidence of that.”
The others nodded, knowing exactly what I meant. Lately, whenever one of us would flirt with her, Emma’s face would flush and her nipples would visibly harden under her shirt. Inevitably, she’d excuse herself and rush up to her room, saying that she had to work on filling out job applications. I was pretty sure no one among us believed that was the real reason she dashed up there when she was so hot and bothered. And the thought of what she might be doing up there all alone made me hot and bothered.
Tonio chuckled again. “Funny how she hasn’t gotten a job after all that time filling out applications.”
“It does seem like she should’ve gotten at least half a dozen jobs by now. Well, not that the job market is that great in Riverside, but she sure as hell claims to have applied for a ton.” I stood up, and the others did the same. “So we’re agreed, then? We don’t pressure her. If she chooses just one of us, it’s okay.”
“But we can still let her know that other options exist,” Denver added.
“And who knows,” Tonio said with a grin. “That knowledge might cause her to hightail it up to her room again.”
10
Denver
“What’s the score?” Knox asked, palming the ball in his large hand.
“Eight to seven,” I said, panting a bit. Every so often, we cleared the cars out of the driveway and played a game or two of pickup basketball. And though we were all buddies, we could get pretty damn competitive.
“Who’s winning?”
“We are.” It was the big guy and me against Tonio and Austin. They never let Austin and me play on the same team. Knox always accused us of having some kind of twin telepathy, which wasn’t true. Though I did usually know what Austin was thinking and vice versa. But it was familiarity, not magic.
“Good.” Knox bounced the ball once and passed it to me, signaling the end of our short break.
“Hey,” Tonio shouted, dropping his water bottle and rushing back to our makeshift court. “How about a little heads-up next time?”
Austin was all over me, blocking every chance I had to take a shot. I managed to pass the ball back to Knox, though. Tonio jumped high, trying to block the shot, but Knox sank it with nothing but net. “Nine-seven,” I called out triumphantly.
I wasn’t quite as cocky a few minutes later when Tonio and Austin tied it up. We only played to eleven, but the rules were you had to win by two.
A car pulled up while I was dribbling the ball, trying to keep it away from Austin’s quick hands. It was my car, in fact. I’d lent it to Emma this morning, and I took a quick look to make sure it was still in one piece. Not that women weren’t good drivers, but Emma, cute as she was, could also be something of a klutz.
My quick glance away was all the opening Austin needed, and a second later he had the ball and arced it through the air. “Ten-nine.”
Shit.
We paused to welcome Emma back and, well, to check out what she was wearing. Mostly the former, but I had to admit, she looked pretty delicious in a short-sleeved button-down blouse and a tight skirt.
“How was your interview?” Tonio asked.
“Not bad.” She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. That action made the thin fabric of her shirt stretch over her breasts, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed. “It sounds like they’re interviewing a lot of others, though.”
My heart went out to her. The poor girl’d had one thing after another dumped on her, and while she was doing her best to carve out a new life for herself, the job market in Riverside wasn’t cooperating.