Chapter 16
Sixteen
Zach
Yawning broadly, I stretch while still lying in bed, then let my body relax fully as I blink awake.
I have no idea what time it is, though by the position of the sun out the window, I’m guessing late morning.
It was after five by the time I’d fallen into bed last night and drifted off to sleep after—
At just the start of the thought of what that little minx had done to me last night, my cock stirs. Pressing my palm against it, I groan. No. I don’t have time for a morning jerk-off session, as badly as I want to.
Rolling into a sitting position, I plant my feet on the floor and stretch my spine out.
That’s when I hear the giggling.
And… is that Disney music?
Bracing my palms on the tops of my knees, I push to a standing position, then grab a pair of sweatpants and pull them up my legs, settling the waistband on my hips.
Digging through the drawers, I yank an old t-shirt out of the bottom and pull it on over my head as I exit the bedroom door.
I can see Louise standing at the stove, her back to the rest of the house.
The delicious aroma of eggs, waffles, and bacon greet me as I walk down the hallway, and my stomach growls angrily. Fuck, I’m hungry.
The music gets louder as I get closer, and then I hear the modge-podge of voices singing along.
I stop at the entrance of the hallway, taking in the scene before me.
Now that I’m closer, I realize Louise is dancing where she stands at the stove, spatula held up so that she’s singing into it like a microphone.
Chloe is standing in the middle of the couch, bouncing on the cushions as she sings along to whatever song is playing on the Bluetooth speaker beneath the tv.
To my utter shock, Bailey and Abigail are dancing and jumping around, singing along as well. “…Pressure that’ll drip drip drip that’ll never stop. Whoa. Pressure that’ll tip tip tip ‘til you just go pop!”
“Give it to your sister, your sister’s stronger—”
“Whoa-ah-oh!” my girls sing-shout together, giggling all the more.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I lean my shoulder against the wall and watch the show before me, pulling my lips in between my teeth to keep from laughing out loud and interrupting.
Louise goes back to stirring the eggs in the pan in front of her, but her shoulders don’t stop moving while she sings along.
At some point she must have snuck over to her place to change, because—to my supreme disappointment—she no longer has on that teeny tiny pair of sleep shorts or barely-there tank top.
Although, I’m not entirely sure the pair of black leggings that she has on now are any better for my sanity.
They mold to her ass like they’re paid to do so.
A fitted, cropped long sleeve top in a pretty pink covers her upper body, but every time she moves, a strip of tanned skin peeks out between the hem of the tank top and the top of her leggings. She’s barefoot.
Her hair has been re-braided and falls clear down to her ass, but a baseball hat is on her head. She looks so fucking adorable it physically aches in my chest. I rub at my sternum, but that ache isn’t going away anytime soon. Goddammit.
“Daddy!” Chloe screeches, bouncing toward the end of the couch closest to where I’m still standing propped against the wall when she spots me. “Sing with us! Lou is making waffles!”
Louise spins on her heel, startled by Chloe’s outburst, her hand flying to her chest, spatula clattering to the stovetop noisily. Her eyes find mine across the space between us, and I get my first look at her since last night.
“I can see that.” My words come out far more husky than intended, and I clear my throat as I push away from the wall. “It smells delicious.”
“Are you hungry?” Louise asks, dropping her hand from her chest, where I’m sure her heart is fluttering wildly. She’s all jittery and nervous, and it’s endearing as fuck. She reaches for her phone, hitting the button on the side, and the volume of the music drops.
“Starving,” I say honestly, and that damn kissable mouth drops open, her breaths coming out in puffs.
“I have coffee ready for you if you want any,” she whispers, swallowing hard, before spinning and picking up the spatula. “I wasn’t sure if you were a coffee kinda guy, but Bailey assured me you’re a brute without coffee in the morning, so I thought it would be safe to make a pot.”
I glare over at my middle child, and she just goes wide eyed, raising her hands and saying, “What? It’s the truth!”
