13. Tori
13
TORI
I frowned as I ran a finger along a dusty shelf. “Can I get rid of these?”
Jayden glanced over as he picked his way through stacks of boxes. He shrugged, because it was Lucas’s call. He was in charge of what stayed and went in this extremely cluttered basement. “Yo, Lucas!”
Lucas appeared from the back room, looking like he’d rolled around in dirt. Everything down here was old and dusty. “What’s up?”
“Do you want these old tablecloths?” I poked at the pile of old folded fabric on rusted metal shelves.
“Pitch them,” Lucas said. “Probably any kind of cloth should go.”
“Yeah, I think moths got to this.” I tossed the whole pile into the gray trashcan Jayden slid over for me.
Jayden moved the trashcan back and then scanned the dingy basement. “Are you sure you don’t want some of Great-Aunt Mabel’s unraveling sweaters?” He stopped and frowned. “What’s the opposite of that? Are some sweaters raveled?”
I giggled. That was a question I’d never considered before.
“I’ll pass,” Lucas said, disappearing into the backroom again. “Although save?—”
“We know,” Jayden said. “Anything your mom might like.”
Until this evening, I hadn’t realized that the house used to belong to Lucas’s great-aunt. I thought his mother and stepdad had bought a random place, but his mom had actually inherited a share of this one. Then she and Kyle’s dad pooled their money and bought out his mom’s siblings so that Lucas and Kyle could live here while they went to Langley.
Though, from what I’d gathered, Kyle hadn’t spent much time here last year. That wasn’t too surprising, given how much he and Lucas seemed to dislike each other, but apparently he was here to stay now. After bursting in on me two mornings ago, he showed up after class with clothes, sporting equipment, and a few duffel bags in his black pickup truck.
“Do you get the feeling we may be sorting through this stuff until we graduate?” Jayden said quietly, with a quick glance at the doorway to the backroom where Lucas had disappeared to.
“We’ll get there.” I looked around at the boxes, crates, piles of musty old books, old furniture covered in drop cloths—it was a lot. Apparently, Lucas and Jayden hadn’t ventured much farther than the washer and dryer. “We have to.”
After Kyle reclaimed his bedroom, Lucas had insisted on giving me his room and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I felt awful about it, but it wasn’t like I was going to be here for long. I still needed to find a permanent place for this school year. Then he could have his room back, because right now he and Jayden were sharing the living room, one on the couch and one on a sleeping bag on the floor.
So now we were trying to make enough space down here for a bed. The only problem was that Great-Aunt Mabel’s basement held about three basements’ worth of stuff. We’d been working for over an hour and had barely made a dent. It was a hell of a way to spend a Friday night, but Jayden, at least, was in a good mood, and I enjoyed talking and joking with him while we worked. Lucas had been a bit more subdued.
A door slammed above us, and Jayden and I exchanged glances. That meant Kyle was back. He’d had a baseball game tonight. Not part of the regular season, but just a postseason exhibition game against a similarly sized university, I’d been told.
I held my breath, straining for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Every time Lucas and Kyle were in the same room together, the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. And then the kind, mild-mannered guy from my study group became someone else. Someone seething with anger—and I still didn’t know why.
I breathed a sigh of relief as it became evident that Kyle wasn’t heading down here. Good. The two stepbrothers did not get along.
Lucas reappeared, carting some boxes out of the back storage room, which he set by the stairs. Each time he emerged from that room, he looked more and more like he’d just returned from a war zone.
“Hey, why don’t you take a break?” I picked up his water bottle and brought it over to him.
“Thanks.” He gulped it down, and I reached up and flicked my fingers against his shoulder.
He turned his tired green eyes on me, one eyebrow raised.
“There was a cobweb.”
He nodded. “That entire storage room back there is covered in them.”
That was an unpleasant thought. “Maybe we should just focus on the area by the stairs?”
Lucas shook his head. “If I can just clear a little more space, I think we can move a lot of this crap back there just to get it out of the way.”
Hmm… I didn’t know how to put this delicately. “ Should we move it at all, though? Isn’t most of it sort of… unsalvageable?”
His mouth twitched upward on one side, as if he knew I’d been trying to avoid calling it junk and it almost seemed like he was biting back a laugh. “Probably, but I don’t have time to sort through it all now, and I really don’t want to throw out anything my mom might want. Aunt Mabel has—had—stuff from her parents, my mom’s grandparents. I know she’d want to see that.” His eyes lost their focus as he stared past me. “I know it doesn’t look like much now, but I have good memories of playing down here with my cousins when we’d come to visit.”
