4. Hope
4
HOPE
W hen I charged into the living room, I found the backs of two couches turned away from me so they could face the large-screen television hanging from the far wall.
Slowing my step, I approached the furniture from behind so I could peer over the back and find a familiar hottie stretched out with his head propped against an armrest, dead to the world.
“Aww. How precious.” Reaching out, I smoothed my fingers over his mess of board-straight, dark hair. “But can you wake up for me, handsome?”
My gentle croon caused him to shift and mumble, “What’s up?” as he tried to keep sleeping.
But I wasn’t having it. I licked my finger, then stuck it in his ear, gifting him with a massive wet willy.
He shouted in protest and jerked awake.
Grinning, I climbed over the back of the couch so I could drop directly on top of him and trap him there.
“What the fuck?” he started, wide-eyed and tense, only to focus on my face and go absolutely limp with a defeated groan. “Hope,” he greeted dryly. “You’re here. Already.”
“Yeah, don’t get too excited.” Resting my elbows on his chest, then my chin on my hands to get comfortable, I said, “Thought you told me you were working tonight.”
“I am.” He sent me a lazy, sexy smile. “Working on taking a nap.”
“Hmm.” I wasn’t impressed. Lifting my eyebrows, I told him, “Well, that nap got me stuck with Grumpy. Did you hear that? I had to ride here from the airport with Grumpy . Do you know how easily he gets road rage?”
“Yeah, well…” Hudson shrugged before he yawned and stretched under me, looking a little too amused for my taste. “It’s Parker. What’d you expect?”
“I expected a little friendly flirting in a sexy, vintage Dodge Challenger where I’m allowed to turn up the damn volume on the radio without getting my hand slapped.”
Cracking out an amused snort, Hudson said, “He slapped your hand? For real? That’s classic.”
“Metaphorically,” I corrected with a scowl.
“Oh.” He hummed out a less interested sound and lifted his eyebrow in a shrug before adding, “And besides. I can’t go around flirting with just everyone anymore. Didn’t you hear? I have a full-fledged girlfriend now. First one ever.”
“I know. I met her in the kitchen. The tall one, right?”
“Yep. Faith,” he said with a proud grin. “Isn’t she something?”
“They all were,” I agreed. “But I’m not sure if I can forgive you for bringing yet another virtue into the group. First, you went and named your car Chastity on me, and now you’re dating a damn Faith? Hope was the only righteous name we needed.”
“Don’t care,” he announced, still smiling. “I like her.”
“Hmm,” I answered before lifting up enough to see all three girlfriends hovering on the other side of the couch, peeking over the back at us in shock. “She’s sure not coming to your rescue very quickly right now, though, is she?”
“Is she in the room?” Perking to attention with his spine still plastered to the couch, he lifted his hand over the back to wave. “Hey, Stalker. Little help down here. Please.”
“With…what exactly?” Faith asked, leaning over the couch to scowl at his face. “I can’t figure out what’s even happening right now.”
“Oh, didn’t any of them warn you?” I asked conversationally. “I’m the bane of all their existences. It’s basically my duty to harass your boys whenever I have the chance, so… I’m just chilling here, making poor Sleepy as uncomfortable as possible for as long as I can because he’s too damn polite to just shove me off him.”
The auburn-headed one snorted, then covered her mouth to hide her laugh as the other two glanced at her as if she were insane.
“What?” she asked them. “It’s diabolically brilliant.”
“Right?” I nodded, deciding I liked Mrs. Happy. It was too bad I didn’t remember her given name; I’m sure Alec had mentioned it a dozen times too.
“Babe?” Hudson spoke up, gaping at his girlfriend in disbelief. “Are you really not going to save me right now?”
“Save you from what ?” Faith repeated, looking confused. “You haven’t even asked her to get off you.”
“That’s true,” I agreed, glancing down at him with an arch look. “You haven’t.”
He rolled his eyes. “Only because I know you never would.”
“Also true,” I agreed, smiling up at his girlfriend prettily. “I wouldn’t.”
Faith narrowed her eyes. “You’re very lucky I’m not the jealous type.”
I laughed. If only she knew how lucky I wasn’t.
Under me, I could feel Sleepy start to panic. “Faith…” he pleaded in disbelief.
She folded her arms over her chest. “You got yourself into this situation. You need to learn how to get yourself out.”
I nodded, impressed, deciding I liked Mrs. Sleepy too. “You really should, Hudson. Your girl speaks the truth.”
