“Not if you don’t tell him.” Reid held his brother’s gaze until he shook his head and addressed his roommate.
“So what about you, Kennedy?” Bast asked. “Have you left broken hearts in all these places you’ve visited?”
“Oh yeah. That’s me,” she said with a laugh he might have considered strained if he examined it closely. “Love ’em and leave ’em Kennedy.”
Reid wondered, especially when her eyes turned a little sad. “That was too personal. Bast is very sorry.” He glared at his brother who merely shrugged.
“Not at all! After all I’ve done poking at you? Turnabout’s fair play, boys. Okay, pancakes are up and Reid, you will eat at least one!”
He ate five—because it was one more than Bast.
18
Kennedy couldn’t tell if Reid liked his brother. There was definitely love there, but it was mixed up with a ton of other emotions she tried to label throughout breakfast.
Bastian was Reid’s opposite: lightness, charm, a chatterbox, and easy with his smiles. They shared the same mother and even though Bastian (call me Bast, Kennedy!) referred to Henri Durand as “our dad,” Kennedy sensed her roomie’s unease with the dynamics. With both Bastian and his stepfather.
About ten minutes after the last pancake slid down Bastian’s gullet, he left with a slap on the back for his brother, a (double) cheek-kiss for Kennedy, and a friendly rub of Bucky. Quite the glad-hander.
As Reid started on the dishes—and he just jumped right in without prompting, what a good roommate—she got straight to the point. “So are you close with your brother? I couldn’t really tell.”
“We are. It’s complicated.”
She would do anything to have even the chance of a complicated relationship with her family. Sometimes the pain in missing her parents was almost unbearable. “In what way?”
“Henri would prefer we didn’t get along. He’s always wanted us to be competitive. He thought it would make us stronger players, but Bast doesn’t need that kind of push. He’s already too good.”
“And you? Are you good?”
“I’m a grinder. I work hard to be good. Henri used to think that toughening us up, putting us in contention for his approval, would push us to greatness. He’s a stick-not-a-carrot kind of coach.”
“But as a father, doesn’t he want you to get along?”
Reid’s cynical smile broke her heart a little. “If we get along too well, it means we might not strive to better each other. Henri is a coach first, a father second.”
“Not digging Henri much.”
His expression was mildly amused. No doubt he’d heard this criticism before. “He just has high standards. It’s okay, I want to be the best. I’ve always trusted him to be tough on me for the right reasons.”
“Sounds like you’re tougher on yourself than your stepfather is. I’m sorry about my blabbing, by the way. I really thought your brother knew.”
“It’s not something I talk about. And Bastian wouldn’t understand. Most pro athletes are fucking anything on two legs.”
That’s what she thought, so Reid’s approach fascinated her. He really shouldn’t be so hard on himself.
When he could be hard on her. Zing!
“Maybe you shouldn’t expect such perfection all the time.”
Plates stowed in the dishwasher, he flipped and leaned against the counter with his arms folded. The move made his guns bulge even more indecently. She had touched one bicep earlier, in a roommate-friendly kind of way.
Big mistake. Huge.
“Isn’t yoga all about achieving some sort of perfect state?”
“Not quite. It’s more about fostering harmony in mind and body. One of the reasons I love it is that it helps me to eliminate all those negative thoughts, even if it’s just for an hour. For that hour, I only wallow in peace instead of self-pity.” And then for the other hours in the day she found more ways to keep the negativity at bay. A busy little bee had no time for navel-gazing.
“You should try it.” It had to be better than the strategy he was employing now.
Thoughts chased each other across his face for a second. Rivers ran deep with this man, and she loved watching him think. “Peace is … I don’t think I’ve ever known it. And I don’t think it’s attainable on a yoga mat.”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. It has to be better than shredding the skin off your dick on a daily basis.”
He gave an eye roll but then two seconds later, the oddest thing happened: Reid’s climb-aboard-me shoulders started to shake.