I examined narrow paths that wound their way through decades of possessions. “It probably made a good obstacle course.”
This time Lucas did laugh. “It wasn’t always like this.” He nodded at the staircase. “There’s a little closet under there, and we made it into a little clubhouse. And it was so much fun playing in the woods behind the house.”
Suddenly, the basement seemed to hold more potential now that I was seeing it through his eyes. “Well, we’ll get it fixed up. It’s the least I can do since you’ve given me your bedroom. Temporarily,” I added.
He looked like he was going to argue about that last word, but then we both heard it—the door at the top of the stairs swinging open… and then footsteps on the stairs.
Lucas’s expression hardened. “Come see the progress I’ve made.”
I nodded, following him. The storage room was, if possible, more packed with clutter and boxes than the main area. While stepping over an old wooden chair, I knocked over a stack of records. They spilled onto the floor.
Crap. Did records break? I’d only encountered one record player in my whole life, so I didn’t know. I knelt down to gather them up, and I heard Jayden speak.
“How was the game?”
“I hit a line drive and almost kneecapped their third baseman.” Kyle’s voice sounded oddly muffled. “I’ll get him next time.”
Jayden laughed. I hadn’t been able to figure out what his relationship with Kyle was like, but he definitely didn’t seethe with anger around him the way Lucas did.
Which was what was happening right now. One glance over my shoulder showed how tense Lucas’s posture was as he angrily sorted some old books into two piles.
“Did you win?” Jayden asked.
“Hell yeah, we did.” Kyle’s voice was clearer that time, and full of pride. “Just you down here?”
“They’re working in the backroom.”
Kyle’s voice was muffled again, and I didn’t hear his reply.
Out of loyalty to Lucas, I stayed there with him for a while longer, but after a few minutes I had to go get another trash bag.
Two steps into the main room, I stopped dead. Kyle sat on a heavy wooden trunk near the base of the stairs. His legs were spread wide, and the top button of his faded blue jeans was open.
It was easy to see why his voice had been muffled before. He was rubbing a white towel over his dark hair.
And that was all he was wearing, the jeans and the towel.
Holy.
Crap.
His chest was completely bare. Just tan, taut skin over sculpted muscles. My limbs felt heavy as I stared at him, grateful that his eyes were cast down as he dried off.
God. He was gorgeous. Had I ever seen abs like that, except perhaps on a man in a movie? Every ridge of Kyle’s stomach was pronounced and defined. And his pectoral muscles looked like they’d been carved out of stone.
Shit. I needed to stop staring before he—or Lucas—caught me, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away. His biceps… god, they were powerful without being overly bulky, like the arms of Hailey’s roommate, Grant. Kyle just looked… strong. There was no other word for it.
Oh wait, yes there was: hot.
He looked strong and hot .
His body was that of an athlete, that was for sure. His muscles weren’t just for show. I wished I’d seen him swing a bat tonight and hit a line drive—whatever that was.
And god, how much would those muscles ripple if he went up to bat shirtless as he was now?
A throat cleared, and I glanced to my left to see Jayden staring at me, a hint of amusement in his eyes. But it had also been a warning. To get hold of myself, and he was right.
Quickly, I continued on my original errand, to get a new trash bag from the box by the stairs.
I was embarrassed that Jayden had caught me staring, but it would have been way worse if Lucas had. I was pretty sure he would’ve felt betrayed.
Or if Kyle had. He would have been smug as hell. I hadn’t known him all that long, but I knew that much to be true. He stood up, tossing the towel on a nearby box and looked me over. “Hey, Victoria.”
I nodded, not looking at him as I reached the box of trash bags.
Then the air seemed to still, and I turned, seeing Lucas standing in the doorframe. Uh-oh.
I’d only seen the two stepbrothers interact a few times since Wednesday morning, but it always went the same way, with Lucas getting angry and Kyle staying cool and aloof—likely because he knew it infuriated Lucas.
If you’d asked me just a week ago if the kind, smart, slightly nerdy guy from my study group could ever lose his temper, I would’ve told you no. But that was before I’d seen Lucas around Kyle.