He huffed out his irritation, scowling at me before turning his attention to Bashful’s girlfriend. “Dimples?” he tried next, then glanced at Mrs. Happy. “Red? Anyone ?”
A second later, Parker’s face appeared over the couch next to Faith’s as he scowled down at us.
“For fuck’s sake, Trouble,” he groused, grabbing my arm and tugging me off Hudson to pull me right over the couch and back onto the floor.
“Hey! Ouch,” I argued, even though he hadn’t hurt me at all.
And he knew it. Sending me a dry frown, he demanded, “Didn’t you get off enough on tormenting me the whole car ride here from the airport? Why you gotta go after Ivey too?”
“Hmph,” I said flippantly as I tossed my hair over my shoulder and straightened my shirt. “You’re just jealous I didn’t climb on top of you like that.”
He pulled back, startled by the flirty comeback. But he caught himself soon enough and snorted as if I were insane for suggesting such a thing, even as he glanced covertly at the others, only to find none of them paying either of us any attention.
Hudson had already popped off the couch, as if fearing I might crawl back on top of him again, and was telling his girlfriend, “Couldn’t you have at least acted jealous and outraged? Even a little?”
“What were you expecting me to do ?!” she cried, lifting her hands in confusion. “Pull her off you by the hair?”
“Yes. Anything ,” Hudson started, only to pause and lift his nose, sniffing the air. “Is someone cooking?”
The three girlfriends glanced at each other with obvious guilt, but Faith came back to her boyfriend first to say, “No.”
He grinned. “Liar. What’re y’all cooking?”
“Nothing!” they insisted, looking suddenly panicked. They even tried to block his path into the kitchen when he started that way.
Chuckling over their antics, he pulled up short. “Oh, come on. Why can’t I see? What do you think I’m gonna do?”
“Make us cry by telling us everything we did wrong,” Mrs. Happy answered honestly.
Pressing a hand solemnly to his heart, Sleepy swore, “I would never. Just let me take a look. Maybe a quick taste.” Turning to his girlfriend beseechingly, he bounced his eyebrows at her and lowered his voice coaxingly. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
The poor girl melted immediately.
“Oh, alright,” Faith tried to grumble even as she gave in with a dreamy sigh.
The other two cringed at each other before they reluctantly stepped aside too.
Hudson ran his hand lovingly up Faith’s arm, then kissed her cheek as he passed, and all three women followed him into the kitchen.
A second later, I heard him explode, “What the fuck ?”
“Hey, you said you wouldn’t make us cry,” he was warned.
I had to crack a smile. “Sounds like someone’s in deep shit.”
I started that way, curious, but Parker stepped into my path, scowling. “Be nice to the girlfriends, will you?”
I paused, lifting my eyebrows in surprise. “Wow.” And here, I hadn’t done a single mischievous deed against any of them. Yet. “You really like them, huh?”
“My best friends like them,” he corrected. “And according to them, these women are keepers. So don’t fuck with them.”
I only sniffed. “Whatever. Keepers aren’t even a thing in this group. None of you boys know how to truly sustain a relationship. I mean, not even Nova ended up being a keeper.”
Shadows and sadness filled Parker’s eyes at the mention of Thane’s ex, but all he said was, “Well, these three are different.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” I started to stroll around him, but I barely reached the entrance to the kitchen before he caught my arm.
“I’m serious, Trouble.”
Pausing, I glanced down at his fingers wrapped around my flesh and resisted a full-body shiver before slowly lifting my gaze to his.
“Be nice,” he warned.
I shifted closer, and his attention immediately dropped to my lips.
Ignoring the buzz of desire dancing through my system, I smiled cattily. “How can you tell me to be nice when you don’t even know what nice is?”
His gaze rose to mine. “Easy. It’s the opposite of whatever I am.” Lifting his hand, he gently took a piece of my hair between two digits and slowly started to wind one of my curls around his index finger. “So behave. Or I’ll drag you out of here by the hair. Got me?”
“Careful, Grumpy,” I warned him with a taunting smile. “Tighten your grip too much more, and I just might like it.”
Parker sucked in a sharp breath, and his lips parted before his pupils began to dilate, growing larger. A clear sign of interest. Then his nostrils flared as he shut his mouth.
Across the kitchen, Hudson was demanding to know why no one had come to him for cooking advice, and all three women were trying to explain why they’d wanted to make a meal by themselves.
