“So, you’re good with this?” asked Max as he sat at the table.
“Sure, why not? Simone works hard. She maybe needs more guys than average to make up for it.”
Simone cleared her throat, shocked at how blasé her sister was.
Rafe sat at the table. “Fine, as long as you don’t feel compelled to share the news during show and tell, or whatever they do in high school these days.”
Rafe let her teasing slide.She wasn’t as comfortable with the relationship as she was pretending, but she wasn’t against it, and that seemed like a good thing. And she wanted to play at being sophisticated.
Simone pushed her chair back. “I’ll make us breakfast. I know I’ve got groceries for eggs and toast.”
“I suppose you all worked up an appetite doing all sorts of gross things,” Gemma said.
“We might just have done that,” Rafe agreed and was rewarded by Gemma’s smile.
“My credit card payment bounced,”she told Gemma as she put down the phone. “That’s impossible. I’m super conservative and make certain the money is in the bank.”
“I’ll check,” she said, opening her computer.
“You can do that?”
Gemma grinned. “I can now that I set it up properly.”
Simone shook her head. There was no question that she was going to have to learn something more about computers. The damn things controlled the world, and you couldn’t stay away from them.
“Bad news…” Gemma said. Her mouth hung open. “You have no money. None. And the credit cards are shut down.” She pushed back. “I guess Brad didn’t like Rafe’s buddies making home visits to his friends.”
“Now what am I going to do? We have a bunch of bills to pay.”
Gemma grinned. “I happen to know someone who can help us out here.”
“Are we going to have to call Rafe or Max every time things go crazy? We owe them so much already.”
“Two things, sis. I’m just a kid, but even I know these guys would crawl through an acre of ground glass on their bellies just because you asked them to. And the other is, yes, we damn well better keep calling on them until we can either take care of it ourselves or it’s all over.”
“I suppose. But I have to go to work.”
Gemma nodded. “I’ll call them. It’s a teacher planning day, so no school. You go earn some money, and I’ll ask the guys to help me with a treasure hunt.”
She didn’t want to. At some point, a point she couldn’t define, asking for help got to be a habit, and you got dependent. But they had to eat and pay rent. And damn it, it was her money. “Okay, call Rafe and Max.”
Gemma grinned. “Will do.”
“You really like them, don’t you?”
“Not as much as you, but they’re good for you. You smile more since you’ve been seeing Rafe and Max, and they’re great to have around.”
The night before, Rafe and Max had taken them to the clubhouse. Simone had felt awkward in that crowd, but Gemma hadn’t. She had talked with the guys, conned Clutch into taking her for a ride (not that it was all that hard), and generally had more fun than Simone had seen her have in a long time. It had been interesting meeting Tessa and Vanessa, too. They were obviously trying to make a pitch for Rafe and Max, to plead their cases subtly. It was easy to see that they adored them the way sisters did. That had been unexpected.
And ever since the second time Rafe and Max had stayed over, after she’d admitted to Gemma that they were lovers, Gemma had stopped having nightmares. Simone hadn’t said a word about it because she wanted to make sure she didn’t bring them back.
So there was much to think about that was good—even in this current crisis.
“I’ll get them over here and make them show me what you do when some fool pulls something like this.”
“I’ll get dressed and go to work. That way we will both be doing something useful.”
“The junior college has free courses in computers,” Gemma said. “I can help you with your homework.”