4. Benjamin
BENJAMIN
My hands grip the steering wheel of my SUV as we watch Abby get off the bus and rush toward the front door of her building to get out of the rain.
I don’t know if I hear it or just sense it, but Kane growls softly. He’s in the backseat but leaning with both arms braced on the front bucket seats, peering through the windshield, watching intently.
“Sit back,” I tell him.
“I’m going in there,” he says.
“You’re not,” I tell him firmly. “She got home safely. You just saw her walk into the building.”
“I don’t know that she’s in her apartment. I don’t know if she’s—”
A light comes on in an apartment on the third floor facing us.
“We don’t know that’s her apartment,” Kane grumbles.
A figure appears at the window, drawing the curtains over it.
It’s Abby.
I look up into the rearview mirror. Kane is scowling.
“She’s home,” Dash says simply. Though he doesn’t sound happy.
“But we don’t know how she’s feeling. Maybe she’s cold. Or hungry. Maybe she’s regretting saying goodbye to us,” Kane argues.
“She didn’t even know us two hours ago,” I finally snap. “And she’s got all of her clothes and blankets right there. She’s got food.” I assume she’s got food in her own fucking apartment. “She’s fine.” I jam the car into drive and pull away from the curb with a jerk.
The thing that has my gut in a knot is not that Kane is being a pouty brat.
It’s that I want to stay too. I want to go up to Abby’s apartment and strip her out of her damp clothes—especially that part—then wrap her in a blanket, make her hot chocolate, and tuck her into bed.
Even more, I want to sweep her up, take her to my house, and do all of those things there.
And none of that makes any fucking sense.
Worse, clearly all three of us are feeling the same thing, and that is not only strange but also has the potential to be very, very complicated.
“Do you want me to drop you off?” I ask the guys after a few blocks of driving in tense silence.
They live together in an apartment in one of the nicer areas of the city. Not because they need to share rent, but because they just like living together. However, they spend a hell of a lot of time at my house. Which I love. In fact, I prefer it when they’re there.
When I was building the house on the outskirts of town, with a gorgeous lake view, tons of land keeping me situated well away from my neighbors, and adding a game room, den, and four bedrooms, all with ensuite bathrooms, besides the master suite, I was thinking of them.
I also have a fridge that is way too big for one guy, an enormous grill on my deck that I would never use alone, and a pantry easily big enough for a family of eight.
We barbecue on my gorgeous stone patio, we boat and fish off of my dock, and we sit around the fire pit with beers and talk late into the night on the weekends.
They each have chosen one of the rooms as “theirs” where they crash on a regular basis and keep at least one change of clothes and few toiletries.
I’d love it if they’d move in. I know they would too. But we haven’t discussed it. It seems unusual to have three grown men, all bachelors, living together, I suppose, and since the two of them are in the public eye with the hockey team, we haven’t made that move.
“We’re not done talking about Abby,” Kane says, still pouting. “We’re coming to your place.”
Dash grunts his agreement. “But swing by our apartment. I need to get Linda.”
Yeah, I didn’t think that we were done with this topic. I also know that they know I’ve got burgers and steaks in the fridge and all of their favorite snacks in the pantry. It’s possible they haven’t shopped for groceries in a while. An empty fridge is a hazard of being on the road constantly.
Dash’s dog, Linda, is a golden retriever who also loves my house. When the guys are on the road she stays with me. Which means she pouts like the spoiled baby diva she is when she has to stay in their apartment.
The way Linda and I miss each other when she’s at their place is just more reason they really should just move in with me.
Dash runs in and grabs the dog, and she jumps into the backseat with enthusiasm, pushing her head forward between the seats onto the console.
“Hey, girl,” I tell her, rubbing her head. “There’s a bone with your name on it.”
Linda gives a bark of approval.
Ten minutes later, the guys bang through the door into my kitchen like they do live here, tossing their jackets over the backs of the barstools that line the breakfast bar. Linda takes off on a jog and heads right to her favorite spot on the overstuffed chair by the fireplace.
Kane heads for the cupboard where the chips and cookies are kept, and Dash goes straight to the fridge.
I shrug out of my suit jacket, hanging it on the back of one of the chairs, and loosen my tie, then roll up my sleeves on my forearms, trying to get comfortable for this conversation about a woman who has me more knotted up than I’ve been about anything in longer than I can remember.