But Kyle’s gaze was still on the clutter. He raked his fingers through his damp hair. “Why don’t you just rent a truck over the weekend and haul all this stuff to the dump?”
Jayden jumped in before either Lucas or I could, explaining about how there were family heirlooms in the mix.
Kyle looked doubtful, so I took a shot at filling him in on the plan. “If we can clear enough space for at least an air mattress, Lucas could have his bedroom back. And if Jayden wouldn’t mind sleeping down here, I could sleep on the sofa.” I wasn’t a fan of staying down here surrounded by a half century of clutter.
“You’re not sleeping on the sofa,” Lucas said, his voice tense but resolute.
“Yes, I should. Jayden slept on it last week. It’s my turn.”
Jayden shook his head. “No, it’s not. As the only woman in a houseful of men, you’re the most in need of privacy.”
“And me. I need my beauty sleep.” Kyle shot me a wink, but I couldn’t meet his gaze—likely because mine kept straying to his impressive chest.
Lucas scowled. “We get it, you’re not a team player.”
Kyle laughed. “Bro, I literally just played in a baseball game.”
“I’m not going to take up anyone else’s space,” I said hurriedly. “You all live here, I don’t.” Those were the facts, which meant I was the one who should take the couch—not that I had much hope that Lucas would let me. But still, it couldn’t be that uncomfortable. It had felt downright amazing when Jayden had given me a scalp massage while Lucas rubbed my feet. Even the memory of it made me want to moan.
“You live here too,” Lucas insisted.
Jayden agreed. “Yeah. You’re here, and you’re alive. Therefore, you live here.”
I paused, not knowing how to make them see sense. This was their home, not mine. Absentmindedly, I picked up an old plastic contraption, possibly some kind of kitchen appliance? I had no idea, so I set it back down. “Just temporarily.” It wasn’t like I could impose on them forever.
“So you’re leaving?” Dammit, why did Lucas have to look so crushed?
“Yeah, as soon as I find a place.” I frowned, realizing that I hadn’t searched the apartment listings in days. There had been too much else going on. Kyle’s arrival. Classes. Homework. And the fact that my composition grade was tied to the performance of the guy who hadn’t been to a tutoring session since the disastrous one in the library the other night.
“You don’t have to,” Jayden said. He glanced between the other two men. “I know I don’t own the place like Thing One and Thing Two here, but I pay rent. You could too.”
Lucas nodded, then gave me a ghost of a smile. “Unless you’re trying to set a record for the most moves in a two-month period.”
Kyle stepped closer. He was tall enough that he had to bat away a cobweb hanging from the rafters above. “Exactly how many crappy roommates have you had?”
“Too many.”
Jayden tilted his head as he studied me. “So maybe it’s time to have some uncrappy ones.”
“Just stay, Tori,” Lucas urged. “It’s got to be stressful, constantly looking for housing, especially in a town like this. We may not be perfect, but we’d never harass you like Todd.” He leveled a look at his stepbrother. “Well, most of us won’t.”
“Nice.” Kyle shot Lucas the finger.
“See?” Jayden said. “One big happy family.”
“Thank you for the offer.” It was all I could think of to say. I wasn’t in the habit of people extending offers to me like that. Especially in a house with only two bedrooms. “I appreciate it, and I’ll think about it.”
“You can sleep in my bed with me,” Kyle offered with an easygoing grin. “Of course, there’s a strict dress code. Or a strict code about not being dressed?—”
I rolled my eyes, but somehow, his words didn’t bother me. I was starting to learn that that was just Kyle being Kyle. Jayden, however, plucked an old snow boot off a nearby pile and chucked it at Kyle’s head. Kyle caught it easily and set it down before leveling a look at Jayden. “Really, Jay?”
Jayden bristled. “Maybe you could help instead of being a perv.”
“Or just go hang out in your room,” Lucas said. “You must like it since you kicked Tori out of it.”
Kyle’s eyebrow rose. “I just offered to let her?—”
“Dude, don’t,” Jayden said at the same time as I smacked Kyle lightly on his arm.
His bare arm.
His bare, muscular, sculpted?—
Oh, crap. This time, he did catch me looking, judging by the smirk on his face. I still thought he was a jerk, but, well, a hot one.
Then he looked away, scanning the area again. “If we get enough of this crap out of here, we could bring in some exercise equipment. Free weights, a bench press, maybe a rowing machine.”
