There’s something about the tired way he said it that outlines the fact things had gone to shit for him rather succinctly and he’s still not over the situation. I can imagine a betrayal that big stays with you for life.
A disbelieving growl works its way up my throat. “I think you are completely on the forefront of their mind. He’s your brother. And, well—she’s your ex.” A horrible thought comes to me. “She is your ex, isn’t she?” I’m pretty sure he called her his wife, but I’m assuming, and hoping, old habits die hard.
“Nope.” His dimples dig in deep and take my stomach on one of those roller coaster rides the thirteen-year-old in me can appreciate. Yes, he’s cute, but he also happens to be injured. Just because a cow gets tipped over doesn’t mean you should be having filet mignon later that night. Wait—is that how the saying goes? My God, is that even a saying? Great. I’ve dragged a bovine into this for nothing. “She’s my wife. At least for another few weeks while we close up shop on that disaster.”
“That disaster?” I muse. “Sounds like the nuptials were a barrel of laughs.” While they lasted. Selfishly, I’m a bit relieved he’s given her the big heave-ho. She so deserved it.
“If you think getting tangled in a barbed wire blanket is fun, then yes.”
Oh my God, that totally means his wife slept with his brother while she was still on the marriage clock! Holy crap, she’s a skank to end all skanks! And that brother. We should have a weenie roast instead of that filet mignon and we should use Chip’s teeny weenie to do it.
“Nickel for your thoughts.” His lips twitch as if he’s daring himself to smile.
“I would give them to you for nothing, but I’ve just internally insulted your wife and blood relation to the point of no return. I think it’s safe to say you have your own thoughts on the subject. How about we get dressed and get down to the hospital in an hour? I still have a few nickels to rub together. I’m buying lunch after. You like Chinese?”
His mouth opens and closes as he considers the prospect before his spine goes rigid. “Did you say we?” He’s back to being perplexed with those dark brows, those day-glow Raven-blue eyes—well, technically, they’re a bit more aqua-gorgeous-marine, and it takes everything I’ve got not to say aww as if he just morphed into a baby bunny. Who am I kidding? Levi Masterson is no bunny rabbit. He’s more of a tiger—one of those exotic black and white ones with those commanding ocean-colored eyes that hypnotize you with their beauty.
“Hell yes, I said we.” I scoot him right out of the kitchen and down the hall. “Take a quick shower, or better yet toss on a baseball cap. Your man stink and my messy hair will give off all the wrong vibes.” I give a quick wink, and he recoils a moment.
“I don’t stink. But I’m taking a shower just in case.” He starts for his bedroom before glancing back at me. “You really think this is the right thing to do?”
“I promise you, Levi, I would never lead you astray.” Unless that crooked path leads to my bedroom. As obnoxious as he’s been to live with, I wouldn’t object to having him bark out a few orders in the bedroom.
He takes off, and my gaze lingers over that void he leaves in his wake. My blood boils over the fact his brother and his wife of all people stuck a stake in his heart and now have a bona fide baby stake to flaunt in front of him for the next umpteen years. Imagine being an uncle to your own wife’s child.
I’m so livid I’m seeing red. You’d think I was the one who was cheated on so horribly. I head into my room and pull out my Sunday best. I have been cheated on, stepped on, taken out with yesterday’s trash, and I know what it feels like. It feels like shit. If my best friend can’t be here to comfort her favorite brother in his time of need, I will happily step up to the Masterson family plate—not that I’m keenly aware of the fact Raven has a favorite brother. But after doing the scoundrel brother math, I’m pretty darn sure I’m right. Raven has always been there for me, wiped away all my tears, moved heaven and earth to make things better. I will, for damn sure, do the same for her.
I hold a red dress up to myself in the mirror, the one that hugs my curves, tells every male within eyeshot what goes where and why, and I give a slow maniacal smile.
Yes, I’ll take care of Levi Masterson while Raven is away. And I know just how to do it. Those assholes cradling that sweet innocent baby won’t know what hit them.
Levi won’t either.
