Page 77 of Blitz

“The couch is perfectly serviceable.”

Micah laughs. “Yeah, I slept on that thing when we moved you in. It’s as hard as a rock. I’ll take my chances with the floor.”

A shadow looms over us. “This guy bothering you?” Barrett booms, puffed up with big guy bravado, staring down at us with a hard look in his eye. Amir and Wes are flanking him, a book tucked against his tray.

I laugh. “Stand down, guys. This is my brother.”

Barrett blinks.

“You don’t look alike,” Amir says distrustfully.

“We’re twins,” Micah says.

He looks more like our Korean-American side of the family, tan-skinned with high cheekbones and monolids, whereas I look more like our Black family members, darker brown with a high forehead and prominent nose and mouth. That’s the beauty of genetics: you never know what you’re going to get.

Tucker appears on the other side of the table. “Mic. Hey.” He sets his tray down on the table.

Micah gets the hint. He pushes his chair back and claps Tucker into a manly hug.

“Hey, man,” my brother says. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, you know. Same old.”

Amir frowns. “You know this guy?”

“Micah Prince. Mason’s brother,” Tuck says. “He goes to school in—North Carolina? South Carolina? I can never remember.”

Of course he knows. We all went on a recruiting trip together.

“South Carolina. Patterson.”

Amir nods, his jaw tight. “Right.”

Wes grunts.

“No, I don’t think so,” Barrett says. “We’ll leave you guys to your reunion.”

Tucker picks up his tray.

“Sit with us,” Micah tells him. “I haven’t seen you in two and a half years, and you run away at the first sight of me?”

Tucker’s shoulders are tense. “I was giving you guys some alone time.”

“This whole weekend is alone time,” I tell him, trying to break some of the ice between them. I tug on Tuck’s hand. “Hang out with us.”

He drops into the chair. After a moment, he leans over and drops a kiss to my cheek, pressing his forehead to my temple.

“Hey, sunshine,” he tells me quietly. He runs his thumb over my cheek. “I missed you the last few days.”

“Same. Fuck school. Who needs classes? Let’s just spend all our time together naked.”

He chuckles quietly. “Don’t tempt me, Princess.” He kisses me softly. I wrap my arm around him and pull him into me, trying to deepen the kiss. He won’t let me. He keeps it chaste and sweet. “You’re going to kill me one of these days, sweetheart.”

Micah coughs. “Okay, okay, I get it, you’re in love and all that bullshit.”

Tucker goes red. I set my hand on his thigh, and the muscles jump beneath my touch.

“Shut up. Like you’ve never been in love before.”