Grayson gave her a pointed look. “You know why.”
Her shoulders straightened. “At some point, Gray, you have to stop making decisions for me. I’m not as frail as you all think I am.”
“Of course you’re not,” Mads interjected. “You look great, by the way. Really good.”
Kenna flipped her gaze from Grayson to me. “In case you haven’t figured it out, our family is just as screwed up as the next. Probably more so.”
“You should meet my family,” I said tartly. “I mean, my stepbrother is Carter Patterson.”
Her lips twitched, even though a shadow moved into her deep brown eyes. “Okay, you win.”
Micah tilted his head to the side. I didn’t like the gleam in his eyes and braced myself for something stupid to come out of his mouth. He didn’t disappoint. “Any chance the two of you would be interested in fulfilling a lifelong dream of mine? I’ve never hooked up with twins, and you guys are the closest—”
A round of nos went through the group, cutting him off from finishing his sentence.
Mads whacked him on the chest, careful not to spill her drink. “God, Micah, you’re lucky Brock doesn’t kick the shit out of you.”
“We’re brothers. What happened to what’s mine is yours?” He was teasing Brock. At least, I was pretty sure, but at some point, Micah would take it too far. It was that point that concerned me.
Brock’s jaw clenched. “This is one thing we’re not sharing.”
I rolled my eyes as Micah flashed me his dimples. “You can’t blame a guy for trying. What if they had said yes?”
As we sat there over the next hour, more and more people from school got the courage to come over to say hi to Kenna. It was clear how popular she was, and it made me curious. If I hadn’t run Ava out of the party, would she have come over and embraced her old friend? I cringed at the idea of Kenna being close with my enemy.
Nearly everyone made some sort of comment about how much Kenna and I looked alike, but no one gave them a reason why. And they didn’t ask, not with a scowling Brock glaring at them. Kenna just giggled it off or quickly changed the topic. She was quite good at steering a conversation.
I was on my third drink, or maybe it was my fourth. I had a bad habit of losing count. Brock slipped his arms around me and lifted me off the chair, standing up behind me. He managed to do all of that while still keeping his hands on me. “Come on, Firefly. It’s time to go.”
I leaned into him as he took the glass from my hand and set it on the table.
Kenna pulled out the pout and the sad eyes. “Now? But we were just getting to know each other.”
But this time, Brock did not succumb. “If you’re back, then you’ll have the rest of the school year to get acquainted.”
She flinched, her pout turning into a frown. Someone didn’t like not getting her way. After spending just an hour with Kenna, she was much like I envisioned. Sweet. Energetic. And vain. But now and then, I caught a flash of an emotion I couldn’t put my finger on. Anger. Jealousy. Bitterness. Whatever she was feeling, she was trying her hardest to mask it, which made me wonder, why hide it?
Brock kept a secure arm around me. He caught Micah, Grayson, and Fynn’s gazes. “Can you guys close this down? I want everyone gone when I get back.”
“What if I’m not ready to leave?” I argued, flattening my palm on his chest. His heart thumped under my hand.
“You don’t have a choice, Firefly.” And as if he anticipated that I was seconds away from making another scene, because apparently, that’s what I was good at, Brock proceeded to dip down and haul me over his shoulder, baring my ass to the ceiling. Thank fucking God I hadn’t decided to wear a skirt tonight.
“Wait!” I shrieked, trying to shove the pink hair out of my face as it fell forward into my eyes, hanging down his back. “I need my drink.”
He ignored my protests and sauntered out of the room like it were the most casual thing to be carrying me through his house.
Maybe Brock was right. We needed to talk all right. About how he can’t just make me do whatever the fuck he wanted.