Page 53 of My Brother’s Best Friend

“Cam? Cam, I swear to God, you’d better be in there!”

I sat up, confused and disoriented. What time was it? And who the hell was—

“You’d better have just finked out and avoided the dance last night, and not be dead lying in a ditch somewhere. Cam, answer the damn door!”

Oh, God.

Jordan pushed up in bed next to me, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Cam?” He looked bewildered and kissable. “What’s going on?”

“It’s your brother,” I said, my heart sinking. “Levi’s here.”

“What?” His eyes went wide.

Last night, we’d talked about him staying with Levi for a while. Talked about how he’d gently break the news about not going back to New York, and then, weeks later, maybe months, we’d tell Levi about the two of us. But all of that was about to fly out the window.

“Quick.” I threw back the covers. “You grab your clothes. I’ll go to the door and try to keep him outside.”

But it was too late. Levi knew I never locked my door, and before I could even stand up, he was barging inside. There was nowhere to hide. My cabin was tiny, and it took all of two seconds for Levi to realize I wasn’t in the main room. He was still talking as he made his way towards the bedroom.

“I swear to God, Cam. You were supposed to ask someone to that damn dance, not get yourself murdered before you could—”

His words cut off abruptly when he reached the bedroom door. We hadn’t shut it last night. Why would we have?

But now, Levi could see us—his best friend and his little brother—naked in bed together.

His jaw dropped. I could only imagine what he was thinking. He looked from Jordan to me, then back to Jordan again. He closed his mouth only to open it a second time.

“I—what the—I’m sorry, I don’t—what?”

His question was garbled, but perfectly clear.

And oddly, I felt calm. Seconds ago, I’d been panicking, but now that Levi had seen us—now that he’d seen everything—the panic was draining away, leaving a strange buoyancy behind. I turned to Jordan and gave him a helpless smile. He closed his eyes for a second, but when he opened them again, he was grinning.

“I mean, he was going to find out sometime,” Jordan said, laughing lightly.

“Find out what?” Levi asked, his voice strangled. “I don’t understand. Are you two—you can’t—I mean, what? Cam, I thought you were—you’re not—not that I—I just—” He shook his head. “When you said you’d found someone to ask to the dance, I didn’t think you meant my brother.”

I smiled sheepishly. “Technically, I didn’t ask him to the dance. When I told you that, I was just trying to get you off my back.”

“But then what—” Levi gestured helplessly at the two of us.

“This happened, um, later,” I said. “Neither of us really expected it.”

“But we’re both very happy about it,” Jordan broke in, giving Levi a stern look. “So no big brother threats to beat Cam to a pulp, and no lectures about protecting my heart, thank you very much.”

Levi looked back and forth between us again. “I’m sorry, I just—I’m a little…surprised, is all. But I guess, if you’re…happy? This is…good?”

“It is, and we are,” I said firmly. “And to be honest, we should probably be thanking you.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because if you hadn’t gotten on my case about the dance, I never would have put myself out there. Never would have made that profile, never would have asked Jordan—I mean, I didn’t know it was him at the time, but I never would have asked him to meet me at the glory—”

I cut off abruptly, realizing what I’d been about to say, and Jordan shot me an amused look.

“You were not kidding about babbling when you get nervous, were you?”