After that night, things changed, and both of the brothers did too. They turned into bossy jerks whose life mission was to ruin our annual family trip. I do my best to ignore them, so obviously Briar does her best to annoy them.
“Incoming,” Briar mutters under her breath, but I don’t need to see Heath to know he’s close. I can feel him coming because he gets as close to me as possible without touching, but I don’t think it’s on purpose.
My whole body wakes from a deep slumber, and not one boy I met while away at college could do the same to me. Then again, Briar and I went to Wellesley College, just like all the women in my mother’s family. It’s one of the largest and most influential women’s colleges in the world.
“Aren’t you a little young to be in here?” Mace is the first to speak.
“Well, hello to you too, Heath,” Briar sasses back, and I bite the inside of my cheek so that I don’t laugh.
I peek over at Mace and know he’s pissed. I don’t know why Briar pretends to mix them up every single time, but he should really be on to this by now. Heath shifts on his feet, and I can see it makes him uncomfortable, but he doesn’t get mad.
“Mace,” he clips to correct her.
“Right,” Briar giggles. “And you should know we’re 21 since you both showed up to our party at the beach house. Uninvited.”
“We live next door; we’re always invited.” Heath responds this time.
I hate him. His voice is low and gravelly, and just when I think he can’t get hotter, he does something like talk and my panties try to melt.
“Welp. This has been fun.” Briar grabs the small iPad on the table and takes out her credit card to pay. I reach out and take two mozzarella sticks for the road. We’re so ordering in when we get home. “We’d love to stay and catch up and do whatever else this is, but we have three guys we have to go meet up with.”
My eyes peek up towards Heath, and I’m ignoring Briar and Mace bickering. Heath is staring down at me, and it’s like I can feel his gaze on my skin.
“Three?” he asks, his voice firm and final. I wonder if that comes with his profession, but I think he might have always been that way.
“So I’ve been told. I saw a picture, and they are pretty cute.”
Heath’s hand comes down on the back of my chair, and it’s almost an intimate gesture. From the outside, it makes us appear to be together, or I might be reading it wrong. I must be. I know where Heath stands, and while it might be next to me at the moment, that’s all it is. A moment. I have to get out of here, and these kittens are already coming in handy. That’s a point for them.
“We need to—”
“Heath, sorry I’m late,” a tall blonde says as she comes up next to him. “Am I interrupting?” Her eyes bounce around to the four of us, and Briar jumps up.
“Nope,” she answers. “We were letting them have our table since we’re heading out. I think all the others are taken.”
“Oh, thank you,” the blonde says and smiles at us.
I go to slip down off my chair, but Heath pulls it out for me first before taking my coat off the back of it. He tries to put it on me, but I grab it out of his hold.
“I guess we’ll see you at the beach house in a few months.” I finally speak a full sentence as I push past Heath.
“Sooner than that,” I think I hear him say under his breath, but I ignore it.
That’s what I’m used to doing when it comes to Heath. I give him nothing, which is what he gave me all those years ago.