Page 15 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
“Keep your shirt on, Grady. At least that way I’ll get a chance with the ladies,” Grayson says, always the one to play moderator.
Fuck that.
“You happy?” I yank my shirt off over my head, hating the immediate urge to turn my back from them so they can’t look, and swallow down the churning in my gut.
“Not anything we haven’t seen before,” Grant says as he turns to grab his beer without a stutter in his stare.
Christ. Why does it bug me so much? These are my goddamn brothers.
And yet, it still does.
“Are you guys going to help me, or are you going to stand there with your dicks in your hands all day?” Anything to shift the topic. To get the look on Shelby’s face and the request she made when I saw her at the station earlier this week out of my head.
“Says the guy who strokes hoses all day long for a living,” Grant says with a laugh.
“If firefighting was easy, cops would do it,” I reply and dodge the roll of duct tape he throws at me.
“Fucker,” he mutters but sets down his beer and picks up a hammer.
It’s about fucking time.
This room isn’t going to build itself.
Lord, have mercy.
To think I’ve been in my room this whole time, strugg
ling with lyrics when all of this has been sitting outside my window.
Three stunningly handsome men. All with brown hair. All with the same build. All with the same mannerisms. Grady mentioned he had a brother who was a cop, but he didn’t tell me there was a third.
Who would turn down a Malone sandwich like that?
I feel like I’ve just walked in on a Diet Coke commercial. Three shirtless men with carpenter belts on, a sheen of sweat on their skin, and grins on their faces.
If that isn’t one of the best distractions from writer’s block, I’m not sure what is. Or to keep tucked away for a memory during ménage à moi time. But now the problem is how in the hell do I pull my eyes away from the visual and back to lyrics about anger and heartbreak?
Get back to work, Dyl. Finish writing the song and strike one more off the list of twenty tracks. One more link broken in the chain tying me to Jett.
Their laughter floats in the open window above the cadence of the hammer and pulls my eyes to admire the sight one more time.
And that’s when I see them. The angry red lines marring Grady’s back. He’s too far away for me to make out how bad they are, but they’re enough to give me pause, to make me wonder if they have anything to do with the nightmares I heard him fighting off.
I stare longer than I should, curious and jealous of the ease between the three of them. Even when they seem like they are razzing each other, there is a light-hearted nature that bespeaks of affection.
Back to work.
After one more look.
It’s when I pull my guitar onto my lap that I realize I was so blinded by the sexiness outside, I forgot the one reason I had gotten up, to get sustenance. A soda. Licorice. And some grapes to add to my other two essential food groups: carbonation and sugar.
Preoccupied with a text on my phone from my agent, I walk into the kitchen and suck in a breath when I come face to back with Grady. He’s standing with his hand on the refrigerator door, head leaned inside, and his back fully exposed to me. It’s broad and strong and scarred immeasurably.
I stare.
I can’t help it. The marks are a dizzying array of dark and light and ridged and smooth. Horrific burns. Goosebumps chase over my skin as I imagine the pain he must have endured when he got those. I think of his habit of wearing unbuttoned shirts but never going shirtless and the hint of scars just visible above his collar that I never could have imagined led to this roadmap to hell on his back.
A part of me instinctively wants to reach out to touch them, bring some kind of comfort. It sounds ridiculous, even to me, but that doesn’t abate the urge.