“Yeah, that sounds great.” Jayden seemed willing to take any help we could get. “Let’s hit this hard this weekend and see how much we can clear out.”
“But… “ I hesitated. All three guys looked at me. “We still need time for studying.” I glanced up at Kyle as I said it. I didn’t want to flat out say that I needed to tutor him. Even though Jayden and Lucas knew that, I didn’t think he’d like me saying it in front of them.
“Of course,” Lucas said. “Do you need to go now?”
“It’s Friday night.” Kyle made it sound like studying was illegal on Friday evenings.
“I’m good. I want to keep going. We’re making progress.” Okay, that last part was a bit of a stretch, but I’d gotten a second wind.
“I’m still wired from the game,” Kyle said.
“Then let’s keep going,” Jayden said. Lucas nodded and returned to the back room.
A half hour later, I tossed out a pair of long satin gloves that were stiff with age. Then, while I was trying to figure out what to do with a can of hairspray, so dented that it looked to be a fire hazard, I heard Kyle’s voice.
“Here, Victoria.” I looked up in time to see him toss a small object at me. “I found a dirty book for you.”
I caught it, grasping the dusty paperback cover before it could slide out of my hands. “If it’s dirty, just throw it away, not at me.”
Jayden watched as I dusted off the torn cover. Then he dropped the bag he was holding and moved closer.
“Ah. That kind of dirty book.” He chuckled.
The cover was… suggestive. To say the least.
I looked up to catch Kyle’s smirk. “Who knew Great-Aunt Mabel was into that kind of thing?” he said.
“Hopefully not Lucas.” I tossed the book in the trash can and got back to work.
But when Jayden went upstairs, presumably to use the bathroom, I walked over to the corner Kyle was in. “We need to talk,” I said quietly.
“It was just a joke. I thought you’d find it funny that Lucas’s aunt read smut.”
“Not about that.” He still had his shirt off, but I was getting a little more used to the gorgeous view. In fact, I’d had the secret hope that maybe Jayden and Lucas would take theirs off too. But that wasn’t what I was supposed to be focusing on right now. “We need to find a time to work.”
He scowled. “I’m not going to spend my whole weekend down in this dump.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Not this work. We have to have a tutoring session. Your paper is due a week from today.”
“So? That’s plenty of time.”
“Not if you don’t meet with me or work on it on your own.”
“Are those my only two choices?”
“Yes, if you don’t want to fail the class.” Before he could say something sarcastic, I continued on. “Which would make me fail the class—which I really don’t want to do.”
“All right.” It blew my mind how he could make it sound like he was doing me a favor instead of the other way around. “How about tomorrow afternoon? But not too long. I’m going out.” His gaze scanned me up and down so quickly that I almost missed it. “You like frat parties?”
“Not my thing.”
Jayden jogged down the stairs, and I moved closer to Kyle so that we wouldn’t be overheard. “Do you want to study here or drive to campus?”
Kyle grimaced. “Are those my only two choices?”
“No, actually. Jayden told me there’s a coffee shop about a mile from here. Want to go there?”
“Sure.” He grinned. “I’ll even let you buy me a cold brew.”
This time I did roll my eyes, but I also laughed. “Deal.”
My energy was starting to flag when I decided to check out a closed door back behind the stairs. Due to the stuff piled in front of it, I only managed to get the door open a foot, but it was enough for me to see inside the narrow room. It was full of yet more boxes and random stuff, and at first, I assumed it was a walk-in closet. Then I panned the flashlight around and caught a glimpse of something reflective on the left wall. And above it, a row of three grimy glass globes high on the wall.
Jayden was a few feet away, flipping through a stack of brittle, yellowed papers.
“Hey, did you know there’s a bathroom down here?”
“No, I didn’t.” He looked genuinely surprised, but then he met my eyes and smiled. I knew we were thinking the same thing—if we could clear this bathroom out, then we wouldn’t all four have to share the one upstairs.
“There’s no guarantee that it’s functional,” I warned him as he strode over to the door. “And there’s a lot of stuff in it.”
But first, we had to be able to get in to see. Jayden wasted no time in moving the boxes that kept the door from opening all the way while I picked up the smaller objects. The dust down here was relentless, and I sneezed twice into the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I looked up to see Jayden staring at me. “What?”
He grinned. “Does your ponytail always bounce from one shoulder to the other when you sneeze?”
