Chapter 30
PHOEBE
While cooking, I texted Veronica, informing her about this unexpected twist. My friend was over the moon.
Veronica: That guy is a KEEPER. Yes, yes, yes! I’m so happy for you.
Phoebe: Thanks, V.
I smiled, dancing around the kitchen the entire time.
Despite insisting that they wanted to load up all the boxes first, the guys took a break after about an hour.
It turned out that carrying them from the car up to the house took much longer than bringing them from the bungalow to the car back at the old house.
Plus, the guys genuinely liked one another, so there was a lot of banter among themselves that slowed down progress.
“All right, I’m going to spoil you for a bit,” I said as I brought lunch to the table.
The casserole didn’t take long. I didn’t want to sing my own praises, but this recipe was delicious.
“Why are you in such a good mood?” Griffin said as we sat down.
“I just like cooking in this kitchen. I feel like it’s made my food even better.”
“No, babe, that’s all you,” he said. “You’re a fantastic cook.”
My heart gave a mighty sigh. I hadn’t even cooked that often, but I loved that he was praising me.
“Holy shit, this is good. I wonder if it seems even better because we’ve been doing manual labor,” Knox said. Laughing, he added, “It’s objectively fantastic.”
Duncan and Wyatt were both scarfing down food so fast that they weren’t even talking. Only after Duncan cleaned half of his plate did he say, “Damn, this is good. I was starving.”
“Oh my God. Why didn’t you say anything before?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t even realize until I started eating.”
Knox looked at Griffin and me a few times with disbelief. I’d give a penny for his thoughts.
“So… you’ve got a plan for living with this bozo?” Knox asked.
“I didn’t know I need one,” I said between bites.
“Ha!” Finn exclaimed. “Well, it’s his first time living with a woman, so I’m betting you’re going to need a book of plans to deal with him.”
He’s never lived with a woman before? Was that my face turning into a smile? No, it was a downright grin.
“Dude,” Duncan said, “you don’t have to put her on the spot.”
“To be fair, he’s putting Griffin on the spot,” Chase added.
My God, I loved these guys.
Griffin held his hands out, shrugging. “Well, I haven’t, and I’m not ashamed of it. I know Phoebe and I will sail through this without any issues.”
“I’m counting on you to tell me the truth,” Knox said, pointing at me.
“Yeah,” Finn added. “Take notes, you know, for any proof to the contrary that we can hold over his head.”
I laughed after taking another forkful. The two of them looked at me, stunned. I took my time swallowing and then said, “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I have my man’s back through and through.”
Griffin pulled me closer to him, kissing the side of my head, and Duncan whistled. Chase actually burst out laughing.
“One of these days, you two will learn what it’s like to feel this sort of loyalty to someone,” Chase said to Finn and Knox.
“Interesting that you’ve left me out,” Wyatt said.
Chase waved his hand. “I meant the three of you, obviously. But I actually pointed those two out because I think the probability of you getting hitched before them is higher.”
Now it was Wyatt’s turn to look stunned. Knox and Finn had almost identical grins.
“Take that back,” Wyatt said.
Chase frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t want that sort of thing out in the open.”
“In case of what, karma?” I asked.
He didn’t even answer. Clearly, the idea scared him witless. But I suspected that Chase and Duncan had started out that way. He might come around still.
“All right, if it makes you feel better, I’m taking it back,” Chase said. He was obviously fighting laughter.
“Thank you,” Wyatt replied.
“I’m putting it out in the open again,” Knox added cheerfully.
Wyatt turned his head to look at him. “Why would you do that? I thought we were a team.”
“I don’t know. Habit, I guess,” Knox replied. “You being part of the older group, we being the younger ones, it’s just what we do.”
“No, we don’t,” Wyatt said. “We’re not five anymore.”
“Sometimes we are,” Finn cut in. “Like right now.” He looked at me apologetically.
“Hey, don’t stop on my behalf. This is fascinating. I’ve had friends who had siblings growing up, but at most one or two, and it wasn’t so…”
“Insane?” Duncan suggested.
“Lively,” I replied. “Is it always like this?”
“Usually, it’s worse,” Griffin said. Then his face turned into a devilish grin that I’d never seen him use around me. “And I’m one of those causing most of the trouble.”
“He is,” Wyatt agreed. “Don’t let him fool you with this facade he’s putting on now.”
“This group is getting more interesting by the minute,” I murmured.
“You wait until we’re all together this evening with our women,” Chase warned. “For some reason, we’re even worse around them.”