Rolling my eyes, I step into the kitchen and over to the coffee pot and pour myself a cup.
From where I’m standing, my shoulders are very nearly touching Lou’s where she’s standing at the stove.
A waffle iron I’ve never seen before is set up on the counter, steam billowing out of it as it cooks the batter inside it.
Leaning close to Louise, I whisper for her ears only, “Do you take your coffee with cream, Princess?”
Her cheeks turn a delightful shade of pink beneath the brim of her hat, her teeth clamping down on her bottom lip as she concentrates on flipping the bacon in the pan.
Before she can come up with a response, I hear the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle engine outside and back away from the temptress next to me. Thirty seconds later the door opens.
“Good morning fam!”
Fuckkk.
The girls screech in excitement as Joel walks into the living room, arms outstretched wide as he waits for the three of them to barrel into him for hugs.
“It smells amazing in here,” he says, but I can’t see him yet. “I know your dad doesn’t know how to cook—”
“Lou is making us breakfast! Come on!”
“Who is Lou—” I hear just as he comes around the corner and I watch him freeze in the process of taking off his leather jacket.
I give him my most lethal death glare, but of course he’s completely unfazed. A slow grin spreads across his face as he steps forward, just as Louise turns from where she’s pulling the first waffle out of the iron and placing it on a plate.
He drapes the black leather over the back of one of the barstools and steps around the counter toward her. “Hello, beautiful. Are you lost? Blink twice if you’re here under duress. My brother can be a beast at times, but holding a beauty like yourself hostage is new even for him.”
Louise laughs, her smile wide, and I grind my molars together so hard my jaw aches.
My brother holds his hand out toward her, and she places hers in his.
I damn near growl when he raises her hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it.
She giggles and I hate that my fucking brother is the one making her laugh.
I’m going to kill this motherfucker.
She glances up at me with those green eyes that should belong to me and only me, and I can’t help but think, That’s right, Princess. Eyes on me.
“Joel Macomb,” my bastard of a brother murmurs, his lips still grazing the back of her hand, and her eyes leave mine and back to his.
“Macomb? Brother?” she asks, glancing between us, and we both nod.
“I’m the younger, better looking one.”
She laughs out loud again, her eyes dancing, and goddammit I’ve never hated my brother as much as I do in this moment.
This fucker.
He’s charming and funny and it pisses me off because I’m neither of those things. He’s wearing a pair of jeans and another one of his tightly fitted t-shirts that show off all the work he does at the gym. With his dark hair, dark eyes, and glasses, he’s a good-looking dude and he fucking knows it.
“I’m Louise Miller,” she says, pulling her hand away from Joel’s. She ladles a scoop of waffle batter into the iron and closes it, twisting it so that it rotates a full 180 degrees in the cradle.
“And how did you meet this grumpy old man?” Joel asks, hiking a thumb in my direction. I slurp another swallow of my coffee to keep from punching him.
She laughs again. “I just moved in next door a couple weeks ago.”
“Well, I’m glad my brother has welcomed you to the neighborhood,” Joel says and winks at her.
I’m gonna kill him. Slowly. Painfully.
“He’s been very welcoming,” she says, then turns to plate up the scrambled eggs and bacon. She cuts the first waffle in half, placing half on two plates. “I watched the girls last night while he was out on a fire call, thought I’d feed these girls since I wasn’t sure how late he’d sleep.”
“You’re just getting up, you lazy bones?
I’ve been up for hours,” he says, smacking my chest with the back of his hand as Louise steps around us toward the kitchen bar carrying the two plates.
Chloe and Bailey climb up into the barstools on the opposite side.
“We were on the same call last night and you don’t see me sleeping until almost noon. ”
“Oh, you’re a firefighter, too?” she asks, eyes wide.
“All three of us are,” Joel says, nodding as he helps himself to a cup of coffee.
“All three of you?” Lou asks, her blonde brows drawing close as she comes back to the stove. She looks around the room, like she’s expecting another person to pop up out of thin air.