The drive to Hollow Brook General is a relatively quick one, but with Levi behind the wheel and his panache for taking every alternative route possible it’s taken almost forty minutes. We finally park and get out of his fancy ride, and I head over and smooth the wrinkles from his dress shirt with my hands. Holy hell, this boy’s body is made one hundred percent of steel—or titanium. Oh hell, I happened to catch a glimpse of him shirtless last week—this boy is platinum through and through.
“Everything okay down there?” His warm voice strums over me, and I come to from the impromptu massage I’ve accidentally offered up his chest.
“Oh, um, yes.” My finger vibrates with delight long after I’ve returned my hands to my sides. It’s not my fault I couldn’t contain the need to attack him. He showered and trimmed down that scruff on his cheeks just enough to make my panties spontaneously combust. With that dark hair and those siren eyes, it’s a rather lethal combo, and if I’m being entirely honest, why, yes, I did have a good time last night in my bedroom. So what if I was riding that rodeo solo? I haven’t been with a man in so long I’ve forgotten what a ride for two feels like. I’m essentially a born-again virgin, and, well, the way Levi was grunting and moaning while watching a baseball game last night—he might be responsible for getting me a little hot and bothered. I may have had a serious transference issue between him and my hand, but in my defense, the sound of his roaring cheers set me over the sexual edge, and God knows there was no coming back from that one.
We head in, and I practically have to yank him into the gift shop.
“There’s no way we’re going up empty-handed. Nothing says grudge like showing up without a teddy bear. What did they have, anyway? Do you happen to know?” Just as I’m about to text Raven and get the chromosomal deets, he nods to a giant pink panda.
“It’s a girl!” I head over and hug the cute little thing. “Don’t worry. You’re still an uncle, not an aunt.” I give a playful smile as I pick up a small bouquet of pink roses and a Mylar balloon on a stick that reads Thank heaven for little girls! “Too much?”
His eyes bug out as if suggesting the drive over was too much, and before he can open those full lips—and my God, Levi Masterson does have perfectly full, adorable as all hell lips. My tongue does a revolution around my own damn lips just thinking of them.
“Never you mind,” I say sternly as I head to the cashier and whip out my wallet.
“No way, no how.” He outguns me with the Visa, and sixty-three dollars later, the elevator deposits us on the third floor amidst the ketchup-like scents and hearty moans of women in labor. A harrowing scream emits to our left.
I lean against him. I meant to rib him, but my uterus recoiled so hard it nearly knocked me over. “And that, my friend, is why I will never do the tush-push with an entire human being on the wrong end of my hoohaw.” My face heats ten shades of hellfire. Did I really just say hoohaw to Raven’s older, handsome, skin over steel big bro? I glance up and give a sheepish smile. For the most part, Levi has been frozen into submission ever since we got out of the car, and my heart breaks for him.
“Come here.” I gently lead him to the corner as the woman in the room to our left insults man and God and every person she’s ever known in one long rambling cry of desperation in an effort to escape her personal hell.
I hook my finger under that scruff beneath his chin and force those baby blues to zone in on me. Levi’s chest thumps with a quiet laugh and his eyes smile all their own as they do just that, and my stomach squeezes tight just having this beautiful man’s attention.
I clear my throat
. “I know we haven’t known one another for very long. I know that you probably think I’m a lunatic—and trust me, you’re not that far off base.” Perhaps this moment, the most vulnerable time in this man’s life, isn’t the best time to discuss your precarious psychiatric standing, not that there is an official diagnosis, but I’ve long suspected I’ve been a sandwich shy of a picnic for a while—and I mean that in a good way. “But I want you to know that I love your sister.” Something deep down in my bones shivers when I say those words to him, and for a moment I wonder if I had imagined that I said Raven’s name at all. “And because I care so deeply about her, I care deeply about you by default. Plus, you’re letting me sleep in your home, eat your old food”—we share a small laugh—“and you’ve let me see you shirtless on more than one occasion.”
His head backs up a notch as if I’ve just blown him over.
Note to self: confession might be good for the soul, but it’s probably most beneficial when done in a dark room with a partition and a crucifix between you.
