Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
JONES
It didn’t take long for us to add the decorative molding.
I’d found some with a floral design I thought Karla would really enjoy.
Painting the flowers all around the room took up most of the morning, though I was surprised by how artistic Clay was with the brush.
While the rest of us were using stencils I’d purchased, he’d painted by hand.
And his flowers looked a hell of a lot better than ours.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with Ryker helping build a small twin-size bed that Karla could sleep in comfortably. The queen that was originally in the room was fine, but she needed help to get onto it since it was so high off the ground.
Ryker worked his carving magic again. He carved vines, similar to the ones he did for my bed, but these vines turned into flowers in the middle of the headboard .
Honestly, I was more shocked than anything else at how efficiently he was able to create this art and to have it done within a few hours. Ryker said it was a pretty simple piece, but I think he was just being modest again.
A message pinged on my phone from Ryan, saying they were on their way home with dinner. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face, knowing that this place really was their home now. It was our home.
Ryker shook his head when he saw my expression, but he let me know he was happy for me. I started cleaning up for the day, while Ryker said he wanted to finish the final piece and would head inside in a bit.
Leaving the man be, I rounded the cabin to find Dan and Clay to let them know dinner would be here soon. They were clueless about woodworking, so they’d run off to enjoy the hot tub instead.
I wasn’t trying to snoop, I really wasn’t.
It wasn’t my fault my tread was silent, and they didn’t hear me coming.
Which was why it really wasn’t my fault when I rounded the corner to find Dan snuggled up into Clay’s side.
Their backs were to me, so they were completely oblivious to the fact that I was watching when Dan angled his head up for a kiss.
The way Clay leaned in to accept it was too familiar, like they’d done it thousands of times before. And when the kiss ended, even with only seeing his side profile, I could see that the way Clay continued to look at the person in his arms was far from brotherly.
I quickly backtracked and hid with my back against my cabin wall and heart hammering in my chest. Holy hell. What had I just witnessed?
Were Dan and Clay together? Like together -together? And if they were, why didn’t they tell us?
It was really fucking weird to think about them like that after only knowing them as stepbrothers, but if they were in love and wanted to be together, surely they must know that Ryker and I would fully accept them. They didn’t have to always keep up this charade of bickering siblings.
My heart was still pounding when I heard the rumble of a car. Fuck! Ryan was already here, and the two idiots were still having their intimate moment without a care in the world.
I had more questions than answers at this point, but I knew whatever was happening between them, they’d been trying to keep it from everyone else.
So I took a few steps back and walked forward again—intentionally making noise—and called, “Dan, Clay! Dinner’s here!”
I gave them an extra few seconds before rounding the corner again. They were now sitting a respectable distance apart, with Dan facing my way this time. His body was just the slightest bit tense, but he tried to play nonchalant.
“I’m starving!” he shouted and stood when he saw me. He didn’t even cast Clay a backward glance as he stepped out of the hot tub and dried himself off.
I told them I’d see them inside, then returned to the front of the cabin, still in a daze.
Ryan was getting Karla out of her booster seat and told her to run inside to play and to stay away from where Ryker was working, probably worried she might injure herself.
He turned to me, a huge smile that quickly turned worried when he saw me. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
I opened my mouth, but what could I say? It wasn’t my secret to tell. No matter how much my friends liked to tease me about being just as much a gossip as the neighborhood aunties, I knew what could and couldn’t be talked about.
I shook my head and pulled Ryan into my arms. “It’s nothing. Was just captivated by your glow, Sparkles.”
His laugh was light as he pressed a soft kiss to my lips. Ryker hooted and hollered from where he was working, and laughed when I flipped him off.
“Let me help you bring everything inside. Is the food in the trunk?” I asked and moved to open the trunk, but Ryan quickly blocked my path using his body.
“No!” His loud shout seemed to have surprised even himself.
Now I was really curious about what he was hiding in the trunk, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side of the car. What was he hiding in there that he was trying so hard to keep me from seeing?
“Food’s over here,” he said and pushed an aluminum tray into my arms. The enticing scent wafted into my nostrils and had my stomach grumbling.