“You’d think that you’d try to impress them or something. But no, that only happens in the beginning,” Knox said, focusing on me again. “Now that I think of it, these two bozos also pretended to be above bickering when they first met their girls. Actually, no, wait, Duncan really is like that.”
I didn’t know what to reply, so I just laughed.
“All right,” Griffin exclaimed, “how about we finish our lunch and get to work? You can give me all the shit you want later.”
“I was going to give you more shit later anyway,” Knox said, “but you do have a point.”
While we finished the rest of our lunch, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Taking it out, I noticed a message from Mom.
Mom: We finally got tickets. We can’t wait to see you.
Oh, I was ecstatic. It was a bit early for her to send me the ticket details, but who cared. Usually, I told her to send them two or three weeks before so I had all the info.
I froze when I looked at the ticket dates. Oh my God, they were coming the weekend after I was handing the house over. But I knew for a fact that I’d told them to buy the tickets for the end of next month.
Taking a deep breath, I scrolled farther up until I found the message.
Nope, I’d told them to come this month. Ah, damn it. I bit the inside of my cheek, deciding not to tell them about my mistake. The tickets were nonrefundable.
Crap, this was not a good time at all. I’d have to think about how to best bring it up later with Griffin. Right now, I wanted to focus on taking care of the guys.
“Anything wrong?” Griffin asked.
I shook my head, putting the phone in my pocket. “It’s all good.”
He didn’t say anything, so I chanced a glance at him. He was frowning slightly. I figured he didn’t buy my quick excuse, but he didn’t insist.
Once everyone finished, we carried the plates to the kitchen.
“I need a coffee now,” Chase said. “I’m starting the coffee maker.”
“See, that’s why I didn’t want us to pause for lunch,” Knox said. “I knew we’d be tired afterward.”
“Guys, you know you can just take the boxes out of your cars and put them by the wall,” I told them. “I’ll carry them to the bedroom later.”
Chase looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “No. That’s not how Sterlings do things. We’ll carry everything upstairs. We just needed a boost.”
“Well, then, I’ll take a coffee too,” I said.
I usually didn’t drink any caffeinated drinks in the afternoon, but I wanted all my energy today.
The second we emptied our cups, Knox said, “Let’s stop procrastinating or we’ll never get this done.”
Finn nodded. “Yeah. We don’t want to be late to Hannah’s either.”
It turned out that he was right. It took almost two hours to carry up the rest. The guys were completely spent by the time they’d finished.
“I really need to think about doing something more to thank them,” I murmured as Knox, Chase, Finn, Wyatt, and Duncan went up with their last stack of boxes.
“No, you don’t, babe,” Griffin said, coming up from behind me. “Trust me, it’s good to put them to work. Otherwise, they’d spend all of their time giving me shit. This keeps them occupied and focused on something else.”
He pulled me out of view of the staircase and into the living area. Then he pushed me against the wall and kissed me so deliciously that my fingers curled. I rose to my toes, deepening the kiss.
“You know, I think we should go before we become cockblockers,” Knox said.
I gasped, literally jumping to the side. My face felt completely red. My insides were on fire. I slowly walked in front of the staircase so they could see that nothing untoward was happening. Griffin joined me after a few seconds, glaring at his brothers.
“Oh, we already are.” Knox nodded. “Got it. We’ll be out of your way.”
“Actually,” Chase said, looking at his phone, “our parents are already there. Hannah said that you’re welcome to join us, and then we can make it a whole afternoon event. If you don’t have plans.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Griffin, who zeroed in on me. By the feral intensity in his eyes, I was 100 percent sure that he did have some very sexy plans for me this afternoon.
“That’s fine by me,” I said.
That intensity flared up a bit. Oh, I was enjoying this. I would love to seduce this amazing man right here, right now, but we couldn’t turn Hannah down.
“Sure, we can go,” Griffin said.
“I’m not going to start unpacking until tomorrow anyway,” I added.
“Good idea,” Griffin replied. “I wouldn’t let you today anyway. You need to relax.”
He pressed his fingers into my shoulder blades as he led us out of the house. His brothers were right behind us. I didn’t actually do anything—they’d been the ones carrying stuff around—but when he pressed his thumbs into my skin, the tension released instantly.
Huh, look at that. My man knew me even better than I knew myself.
As we descended to the car, I said, “I’m actually glad for the excuse not to be home; otherwise, maybe I would feel so guilty that I would start to unpack and organize things.”
He growled in my ear. “No chance of that, babe. I had far better ideas for the afternoon.”
Oh yeah, I’d been spot-on.