All the while, Parker and I remained standing in the doorway, staring at each other. The pressure he was putting on my lock of hair started to grow tighter as if he were actually trying to turn me on, and holy shit. It worked. My thighs went loose and tingly. My breasts went heavy. And my heart rate accelerated off the charts.
I had no idea what would’ve happened next, but it’d have to remain a mystery because the back door blew open, interrupting our moment.
Immediately jerking his hand from my hair, Parker turned away from me to enter the kitchen, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily, while I sank against the doorframe, trying to regain my next breath.
“I’m telling you,” Keene insisted as he led the way inside. “This chick was totally into me. She—ah shit.” Spotting me, he jarred to a halt and gaped in horror. “You’re here. Already.”
I started to smirk at him and wave tauntingly, but the guy behind him finally glanced up, noticing me.
“Hope?” Shock filled Alec’s features before his face bloomed into a full smile. “Oh my God! What’re you doing here?”
When he started toward me, I screeched out a happy squeal and dashed forward. “Alec!”
We met in the center of the kitchen, both of us laughing as we hugged hard.
He lifted me off my feet and spun me in a circle, and I rested my head on his shoulder, shutting my eyes in delight as I drew in a lungful of his Alec scent. Gah, but he was totally my person, hands down.
“I can’t believe you’re here ,” he exclaimed, returning me to the floor so he could step back and hold my elbows steady to look at me.
“I know,” I told him, unable to stop smiling. “I was having these major Alec withdrawals because it’d been way too damn long since I last saw you until finally, I was like, screw it. So I boarded a plane, and tada! Here I am.”
“There she fucking is,” I heard Keene mutter under his breath to someone on the other side of the kitchen.
But I was way too busy grinning at my baby brother to pay him any mind.
Shaking his head in joyous confusion, Alec laughed. “You flew here?” He knew my aversion to flying, so he was well aware of how big of a deal a plane ride was for me.
Nodding, I answered, “For you? Hell yes. But oh my God, I cannot believe how handsome you got.” Dropping my attention to his forearms which were no longer a thirteen-year-old boy’s toothpick limbs, I squeezed the brawny flesh, impressed by all the substance I felt.
My Alec had gotten muscles .
“And tall…” I murmured, looking up at him. “Just how tall are you now?”
He flushed through a laugh. “Still six, six,” he answered. “Just like the last time you saw me.”
I lifted my hand, swearing, “Oh, you look nothing like you did at your high school graduation. I’m going to have to beat all the horny women off my Dopey with a stick whenever we go anywhere.”
“Dopey?” One of the girlfriends spoke up in question across the kitchen, reminding me that others were around. “You gave your own brother the dwarf Dopey ?”
“Are you kidding me?” I told her. “Of course, I did. Just look at these adorable Dumbo ears.” As soon as I lifted a handful of Alec’s curls to expose an ear, I dropped the locks again only to clutch his cheeks between my hands. “And that far-off, movie-daze gleam in his eyes. Who else would he be?”
As Alec laughed good-naturedly and nudged my hands away from his face, one of the girls said, “Wow, you really do have big ears, Younger.”
“Hey, shut up.” He blushed, sending her a warning roll of his eyes before he turned back to me. “Still determined to embarrass me to death, I see.”
“Embarrass you?” I shook my head insistently. “Never. Now, your friends,” I countered, winking toward Sleepy. “That’s another story entirely.”
“That ain’t no shit,” Keene mumbled with a bitter snort.
I turned my gaze his way and lifted my eyebrows. “Hey, Sneezy,” I greeted. “It’s nice to see you too.”
With a sickened wince, he sank closer to Parker, who was at the cabinet, pulling down a bottle of amber liquid from a cupboard and unscrewing the lid to fill a highball he already had sitting out.
I opened my mouth to warn him not to drink too much because I still needed a ride tonight, but one of the girlfriends started to laugh.
Clapping her palms together, she chortled, “Sneezy? You got the dwarf Sneezy? I love it.”
“I sneezed on her one time,” Keene exploded, throwing up his hands in disgust.
“It was so gross,” I added. “He got me right in the mouth, and I swear to God, I almost threw up.”
As the women laughed, clearly entertained by Keene’s distress, he shook his head in irritation. “That’s it. I’m out.” Stalking toward the exit of the kitchen, he muttered, “Someone please tell me when she’s gone.”
“Wow,” Mrs. Bashful murmured, shaking her head in awe as she watched him go. “I think that is the very first time I’ve ever seen Keene try to escape a girl with out hitting on her first.”
