7. Blake
BLAKE
Moving out of my father’s house and putting thirty minutes of distance between us had been like pressing a restart button on my life. It helped that I started playing college football and saw more possibilities for the future laid out in front of me.
But the biggest factor in my new, happier lease on life?
I got to live with the Barrow twins full time in the apartment Mr. and Mrs. B set up for us. No longer the outsider crashing on the couch, I officially became theirs.
Their roommate, technically.
But still, theirs.
A coveted position that—more often than not—also meant being their mediator.
“Adam Nathaniel Barrow!”
Addie’s voice cracked through the apartment like lightning in the midst of a storm.
Her feet thundered toward the living room, where I sat between her bedroom and mine.
I flipped a page in the textbook on my lap, waiting for her to come in before she tore up the stairs to where Adam slept.
It was the same every time.
She’d search for him in his bedroom loft, find it empty, and then come back down to demand proof of his whereabouts from me.
“Adam!”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs.
Then back down.
With her golden light brown hair flying wildly around her face, she stormed into the living room with a huff. Her eyes narrowed on me, and she shook the pink item in her hand furiously. “Where is he, Blake?”
“And good morning to you, too, Addie.” I flipped through the textbook again, asking innocently, “Where is who?”
The twin in question hid outside of Addie’s line of sight. From behind the kitchen bar to my left, he faced the living room and where I sat pretending to be oblivious.
But since Addie had just come down the stairs, she needed to turn around to see him.
She still hadn’t realized that.
Adam, however, had realized it. After the first dozen times we played out the almost-choreographed routine of their arguments, he spotted a pattern.
Now, he stood frozen at the sink, slowly withdrawing the spoon from his mouth and backing toward the front door of the apartment.
Addie growled in my direction, but she didn’t respond to my feigned ignorance. She knew I wouldn’t give up his location. As I’d told her repeatedly when we first moved in, “Snitches get—”
“If you finish that sentence, so help me!”
She swung to her left and stomped into my bedroom, as if I’d squirreled him away in there to keep her from getting her hands on him.
Adam almost made it out of the apartment before she found him. But unfortunately, the bathroom attached to my room had two doors, and one of them opened into the small alcove with our washer and dryer. Right by the front door.
“Seriously, Adam!” A flash of pink sailed past Adam’s head. “That’s real mature, hiding while your buddy covers for you.”
“Oh, hi, Addie.” Adam waved awkwardly, stepping back from the front door. “I, uh, didn’t realize you were home.”
I covered my face with my palm.
Addie huffed air out of her nose, like a bull pawing at the ground before it charged. “And let me guess. You didn’t realize tossing your red shirt in with my laundry would turn the entire load pink, either!”
“Um…”
“I. Swear. To. God.” Addie bit out each word like it physically pained her to speak. “I told Mom she was babying you too much. But she just kept taking care of everything for you, and now I’m stuck dealing with the aftermath.”
“Addie, is this about…” He dropped his voice. Barely. “Is it that time of the month?”
I winced as Addie shrieked, the pitch reaching a level that shouldn’t have been audible to the human ear. Leaping off the couch, I hustled into the hallway.
My money was on Adam’s theory being right.
But I wasn’t dumb enough to say that out loud.
As Addie barreled toward her brother with murder in her eyes, I got between them. “Hey, friends. Let’s try and talk this out before resorting to violence, yeah?”
She huffed again, crossing her arms over her chest while my hand kept her at bay. Adam grumbled something about women from behind me, and my eyes rolled skyward.
“Adam, do you have anything you’d like to say to your sister?”
“Yeah,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “Addie, I’m sorry you’re on the rag.”
“You—!”
“—And that you’re being unreasonable.”
With lightning quick speed, Addie launched herself at her brother. She flew into me, reaching for him as I hooked my arm around her waist and held her back. Her arms clawed at him over my shoulder, and a stream of unintelligible curses spewed from her lips.