“Harlow.” His voice is hoarse and just below a whisper.
“Just Low.”
“Low.” That dimpled grin of his lasts less than second. “Thank you. I can’t tell you what it means to me to have your support.” His thumb brushes over my cheek and sets off a riot of pleasure-filled tremors through me. Those blue lasers of his dig into me, and I can feel the heat of his stare gliding over my face all at once, leaving me painfully exposed. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“Oh, but I did.” I blink back tears that came uninvited. “Raven has done an entire list of the most outlandishly kind things for me.” I hook my arm through his and lead him down to the nurses’ station. “Like these shoes for example?” I kick a Louboutin clad foot in the air. “You practically need to cough up blood money to go home with a pair, and I merely complimented Raven on hers just once, and, poof, the next day there was a box in my closet with a shiny red bow. She said it was a belated birthday gift she forgot to give me.”
He trembles out a warm laugh, and my shoulder bounces along with his chest. It feels nice like this with Levi by my side. Hell, it feels nice with a warm body in general, but let’s face it, Levi isn’t exactly hard on the eyes.
One of the nurses greets us, her hand still dipped in a box of chocolates sitting on the counter. “Which lucky patient are we here to see today?” She looks chipper and gleefully glad to be here, not at all like a woman who stares down at the working end of baby makers for a living. There are many career paths I have entertained in life—and ironically secretary at a window factory was not one of them, but neither was lady-business supervisor either. I’d have to boil my hands in oil if their sole purpose for eight hours straight was excavating small children from the inside of bloodied vaginas.
Levi leans in. “Meredith Masterson.”
My stomach tenses when I hear her full name—especially the part that’s still legally gifted from him.
“Straight down the hall. Last room on the right.”
“Last room on the right.” I clutch the pink panda a bit tighter as my nerves ratchet up, because for one I haven’t exactly clued Levi here in on my little plan. I bite down hard over my bottom lip and damn near draw blood as we land at the last room on the right—pausing a moment to take a breather. I look up and get lost in Levi Masterson’s velvet gaze, those lips that look like they were born for trouble and perhaps munching on the most magnificent of all meals—me.
I shake the thought out of my head. What the hell am I thinking? Damn hormones. In fact, this entire place is leaching hormones. It’s that whole cycle-sister thing on steroids. My ovaries are practically hostage to their unnatural desire to get sprayed by Levi’s baby batter.
“You ready to do this?” I whisper, unsure myself whether or not I’m indeed ready. He gives a solemn nod as his chest widens in girth with his next breath. “Okay then. If anyone asks—my name is Evie Slater.” A name that I completely made up on the fly. Come to think of it, a little Google Fu might have been beneficial in the event Evie Slater does exist and has a burgeoning career in the porn circuit.
“What?” His eyes grow wide with horror and you’d think I just suggested he sever off his dick as a show of affection for the happy couple judging by how both frightened and baffled he appears.
“Just follow my lead.” I give a gentle knock to the door and yank him into the room with me.
“Come in!” An older version of my best friend hovers just this side of a shower curtain billowing like a cloud. Her eyes go straight to her poor cuckold son. This may not be nineteenth century England, but the archaic word adds a sad old-world charm to the family saga unfolding around us. And face it—cuckold sounds a hell of a lot nicer than fucked over by his wife and brother. “Oh my God, you came!”
“Who is it, Mom?” a decidedly female voice calls from the other side of the shower curtain divide, and Levi’s jaw tightens. That must be his ex. The audacity she has to call her Mom! I don’t care if she’s sleeping with an entire fleet of Masterson boys. Once you break your husband’s heart by letting his brother dip his wick into you, it’s right back to formal monikers as far as the in-laws go.
“It’s Levi!” His mother goes pale as she examines me from head to foot. Come to think of it, perhaps a tight red bandage dress coupled with my best kicks wasn’t exactly maternity suite attire.
“Oh, for God’s sake”—his ex cries out in exasperation—“open the curtain. There’s nothing here he hasn’t seen before.”
