a—what have you called me before?”
“A prickly pain in the ass, really?”
“It’s not your fault, you’re a cat. And you’ve called me worse, if you recall.”
“Sure,” I said, because I couldn’t deny that, “but you deserved it. And I thought we were starting over.”
“Why?” he asked. “I like where we started from.”
“You like the memory of me kicking your butt when we were kids, when you acted like a jerk?” I demanded, thinking the memory would embarrass him. He’d tried to boss me around when we were little kids. And it had not ended well for him.
Of course, then we’d been the same height. Now he was ten inches taller than me. I wasn’t sure if it was rude of him to grow so tall, or sexy that I felt delicate next to him. All three of them seemed to pick me up so easily.
He looked at me as if, were his hands not full of cups of hot cocoa, he’d kiss me. As if all that shared history, every weird thing about me, about us, just turned him on.
“Yep,” he said. “I sure do.”
21
Blake
Lily grew quieter as we drove into the city. Some of her light seemed to fade by the time she pointed out a parking spot on the side of the street, and my heart ached. I tried to think of something stupid to say, something that would spark her usual sarcasm but not hurt her feelings.
We headed up to her apartment. She tapped on the door. “Brad?”
There was no answer. Her hands shook a little as she fumbled with the keys, and the sight made my heart pound with anger. Had he hurt her?
Archer rested his hand on my shoulder, and I turned my ear into his face so he could whisper, “I think she’s just nervous about seeing him again.”
I nodded, some of my anger abating. Archer wasn’t always good at talking to people, but he was great at reading them.
She led us into her apartment. It was quiet. No Brad. That was good for Brad, bad for me.
Lily put us to work, telling us what was hers to pack up. She seemed to take everything in stride until she stepped out onto the porch. As I packed pots and pans into a box on the kitchen counter, I saw her orange curls bow, then drop out of sight as she knelt on the balcony.
Archer and Dylan were packing up in her bedroom. I glanced down the hall. Dylan was the one who would know what to say. Archer would figure out what was going on. I just wanted to hurt anyone who hurt her.
But unfortunately, that wasn’t always what a woman needed.
I stepped out onto the tiny balcony anyway, determined to learn to be whatever she needed.
I took in the tangled, drying roots, coated in caked soil. There were a dozen copper pots, still filled with dirt, filling most of the balcony. The plants must have been ripped out of them.
Lily looked up at me, sadness etched across her face, and I knew what The Brad had done.
I wanted to rip his head off his roots. They might just be plants, but they had obviously meant something to Lily.
I wanted to promise to buy her new plants, but I didn’t know if that would make her feel better either. There wasn’t some obvious way I could fix this. She thought I was bossy, but when I saw someone I cared about hurting and I knew how to fix it, this restlessness washed over me, like I had to fix it then or I’d explode.
But I didn’t know now.
So I knelt next to her. She glanced at me in surprise as I settled onto my knees, sitting back on my feet, so close that my shoulder almost—but not quite—brushed hers.
“How can I help?” I asked.
“We could pot them now and try to save them,” she said, running her fingertips over the cracked roots. “I don’t know if they’ll come back.”
“Maybe they’re hearty,” I suggested. “I bet they’re survivors.”
Just like she was.
Her lips twisted. “Let’s hope so.”
The sadness in her face tore at my heart. But I helped her re-pot all the plants.
Once the guys and I had wrestled what furniture was hers—the mission-style couch and her desk—and stacked boxes into the bed of the trunk, we nestled the re-potted plants carefully in the back, out of the reach of the wind, where they wouldn’t tip. It took us a while to get everything secure.
Then we