“Our oldest brother is a wildland firefighter in Washington state,” I say, fighting a grin.
“Ahhh. So, there’s three of you? Are you all outrageously attractive or just you two?” she asks, laughing as she places the third plate at the counter for Abi.
“Eww, they are not,” Abi groans, shaking her head. “Gross.”
Louise laughs, and fuck me if her dimples don’t completely disarm me like always. “My apologies, you are absolutely correct. They’re all trolls.”
She looks up at me from beneath the brim of that hat and winks at me.
I feel that wink in my fucking dick.
Joel hitches his thumb at me again and addresses my oldest daughter, “Aww come on, Abs, don’t be lumping me in with this brute. That’s not fair.”
Abi shrugs her shoulders, sticking a bite of the waffle in her mouth. “Sorry, Uncle Joel. I can’t take it back.”
“Can’t or won’t?” he asks, narrowing his eyes on her.
“Won’t,” she affirms around a bite of scrambled eggs, grinning.
Joel clutches at his chest in feigned pain, making Abi and Bailey laugh.
“I think you and Daddy are very handsome,” Chloe says, picking up her bacon and tearing off a bite with her teeth—the front two missing. “And Uncle Xander. But we never get to see him because he works so far away.”
“Thank you, Chlo, you always were my favorite,” Joel teases, wrapping an arm around Abigail’s shoulders and squeezing. She groans and rolls her eyes but lets him do it. He then moves down the line and kisses the top of Chloe’s head, who beams up at him.
“Joel, are you staying for breakfast? I can make more eggs,” Louise asks over her shoulder as she ladles up another waffle into the iron before closing it.
“I’d love to.”
“Absolutely not.”
I glare at my brother, our responses overlapping each other.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” I ask over the rim of my coffee cup.
“Nope,” he says, popping the P nosily, his eyes bouncing between me and Louise. With her back still turned, he waggles his dark brows and mouths, “Dude! She’s hot!”
I grind my teeth together again. I hate him.
I have eyes. I know this woman is fucking beautiful.
“Dibs,” I mouth back, and he grins before covering it with a large gulp of his coffee as Louise turns back around to face us.
Some vaguely familiar Disney song starts playing and all four of the girls chorus a round of “I love this song!” Louise reaches for her phone where it’s sitting on the counter and hits that button on the side, turning the volume up several notches.
“Oh no,” I groan, realizing too late. I lean my hips against the counter in defeat. “This is Frozen, isn’t it?”
Joel grabs a wire whisk from the utensils crock on the counter and holds it up like a microphone. Louise laughs and spins, picking up her spatula-turned-microphone and holds it up to her mouth, too.
“All my life has been a series of doors in my face…” Louise sings into her make-shift microphone, making the girls giggle across the counter, and I can do nothing but watch as my charming little brother starts dueting with my girl.
“…I was thinking the same thing! I’ve been searching my whole life…”
“How do you even know this fucking song,” I grumble above the rim of my coffee cup as Joel practically serenades Louise, dramatic flair and all.
Her wide smile and genuine laughter are infectious as she gets into it theatrically, making my three girls cackle in their seats, singing along with the two of them. Bailey uses a piece of bacon as a microphone before taking a chomp of it. I snort, shaking my head.
It’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, and I hate every second of it.
She’s pure, radiant sunshine and unbridled happiness and goddammit she’s looking at Joel with that damn smile that I haven’t gotten to taste yet.
And I want to sweep my brother’s legs out from beneath him just for spite.
See how charming he is from flat on his back in the middle of my kitchen floor.
“Can I say something crazy?” Joel asks, getting down on one knee in the middle of my kitchen, in almost the exact same spot that she was on her knees for me just last night. My jaw is clenched so hard I’m liable to crack a tooth when he sings, “Will you marry me?”
And my fucking girl says, along with the song, “Can I say something even crazier? Yes!”
Oh fuck no.
It’s in this exact moment that I realize the promise I made to myself last night about keeping my hands to myself is blown all to hell.