“Maybe? Guess we’ll find out since it’s so dusty.” I pulled the door of the bathroom open, ready to flee if a pile of stuff tumbled out of it, but nothing came crashing down. I ran my fingers along the wall inside the door and managed to find a light switch, but nothing happened when I flipped it.
“Let’s clear some of this crap out so we can fit in there.” Jayden squeezed past me to grab two cardboard boxes. My muscles were sore and achy, but I couldn’t complain. Not when he, Lucas, and Kyle were doing all the heavy lifting. I grinned to myself. Maybe I should complain about being sore. Maybe then Lucas and Jayden would give me another massage.
We paused when we’d cleared the stuff from about two feet of the bathroom floor. I used my phone to show Jayden the light fixture over the mirror. The cabinet under it presumably held a sink, but there were stacks of plastic crates covering it, along with a tangled mass of old jewelry draped over the edge of a cracked hand mirror. A ceramic figurine, possibly a cat, perched on top of a pile of faded magazines.
“I’ll go find a lightbulb,” Jayden said.
“Can you reach up there?” I asked before he left.
He switched places with me, which wasn’t easy in the tight quarters, and then stretched his hand up. “I could if there wasn’t all this crap in the way. I’ll look for a stepladder, too.”
While he was gone, I pulled stuff off the vanity, setting it down outside the bathroom to sort through later. By the time Jayden returned, I’d cleared off a small area of the counter.
“Got the bulb,” Jayden said, holding up a small box. “Couldn’t find a stepladder.”
“I think I can reach it if I hop up.” I stood on my toes and brought my leg up, swinging it onto the counter. Then I pulled my other leg up so that I was kneeling.
“Jesus, Tori, wait for a spotter.” He moved in behind me, his hand settling on the small of my back.
“I think I can reach,” I said, stretching my hand out. My fingertips barely brushed against the old bulb, but because of the stuff still on the counter, including what felt like a brittle, crumbling lace doily that caught on my sleeve, I had to lean forward awkwardly.
“Don’t slip,” Jayden said, and his other hand settled lightly on my hip.
I reached as far as I could and felt triumphant when I was able to unscrew the old bulb. I pulled back and twisted around to hand it to Jayden. That was when I realized that when I’d bent forward like that, I’d practically had my backside in his face. My skin heated. “Um, where’s the new one?” Hopefully, it was too dark for Jayden to see the redness on my face. And hopefully, it was too dark for him to see other parts, too.
Self-consciously, I leaned again, trying to screw in the new bulb without my ass sticking out, but it didn’t work. Figuring that my embarrassment couldn’t get any worse, I fit the bulb in the socket and turned it. The bulb wobbled loosely before it finally settled in the socket. Then I turned it until it felt tight enough?—
Insanely bright light blinded me, and I flinched backward. Instinctively, I brought my arm up to shield my eyes, and I knocked over something that fell, and rose-scented powder filled the air. I shifted back and my knee slipped off the counter.
I yelped as I fell back—and crashed right into Jayden. His arms wrapped around me, one snagging my thigh and the other around my side as he caught me, pulling me to his chest as he took a step back.
Still blinded from the bright light, I reached up, wrapping one arm around his neck as he got his arms into a better position underneath me, cradling me to his chest. He staggered out of the bathroom, easily supporting me, and I blinked, trying to get my vision to work. The first thing that came into focus was his face, so close to mine. He was blinking, too. And then he lowered me down, setting me gently on the floor, his hands on my shoulders until he was sure I was steady. That was when I noticed our audience. Kyle and Lucas were in different parts of the basement, but they’d both stopped what they were doing to stare at us.
“Um… we got the bathroom light working.” My head spun a bit as I struggled to keep them in focus.
“So we see,” Lucas said evenly. I tried to identify the expression on his face, but there was still a bright circle in the center of my vision.
I turned to Jayden. “Thank you.”
“No problem. That’s what spotters are for.”
“Should we keep going?” It was late, but it felt like we were finally making some headway down here.
“Sure. But maybe next time, you should wait for a ladder.”
I smacked him lightly on the chest. “Maybe next time don’t bring me a 500-watt bulb.”
He grinned at that. “Fair enough. Who knew Great-Aunt Mabel’s motto was go bright or go home?”
Laughing softly, I walked back into the bathroom to get back to work.