Page 73 of Love Again

“Okay. First, she’s not an animal I have to wrangle.”

“Wow. I didn’t mean it that way—”

“And second, for a gay guy, you know nothing about women. I mean don’t you have any female friends?”

This time, I get his bear pout. “Not really. When am I supposed to talk to them or see them? The women I talk to are all in uniform and they’re all trying to prove they’re tough as nails and better than me.”

There’s something about the way he’s standing there shirtless, with his massive torso and roiling chest hair, the apron on around his neck, and a dainty tea towel tucked in the tie around his waist that makes me laugh.

“I think it’s time you take a shower,” I say.

“That’s just insulting.”

My phone buzzes and I glance down. It’s a text from Devon. In the moment I see her name and number, my heart fumbles and tries to find a normal beat in my chest.

Carpool to Rockland. Mateus is driving. Pick you up in half an hour?

Keller cranes his neck around so he can read my phone. I make it easier for him and hold it up to his face.

“Don’t respond right away,” he says, wagging a finger at me.

I stand and start to shrug out of the bathrobe.

“Jesus, I don’t wanna see that,” says my brother, screwing his eyes shut.

“This is why you don’t date,” I say. “It’s not about strategy and games and who called whom, and who left a text and who didn’t. You treat it like some big chessboard. It’s not. It’s just two people trying to figure something out.

“That may be true for a lot of people, but in this case, you’re wrong.”

“This case?”

He clarifies. “My case. It’s never about two people.”

This surprises me. “What are you, polyamorous? I mean, do you sleep with several men at once?”

Keller’s mouth drops open. “Hell no. I’m an old-fashioned man. What is wrong with you young people?”

“Well then, I’ll stick by what I’m saying. We are two people trying to figure something out.”

Keller grimaces and points at my naked ass. “Cover that up,” he says. “You’re wrong. What I mean is, it’s not just about you and Devon. It’s about you, Devon, and that whole damn pack of Russos.”

΅

When they pick us up, it’s in Colton Security’s Lexus. I start to climb into the back seat with Mateus, and Devon’s in the front.

Devon throws an arm over the passenger seat and turns around to look at me. Her face registers nothing from last night. “Where’s your brother? He’s supposed to come too.”

Fuck. The last thing I need is for him to be saying something to Devon about strategy or how it feels to be wrangled. That guy can really put his foot in his mouth sometimes.

It takes Keller a few minutes to get ready. We firefighters are fast dressers, and he’s very proud of the fifty-second change-into-gear record he holds at the station. In less than a minute, he bangs out the door and then squeezes into the back seat.

I can’t read Devon while I’m sitting directly behind her. At one point, she reaches up and puts her hand behind her head and waves her fingers at me. I hold them for a few seconds, and then it’s clear she wants me to let go.

She’s touching base.

The twenty-minute car ride is filled with empty discussions about pulp or no pulp orange juice, what type of eggs are the best—at which point my brother reveals that he’s never understood the point of quail eggs. There’s some awkward silence, and talk shifts to the weather and anything and everything that has nothing to do with last night.

Keller then makes it worse by turning the conversation back to quail eggs, explaining how a family down the road from him sells them out of their front yard in a cooler with a cigar box for money on the honor system.