Securing her in my grip, I lifted her onto my shoulder and carried her back a step. Her rage shifted from Adam to me, and she beat her tiny fists against my back.
“Put me down, Blake!”
I set her down.
She puffed wildly and moved to rush past me, as if I hadn’t come to college on a football scholarship. Feinting left, I jumped in front of her before she could get by, as her forward rush forced me back a step.
My arms extended, keeping her and Adam apart and freezing her in place. I shot Adam a look that said, “Keep your fucking mouth shut” before turning back to Addie.
Her furious gaze met mine, fire burning within the ocean blue.
And her chest heaved against my outstretched palm.
Which, until that second, I hadn’t realized I’d placed right over her breasts.
Addie’s eyes flicked down to my hand. It rested over her heart, and the beat beneath my palm kicked up into a rapid rhythm as she held her next breath.
Her nipples hardened under the thin cotton of her shirt.
And whatever argument for reason I’d been about to make escaped me as all the blood from my brain drained south.
My hand skittered down the tiniest fraction before I hastily jerked it back up. I clamped my hand onto her shoulder to keep myself from doing something incredibly stupid, but the urge to skate my fingers lower gripped me like a vise.
Trying to ignore the thoughts racing through my mind, I staved off the wave of lust rising inside my body with a deep, forceful swallow.
“Let’s try that again.” I cleared my throat, eyes still locked on Addie’s. “Adam, what do you have to say to your sister?”
His twin sister. My friend. My roommate.
But none of the platonic titles stopped the fantasy playing out inside my head.
Addie on her knees. Addie crawling toward me. Addie climbing onto my lap and sinking down onto—
What the fuck?
“I’m sorry,” Adam muttered.
Addie clucked, clearly unmoved by his show of remorse, so I pinned Adam with a pointed stare.
“I didn’t mean for that shirt to get mixed up in the wash.
I’ll be more careful next time.” Adam paused there, realizing more words only made it worse, and he gave Addie a chance to respond.
When she didn’t, he sighed and forged on.
“And I’ll go pick up the ice cream you like to make my thoughtless comment about your period up to you? ”
Indignation colored her features, but I was quick to interject. “He didn’t mean anything by that. He’s just trying to do something nice. Right, Adam?”
Adam huffed. “Yeah, of course. What, Addie? Getting you ice cream means I have some ulterior motive or something?”
Turning the same pointed stare on Addie, I begged her with my eyes to forgive her naive-in-the-ways-of-women twin brother.
She finally relented, mumbling under her breath, “Ice cream would be nice. Thank you.”
“That’s our girl,” I said brightly, tugging her into my side as I yanked on Adam’s shirt. “Group hug it out!”
They conceded, mostly because I didn’t give them a way out of it. I trapped each of them in one of my arms, hyper-aware of the contact with Addie after what happened before. She was beautiful. Of course, I’d noticed how it felt to touch her.
But avoiding her body completely would lead to questions, and addressing my reaction to touching her would make things weird. So, after tugging them in for a group hug, I held onto them both until they finally relented.
They shared a laugh and easy smiles before I let them go.
Once I did, I jerked my chin toward Addie’s bedroom, needing a minute to settle. “Now, go pick out your prettiest pink outfit, and we’ll all go to the store to get ice cream.”
Addie elbowed me in the ribs, but the smile on her face contradicted her lingering, half-hearted outrage.
She slid out from under my arm and headed for her room, coming to a stop outside her door.
“Oh, shoot! I can’t.” She glanced back at us.
“I almost forgot I’m meeting Tessa tonight for a party. Raincheck?”
Adam’s brow hitched in question, but he said, “Sure.”
Addie nodded and waved us off before disappearing into her room, leaving the door open. I took that as some sort of cue and immediately followed her.
“What kind of party?” I asked, halting her progress into her private bathroom. “A frat party? Will people be drinking? Should Adam and I come, too?”
Addie huffed a laugh and headed over to her sink, grabbing a bag on the counter. “No, Dad. I don’t need you two coming along as my chaperones. It’s a Glow party. That’s why I was trying to find my white shirt. Tessa’s friend invited us. It’s on campus, so no alcohol allowed.”