What the hell is going on with me? With them? With her?
Kane opens and slams four cupboards, which is an amazing accomplishment given that I have soft-close cabinetry, yet he somehow manages it.
It slowly ratchets my annoyance higher and higher to where I am about to crack when he stomps into the walk-in pantry, then returns with a box of strawberry-flavored cereal.
He’s already got the top open and his hand buried inside. He takes a fistful of dry cereal and shoves it into his mouth, crunching and frowning as he takes a seat at the counter.
I stare at the box, then look up at my brother.
Surely that’s a coincidence, right? He just grabbed the first box off the shelf? He didn’t get the strawberry because of Abby, did he? Though I can’t be the only one who noticed her sweet strawberries-and-cream scent and the fact she was dressed from head to toe in pink.
After he swallows, he takes a deep breath, seeming to calm down a bit.
I quirk a brow. “You were just hungry?”
He takes another smaller handful. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m just feeling really worked up.”
Yes, and something strawberry-scented and flavored calmed him down.
That can’t be because of Abby. It can’t. That’s crazy.
But I find myself wanting to reach out and grab the box of cereal from him.
It’s certainly not cereal I eat. I stick with eggs and toast most mornings or a protein shake. All the sugary snacks in the house are Kane’s, including the fruit-flavored cereals with cartoon characters on the boxes.
But I suddenly have an intense craving for strawberry-flavored everything.
“So here’s the thing,” Kane says, his comment clearly directed at me. “We’re going to date her.”
I look from him to Dash, who is leaning against the counter next to the fridge, a bottle of Gatorade gripped tightly in his huge hand.
He also meets my gaze directly but doesn’t confirm or deny what Kane just said.
“When you say her, you’re referring to Abby?” I ask, that knot in my stomach pulling tighter.
Kane rolls his eyes. “Yes.”
“You said we. You’re both going to date her?”
The guys exchange a glance and then look back to me.
“Yes.”
This answer comes from Dash. It’s firm and gruff.
I look at him with surprise. He often defers to Kane in conversation, especially in negotiations and arguments. Not because he doesn’t have his own ideas and desires, but because he only expends the energy when it really matters.
So, Abby really matters.
That causes a thick curl of jealousy to twist through my gut.
I’m shocked and unhappy about that. I don’t want to feel jealous of my brothers. Of something that they’re clearly excited about. Something—someone—who could make them really happy.
And no, neither of them is my brother by blood, and only Kane has a legal family tie to me, but they are so much more than friends.
These are the men I want in my life forever.
I fully expect to be standing around sniping at one another in the kitchen when I’m in my nineties, and they’re in their eighties.
These are the people with whom I intend to share everything…
Oh.
Fuck.
I suddenly get it.
I really get it.
“That could get very complicated,” I say, but even as I say it, I realize that it won’t.
It’s the strangest feeling, but I somehow know that Kane and Dash could easily share a woman. At least, the right woman.
But that would mean that woman would be here. With me. Also in my life.
And I want Abby too.
Fuck.
Yeah, this could be a problem. For me. If they date her, happily share her, bring her into their lives, that means bringing her into mine too. She’ll be here in this house. Making it smell like strawberries. Putting her touch on things. Making memories here.
How will I handle that?
And how, in the space of an hour, barely speaking to the woman, knowing next to nothing about her, can I be so convinced this is a big deal?
“We both like her, she seems to like both of us, so if she’s into it, it actually makes a lot of sense,” Kane says.
“Dash and I are like two sides of a really awesome coin. Abby could have the best of both of us, and we’d be able to help the other with our…
” He trails off, obviously trying to come up with the right word.
“Not so great stuff,” Dash fills in.
Kane nods. “Right. Like how sometimes I’m not romantic enough. Or how Dash doesn’t always say what he’s thinking and feeling.”
That makes complete sense. We’ve joked about giving each other dating lessons. What I lack, these guys each have in spades. And vice versa.
Kane is the fun-loving extrovert. But he has a hard time slowing down and sometimes realizing when he needs to take things more seriously.
Dash is quiet and steady and would rather be at home with the people he knows best, but his girlfriends often say they wish he liked to go out more and would talk to them.
Just like my girlfriends initially enjoy how intense and ‘bossy’ I can be, but eventually say things like, “I wish you would just lighten up and have fun once in a while.”