The curtain whooshes open, obnoxiously loud and thrashing, as a petite woman in scrubs whistles right by us. But it’s not the shrill of the curtain, or the tiny nurse that has me frazzled—it’s the fact there is a very spread eagle, very vaginally damaged woman waving cheerily to us from the head of the bed.
“Don’t mind me. I busted a stitch last night. The little shit split me in two like she was driving a Mack truck right out of my ass.”
“Holy hell,” I whisper. My gaze is still locked on her swollen and bloodied, battered and bruised—and have I mentioned bloodied—lady parts that look as if they were sewn together by Dr. Frankenstein himself.
“What’s this?” the girl chirps. “Is this a guest?” She says guest as if it were a four-letter word.
Everything in me freezes as she inspects me with a self-righteous glare. Oh my God, oh my God! Pull it the hell together! I take a sharp breath and command myself to look away from the carnage. She probably deserved to have a Mack truck driven through her lady parts, and I’m pretty sure that by “little shit” she was referencing the baby she just brought into this world. I’d venture to guess she hasn’t spent enough time with the little babe in question to properly assert such a vitriolic nickname, but I’d also venture to guess if given enough exposure to her mother’s charms for the next fifteen years or so that nickname might apply just yet.
“Evie Slater,” I say it loud enough for all to hear, and Levi’s head spins my way as if it were on a swivel. I’m quick to take up his hand and draw it close. “I hope you don’t mind. Levi here brought me along for the ride. We don’t do too many things without each other these days.” I bat my lashes up at him and meet with a look of terror in his eyes.
“Is that so?” The girl hikes up on her elbows, craning her neck to get a better look at me from over her knees, so I do the only thing I can—step away from her damaged lady flower and head over to introduce myself properly.
So this is Meredith. I can’t help but frown when I see her. She’s pretty in an older, butch sort of way, stiff features, brunette with freckles, unfriendly eyes with bald eyebrows that look as if she took a razor to them. Her hair is slicked back into a hard bun, and she has an overall plain as a pancake look about her.
“I’m Evie,” I say, still clutching his hand with a death grip in fear he’ll soon discover it’s all too much for him and bolt. “Levi’s girlfriend.” He gives my hand a hard squeeze right down to the bone, but there’s no way in hell I’m mak
ing eye contact with him right now. “We’ve been together for eons now. I’m sorry we’re sort of springing this on you today of all days.” A quick smile darts to my lips that screams sorry not sorry.
Her lips contort as if she was genuinely pissed, and I throw a ticker tape parade on the inside. Score one for Team Levi. Screw his brother, will you? This ought to teach you a lesson.
She clicks her tongue my way, fully examining me, taking in the curves of my dress, and the disgust on her face only seems to grow. “A little young, isn’t she?”
“Oh, I don’t mind the age difference.” I reach up and give his scruff a playful scratch, and my insides explode at how vexingly sexy it feels to do just that. Levi bites down over his bottom lip—most likely to keep from rattling off an entire list of expletives I’m sure he’d like to share with me right about now—but I’d like to think we were having a genuine moment.
“I’m Bonnie.” His mother leans in with a hand extended, and I’m quick to shake it. “You’re not one of Raven’s friends, are you?”
“Oh!” My entire body seizes upright. Dear God! I can’t lie to his mother, can I? “I’ve seen her around, here and there.” That about sums up the relationship I’ve had with my bestie for the last few years. Nothing but a rare sighting in the wild. Raven is more elusive than Bigfoot these days.
Bonnie squints my way as if trying to place me. And I pray that through the curse of modern technology Raven hasn’t sent her a dozen pictures of her bestie. “There is something familiar about you, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” My God, if she recalls freshman orientation, then this woman has a memory like a steel rattrap. “I like you.” She announces that last part with vigor. “Something tells me that you and Raven will get along just fine.”
“I think you’re right.” In fact, I know she is. Unless, of course, Raven finds out about Evie Slater. In that case, things will fall to shit rather quickly.
Levi does a quick glance around while the nurses wrap up their biology experiment gone awry at the foot of the bed and cover up Meredith’s mangled rose from the view of prying eyes.