That did little to convince me, since my few short months on the football team had only reinforced how accessible underage drinking was on campus. But I wouldn’t voice that to Addie since it would only increase her resistance to Adam and me coming along.
“Hey, that sounds fun.” I kept my tone cool and casual as I leaned against her doorframe. “Maybe we’ll check it out. And don’t worry, we won’t cramp your style or whatever.”
Her eyes narrowed on the bathroom mirror, but I couldn’t tell if that was suspicion or some girl trick for applying mascara. She swiped the little brush thingy over her eyelashes before setting it down on the counter and coming back out to her room.
“You want to come to a sober Glow party on campus?” Her hands planted on her hips when I nodded. “Seriously?”
“Well, not if you make it weird, Addie.” I rolled my eyes, smirking as I left her room and missed whatever she said under her breath.
I had no idea what I was doing.
Addie didn’t need us to tag along. She was smart. Responsible.
She was the voice of reason.
But reason was nowhere to be found after what happened in the hallway, and the thought of her out at a college party without me—without both of us—didn’t sit right.
Before informing Adam of the change in our nightly plans, I checked my phone.
And I groaned as a message from our team’s captain ordered me to attend a mandatory team meeting followed by an early night in and curfew.
With a big game tomorrow, it made sense.
Maybe it was for the best. Addie would get to enjoy her night without two shadows, and I wouldn’t write a check my ass couldn’t cash if the opportunity for a friendly dance came up.
“I have to head out for a team meeting,” I called out to Adam and Addie, but neither of them responded.
Grabbing my bag, I walked out of the apartment. I needed to leave quickly to avoid being late—the only drawback of living off-campus while a lot of my teammates stayed in the athletic dorms. Shooting off a quick text to Adam, I booked it over in my car.
I made it to the meeting just before our team captain, Gavin, closed the door, immediately getting caught up in a flurry of high fives and fist bumps. As he dived into a last-minute pep talk, thoughts of the glow party and my strange reaction with Addie retreated to the back of my mind.
Once the meeting ended, my teammates talked me into staying at the dorms. The night quickly dissolved into a joint sit-in with the girls’ volleyball team, who were also under curfew before their meet tomorrow.
My phone sat untouched in my bag.
Sitting on the couch and talking about the upcoming game, I was handed a flask as it made its way around our circle. When I declined and moved to pass it to the girl who’d sat next to me, her blue eyes sparkled with a challenge.
She took a swig, holding my gaze and emphasizing her swallow by running a hand down her throat. The overzealous part of my eighteen-year-old brain that translated everything to sex lit up like a Christmas tree.
The girl noticed.
Flask still in hand, she swung her leg over my lap. She took another sip from the flask and lowered her body onto mine, licking a stray drop of alcohol from the corner of her lips.
My body responded beneath her, and I gripped her hips to hold her steady against my rapidly growing erection.
I hadn’t been with anyone since before prom. That had to explain why I couldn’t keep my head straight around Addie. Why it was becoming harder to exist without touching her.
Either way, my reaction to having a girl on my lap—one that wasn’t completely off limits—grew hard to ignore, and when her hand snaked between our bodies to rub my dick through my pants, I shuddered.
The blonde-haired temptress noticed and brought her lips to my ear.
“I’m Becky.” She nipped at my earlobe, and my hips jerked up reflexively. “My room is empty. Maybe we should take this somewhere more private?”
Her suggestion hung between us as she stroked her hand up and down, and my mind grappled for logic.
I searched for reasons I shouldn’t go to her room, but if I didn’t do something about my raging hormones tonight, a mandatory team meeting might not be there to save me the next time a night out with my roommates sounded like a good idea.
So, when Becky rolled her hips over my body and squeezed the bulge straining against my sweatpants, I took the opportunity that had presented itself.
“Come on,” she whispered. “I give the best pre-game blow jobs.”