Breaking Bro Code (The Line Up #4) - Misti Murphy Page 0,72

for her are growing at a rapid pace. One week back in Chicago without her while she and her besties finish up the hotel renovation and I’m missing her like she’s my dominant arm.

We’ve texted every day to the point where Hud keeps trying to snoop to see who I’m talking to. All week I’ve had to avoid answering my phone around him. We’ve talked for hours each night while lying in bed thousands of miles apart. I miss the weight of her head on my chest. I miss the curve of her ass under my hand and her coconut mango shampoo.

“Big date?” Cal asks me, tapping the pen in his hand against the pad of paper on the counter in front of him.

“No.”

Across the room Hud chats with Fleetwood about paternity leave. At the other end of the bar Pez and Arrow are restocking fridges.

“Bullshit.” Cal smirks. “You’ve been bitten by the love bug. Can’t stop thinking about your girl, can you?”

“You know I don’t go in for all that love schtick.” It’s an attempt to cover the fact that my thoughts keep wandering to Lil.

“That’s how I felt about it too, until it happened to me.”

“Can we not have this conversation?”

Hud is still talking to Fleetwood. They’re laughing over some joke that Hud probably told.

“Oh shit.” Cal swivels to see what has my attention. “It’s Lily, isn’t it? You’ve got a thing for Lily.”

“No. Absolutely not.” I shake my head and wave my hands. Oh God, if he tells Hud, I’m screwed. “No way.”

“You dirty dog. It’s written all over your big, guilty mug in permanent marker.” He reaches across the bar and punches me in the shoulder. “You cannot shit where you eat.”

“It’s not like that,” I say. I’m falling for her. Faster and further than I thought was possible.

The way I felt about Jessa—way back when—it was different. I was obsessed with the instant bond between us and jealous of the connection she formed with Ryder, and I got what was happening between us so wrong. I was already jaded before we started because of my need to compete with my brother for everything. I was blind to what was right in front of me. The shade of her eyes. The shape of her face. The way she smiled.

“It doesn’t matter what it’s like,” he says. “She’s always been off-limits. We all know it. Hell, even the new guys learn that in their induction here. Actually, it’s mentioned at every location, in case she ever finds herself in Malibu or New York or…”

“L.A.?”

“Lily Kelly is not for you. How could you of all people get it so wrong?”

“It’s not wrong. We’re not wrong together,” I snap back. This is the first time I’ve voiced that out loud and I feel lighter for getting it off my chest. “Maybe it shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and I wouldn’t change it if I could.”

“Christ.” He whistles long and low. “You’re really fucked, aren’t you? You have genuine feelings?”

“I’m not a cardboard cutout.”

“Never thought it would happen.” He stares at me like I’ve grown an extra couple of limbs and maybe a couple of heads as well.

“Me either,” I admit.

“Not even a redhead in sight too,” he says.

“Fuck you,” I spit. “I don’t like fucking redheads.”

“Could have fooled us this past, what, twelve years, we’ve known you. You’re practically an urban tale. Women dye their hair to have an opportunity with you, you legendary bastard.”

“I’ve heard the rumors,” I say. Heard them all. Never shared the real reason I’ve stuck with a type all these years.

Cal and I have been friends as long as me and Hud. It’s a different style of friendship. Cal and I are more alike. We’re both quieter. Angrier. We bottle up our shit and bury it deep, deep, deep down. When Cal and Hayley broke up for a while there he finally lost his shit and opened up. It was messy and we all had to deal with the fall out until he sorted himself out.

“I was punishing myself,” I mutter under my breath.

His eyes widen and then narrow. “That’s…”

“Fucked up,” I say.

“Yeah.” He slumps on the stool. “How…what? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” I grab a cloth and wipe it over the already clean surface of the bar. I’m coiled tight. There are a million words on the tip of my tongue. “There’s too much… it’s too complicated. It’s too screwed up. Lily makes me feel different from that