“Aw, Sparkles, you cooked for us? I thought you were going to order takeout or something,” I said, and lifted the foil to take a peek inside.
Ryan smacked my hand to let the foil drop. “Don’t let the food get cold,” he chastised and nudged me toward the front door. He turned to grab the other two trays that were stacked on top of each other, then made sure I was in front of him the entire walk inside.
How curious.
I didn’t have time to question him before Dan and Clay came barging inside through the sliding door, dripping water onto my hardwood floor.
“Whatever that smell is, I need it inside of me!” Dan called and padded over to where we’d placed the food on the island. Lily raised her head at their entrance, but quickly laid it back down on her nest to nurse her pups.
I glared at him and snatched the towel from around his neck to wipe up his mess.
“Whoa! If you wanted me naked, all you had to do was ask,” Dan said, his arms an X across his chest to cover his nipples and bare chest.
“Put on a shirt, dude! There’s a child present,” I told him with a glare.
Dan smirked and made a show of flexing his chest muscles. “I’m just showing Karla that she should never settle for less. Isn’t that right, baby girl?” Karla giggled.
For a doctor, he was a lot more muscular than expected. That could be because of his stepbrother’s influence.
Ugh, it was so weird to think of them like that now that I knew what they were up to in private. They kissed, and who knew what else they did!
I quickly shook that thought away. I did not want to think about my friends’ potential sex life.
With each other.
Thankfully, I didn’t have much time to think when the food was uncovered and everyone, aside from Ryker, who was still outside, descended on it like scavengers.
Ryan had made plenty of food, but I still fought to be one of the first to grab a plate, after Karla, of course. But after that, even my Sparkles wasn’t spared from my rush to fill my plate.
Ryker came in just as the last of us were served and seated around my island. He saw us all shoving food down our throats, shook his head, and headed to the bathroom, probably to clean up.
When he returned, he beelined straight toward the food. The shortest route just so happened to put himself between Dan and Clay. He quickly made himself a plate and sat in the empty seat between them.
I should have been surprised when Clay picked up his plate and rounded to Dan’s other side to take a seat.
It wasn’t the first time he’d done that.
Clay always preferred to sit beside Dan, and I’d always thought it was because they were stepbrothers.
But now, knowing what I did, I felt stupid for not realizing how weird his actions were in the first place.
I stabbed at my food, told myself to let it go, but fuck ! My friends were right about me being nosy. God forbid a man had a hobby.
“So, um, Dan,” I said, my words cutting through the sounds of chewing.
“Yeah?” Dan looked up with questioning eyes.
“Been seeing anyone recently?” I asked, feeling even more awkward when the words were out. I forced my eyes not to look Clay’s way.
I didn’t want to force them to tell us about their relationship before they were ready, but it was so hard to push the curiosity down.
Dan, looking unfazed, pressed a finger to his chin. “I did go on a date with a cute barista last night, but alas, it didn’t work out—again,” he said with a disappointed sigh that didn’t sound fake to my ears. “I guess I’m just meant to spread my love instead of being tied down to one person.”
Clay snorted and looked grumpier than he usually did.
Dan was a well-known playboy in town. He was always seen out in town with a date on his arm.
Men, women, he didn’t care. But from what I heard, most of those dates never led to anything…
and after seeing them intimate like that, I finally understood the reason behind it.
The question was, if they liked each other, why not just be together? It wasn’t like they were real brothers, for fuck’s sake.
I wasn’t going to get an answer to that tonight, though, as the conversation had moved on. Dan mentioned he’d volunteered for the hugging booth at the town’s summer fair next weekend.
What surprised me was Clay had signed up as well. The dude hated physical touch so much that even I rarely got hugs from him.
Even if the hugging booth was raising money for a good cause, why the hell would a touch-averse man sign up for this?
“Fair?” Karla asked, testing the word on her mouth as she looked to her daddy for clarification.
Ryan explained to her what a fair was, while the others added their input every so often and told her about the giant teddy bears and rides. By the time they finished, Karla’s eyes were so round and sparkly.