“No, I saw him clash horns with Library Girl before too,” Hudson spoke up as he dipped a spoon into the pan of ruined food, only to wince and pull back as soon as he tasted it. But a second later, he tilted his head and lifted a finger. “You know, I think I can actually salvage this.”
“Ooh, who’s Library Girl?” I asked curiously, pretty sure I already liked her if she could also drive Keene crazy. “No, wait.” I spun to Alec. “You told me about her, didn’t you? She saved… someone —Bashful’s girl?—from a kidnapper. Right?”
He smiled big. “Right.” Then he smacked his forehead. “Ack. I haven’t introduced you, have I? Sorry.” Motioning to the short, curvy, Hispanic beauty, he said, “This is Oaklynn Vargas. She’s dating Damien.” Then he pointed to the tall and slim Black queen. “Faith Woods. She’s with Hudson.” And finally, he hitched his head toward the bubbly, white one with wavy, auburn locks. “And our newest edition, Raina Bollen, who’s with?—”
“Happy,” I concluded as I inclined my head toward them cordially. “Ladies. It’s a pleasure.”
See. I could be nice. Grumpy didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
I glanced his way with a taunting lift of the eyebrows, but he merely sent me a squinty glare in return as he took a big gulp of his drink, clearly not impressed by my awesome abilities.
I once again opened my mouth to tell him not to overindulge, but before I could, the back door opened yet again, admitting two more of my brother’s seven.
“I’ll have to clear it with everyone else,” Damien was saying over his shoulder as he led the way inside. “But yeah, it should be fine.”
“Really?” Foster gushed happily, jostling his shoulder. “Oh man, that would be great. She’ll be relieved as hell to hear it. Apparently, her sharing a room with my five-year-old sister hasn’t been easy on either of them.” Catching sight of Raina, he went straight to her so he could pull her into a hug and kiss her in welcome. “Hey,” he greeted with a big smile as he looped his arms around her waist.
“Hi!” She seemed just as excited to see him back. It was so sickeningly sweet. “Look who we just met.”
“Who’s that?” he started to ask, only to jump and lurch protectively against her when he finally saw me. “Hope,” he blurted nervously. “H-hey. How’s it going?”
I really don’t know why he always acted so nervous around me. I probably picked on Happy the least of all. But I figured his tension—as if he were always braced for one of my attacks—was probably torturous enough.
“Hey, Happy,” I told him with a lift of my eyebrows before turning my attention to Damien. “And Bashful,” I added, prepared to make him blush and duck his head per his usual.
But Damien only smiled back in warm reception, keeping eye contact the whole time. And not blushing. “Hey, Hope,” he greeted, sounding pleased to see me. He even nudged my elbow acceptingly as he passed by to approach his own girlfriend. “Welcome back to town. Did you have a good trip?”
I blinked, not used to getting more than three words at once from the shy one. “It was—” Long. Terrifying. Painful . “Fine,” I told him, only to blink in confusion when he grinned over at me, not at all bothered by my presence.
“Good. Are you staying for supper? Smells like Ivey’s cooking up—” Wrapping his arms around Oaklynn from behind, he pulled her back against him as he lifted his nose into the air and winced. “Something.”
“It’s going to be a whole new creation when I’m done with it,” Hudson swore as he poured a can of cream of whatever into the dish and began to stir. “But it’ll taste good, I swear.”
Leaning toward Alec, I whispered, “What the hell happened to Bashful?” It was as if he weren’t…bashful anymore.
Alec only grinned. “Oaklynn happened.”
“Huh.” I lifted my brows and nodded, deciding I had to like the dimpled woman as well.
Returning his gaze to me, Damien asked, “So what do you say?”
I shrugged, unable to decline such a nice offer, especially when he was looking right at me like that. His whiskey-colored eyes were damn-near hypnotizing, and I swear, he’d also gotten five times hotter since I’d last seen him.
They all had. Every single one of my brother’s best friends was gorgeous as hell.
“Count me in,” I answered.
“Right on!” Alec cheered, throwing an arm around my shoulders in celebration, while I swear both Hudson and Keene groaned in misery.
For some reason, my attention shifted toward Parker, though. He was watching me with a condemning scowl as if he knew exactly what kind of thoughts I’d just had about his friends, and he did not approve.
Lifting my chin in challenge, I perked up an eyebrow briefly, and his glare narrowed before he drained the rest of his glass and turned away to refill it.