Page 13 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
“Sleep sweet.”
I remain seated, listening to dispatch for who knows how long, wondering if my dad is on the other end of that code somewhere.
And if maybe my mom does the same thing even after all these years.
“What gives, man?” Grayson asks as he tips the neck of his beer toward the house.
“What do you mean?” I swing the hammer and pound the nail into the two-by-four.
“Hottie songwriter,” Grant fills in the blanks for him.
“How do you know she’s a hottie?” I ask.
“I have my sources,” Grant says with a lift of his brow.
“So, that means Emerson must have seen her somewhere and given him the rundown,” Grayson says about Grant’s wife. “So, is she?”
I think back to the other night. The heat of her pussy with nothing separating us but a thin sheet. The way her nipples pressed against her tank top. She was warm and real and inviting when everything about my dream was cold and dark and debilitating.
I line up another nail on the two-by-four I’m holding over my head and pound it into place. “Aren’t you assholes supposed to be helping me?”
My older brother chuckles as he takes a sip of his beer before rising to help. “He isn’t answering, Gray. You know what that means.”
Grayson chuckles as I swing the hammer, and I know what’s coming next. “He likes her.”
Yep. Had that one right.
“I do not like her.” I take my frustration with them out on the nail.
“So she isn’t hot?” Grant asks, pushing my buttons when they’re already pressed after a few nights of restless sleep.
“That’s not what I said.”
“So . . . are you getting any yet?” he eggs on.
“Asks the man who probably isn’t getting any since he tied on the old ball and chain.” I chuckle and step back to grab the next piece of wood Grayson has cut for me on the table saw.
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Grant smirks a cat-ate-the-canary grin as if he’s remembering something I don’t want to imagine him remembering. “It’s only gotten better since the wedding, so no complaints here.”
“Dude, she’s pregnant,” I add.
“So? She’s still hot and everything still works the same. Duh.”
“He’s still punch-drunk on love.” Grayson rolls his eyes and sticks a finger down his throat like he used to do when we were little, and I laugh. “Seriously . . . how is she?”
I glance to Dylan’s bedroom window and think of the string of music that was coming from behind her closed door earlier. The guitar playing the same chords over and over, her muted voice barely making its way through the cracks. The oddly comforting rhythm of start, stop, repeat.
“She keeps to herself mostly,” I say as I flip the top of a fresh beer off and let the taste cool me off.
“She’s a songwriter?”
“Yeah,” I say with a shake of my head, still trying to wrap my head around her lyrics. “For Jett Kroger.”
“No shit,” Grayson says, but I don’t elaborate on their situation. “So?” He draws the word out.
“No. God. No.” I say the words a little too quickly as if I’m trying to convince myself that’s how I feel.
“She’s that bad?” Grant asks as he looks toward the house.
