As he neared, I couldn’t help but notice how incredibly hot he looked. He was sort of dressed up, wearing tight jeans and a dark gray button-down shirt under a fitted black vest. The sleeves were rolled up, showing off his strong forearms, and the whole effect had me panting. It had been a long five days without him, and my libido was screaming at me to pull him into the bathroom and make up for lost time.
It was going to be tough to resist him.
As they reached us, I could feel Ryan’s gaze scouring every inch of my exposed skin. And admittedly, there was a lot of it. I shivered, and shifted in my seat. I hadn’t looked him in the eyes yet, and I was afraid to.
“Hey bro. What are you guys doing here? Isn’t there a game calling your name tonight?” I asked nervously. I never called Jeremybro, and my voice was way too high. Jeremy didn’t seem to notice though.
“We felt like coming out and taking a break,” he answered simply. “We’ve been playing video games all day.”
“Where’s Elle? Shouldn’t she be with you?” I was scrambling to keep the conversation going, so I could put off looking to Jeremy’s left and acknowledging Ryan’s brooding shadow.
“She’s out of town. A girl’s trip thing. She’s had it planned for months.” He answered awkwardly.
Ryan’s head whipped around, and his mouth dropped open incredulously. “What the hell? You said that this was Elle’s idea!” Ryan said gruffly.
It was the first thing he’d said since they had come over, and his voice sent a second shiver down my spine. I’d missed that too, apparently.
Jeremy shrugged, and grabbed a stool from a nearby table, dragging it over next to mine. “Mind if we sit with you ladies for a while?”
Erin was staring at me wide-eyed, I was trying not to look at Ryan, Ryan was glaring daggers at Jeremy, and Jeremy was happily glancing around the bar, sipping his drink like an oblivious idiot.
“Sure. Why not?” Erin finally said. I started glaring too, but she shrugged helplessly.
Ryan sighed and dragged another empty chair over. Once he sat, we accidentally met each other’s eyes before immediately looking away. It was going to be an interesting night.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ryan
I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do more. Kill my best friend, or kiss his sister. The impulses were pretty neck and neck at the moment. Jeremy had never pulled something like this before. Sneaky and underhanded wasn’t in his nature. I’d fallen for his act completely. I just didn’t know what his end game was.
When I saw April across the bar and confronted him about it, all he would say is that it wasn’t a big deal, and that we needed to work out our issues for the sake of the family. I stupidly hadn’t even realized that the Elle part was entirely fabricated until he told the girls she was out of town. He must have seen one of April’s posts tonight on social media, and decided to force us together.
I’d like to believe that he wanted us to work things out, as he’d said, but I had the strong feeling that this was his version of sick punishment. Payback for seducing his little sister. Which was extremely ironic.
I probably would have decked him and walked right out if April hadn’t looked like a damned goddess. I thought she was gorgeous in anything, or nothing, but tonight she was on an entirely different level. The tiny dress, sky-high shoes, the sexy hair, it was all killing me. I wanted to drink it all in, but I couldn’t look at her without getting hard, which under the current circumstances was wildly inappropriate. So, I sat next to her, miserably, trying my best to think about anything else. Like strangling Jeremy.
April was unusually quiet, which I couldn’t blame her for, and Jeremy was being useless, so Erin and I caught up. We’d known each other causally for a long time, as the siblings token ‘best friends’. I didn’t know her well, but she had always been funny and easy to be around. She was actually one of the few girls in our school that I hadn’t messed around with. She’d never seemed interested, and I counted her as off-limits just like April. Since we’d all stayed friends into adulthood, I was exceptionally glad how that had worked out.
“Let’s play a drinking game.” Jeremy suggested, out of nowhere. We’d been sitting together for nearly half an hour, and it was the first thing he’d said since.
“We aren’t in college anymore.” April scoffed.
I grunted a similar sentiment. I wasn’t in the mood for some stupid game either. I just wanted to get home, and possibly jack off in the shower for an hour to mental images of April in that ridiculous excuse for a dress.
“Oh, come on,” he insisted with a grin. “It will be fun. Liven things up. It’s New Year’s Eve after all!”
Erin looked as confused as the rest of us, but then she suddenly smiled, and my heart sank. “Actually, that’s a great idea. I’ll get us some shots. What should we play?”
It was two against two now. April had some silent conversation with Erin that only women seem to be able to do, and then I saw her fall too.
“Fine. Nothing stupid though. We can’t really do most of them here anyway. Maybe quarters, or ‘which would you rather’?” she suggested, chewing on her lower lip.
“How about, ‘Never have I ever’?” Jeremy asked.
“Fucking hell,” I said, under my breath. This definitely was a bad idea. April stiffened beside me, so I knew she wasn’t thrilled about it either.
Erin looked between me and April suspiciously. As if things couldn’t get any worse, I was now more certain than ever that April had told her about us. Which meant literally everyone at the table knew, but no one could, or would, say it out loud. And considering that in almost twenty years of knowing Jeremy, we’d never once played this game, or anything like it, it was obvious that it was a definite set up.