My heart and my stomach betrayed me. Both took off in a dizzying swirl of fluttering wings and too-fast beats that were nearly impossible to ignore until I caught on to what the two guys were talking loudly about . . .
Who had just had the hotter twin.
“That’s disgusting,” I whispered to myself.
It was also very common for those two.
My arms instinctively wrapped around my waist as I tried to find something or someone to disappear behind. Trying not to draw attention to myself, I stepped slowly back until I was standing behind Grey.
“Wow, moving on to the girls in Walla Walla, huh?” Grey asked. “Must be nice not to have to worry about already having pissed them off.”
Graham sent his sister an annoyed look, and Deacon placed both hands on his chest dramatically as he declared, “Grey LaRue, you know you’re the only girl for me.”
“Easton,” Grey and Jagger corrected, at the same time that Graham said, “Dude, she’s married and has a baby.” Each word was annunciated, as if he’d gotten tired of explaining this over and over again.
Deacon shrugged. “Technicalities. And if I call you Grey Easton, I’m admitting defeat to the guy claiming to be your husband,” he said in a teasing tone.
Grey just shook her head as Deacon planted a loud kiss on top of it.
His eyes met mine and turned cold as they dipped down quickly over my body before moving around the apartment.
Irrational, betraying heart.
“Charlie,” Deacon mumbled distractedly, irritably. The only word he’d said to me in well over a year.
I was so busy pushing back the anxious and dejected feeling provoked by his cold stare that I didn’t bother responding. He probably wouldn’t have heard it anyway, or at least pretended not to.
Grey turned to find me behind her. An amused smile joined the sympathetic look in her eyes when she realized what I was doing. One of her eyebrows arched as she stepped away so I was no longer hidden. A challenge to see what I would do.
I didn’t move.
“Hey guys,” she said, turning her attention back to the newcomers. “I know you just got here, but go help Jagger load up the cars so we can leave.”
Deacon nodded as he took slow steps away from us, and pointed toward where the kids were in the living room. “Hey, with the after-lunch special I just had, I’m ready for anything as long as I don’t get stuck with one of those things.”
“Disgusting,” I mumbled again, low enough that it would have been impossible for him to hear me, but his frigid gaze snapped back to me.
Grey made a face at him. “You’re gross. And we already know about your aversion to kids, Deacon. We’re not going to torture you by making you ride in the car with them.”
He looked away from me and clapped loudly, the unexpected sound making me jump. “All right then. Let’s do this.”
TWO AND A half hours later, the truck and cars were loaded down, we were only a dozen minutes from Thatch, and Keith was talking away . . . to Deacon, who was sitting in my passenger seat.
We could have easily put the last couple boxes in my passenger seat, but Graham had loaded them in his truck instead, and claimed that he didn’t have any room for Deacon. Before Deacon could understand the depth of his words, Graham had hopped into his truck and driven away—his booming laugh trailed behind.
Even though Deacon had been around Keith more times than I could count, once Jagger and Grey had finally convinced Deacon to get into my car and we had left, he’d spent the first thirty minutes stiff as a board—only moving to look quickly into the backseat to make sure Keith hadn’t made a move toward him, even though he was asleep that entire time.
Soon after Keith woke, they’d somehow gotten into a debate about sharks and bears, and which would make a better best friend. Bears would, if you were wondering, because they like honey and Keith thought he liked honey too. And ever since the conversation had started, I hadn’t gotten the two to shut up . . .
Not that I’d tried. It kept Deacon’s glare from me and took away the uncomfortable silence between us.
“ . . . and when the ladybugs land on you, they take your supapowers away.”
“What?” Deacon asked loudly, and from the corner of my eye I saw his face drop from where he was turned in his seat to look at my son. “They’re going to take my superpowers away? I won’t let them. They can’t. I have a protective shield.”
“They dun care,” Keith responded. “They get frew it.”
“But they’re my superpowers.”
I glanced into the rearview mirror in time to see Keith shrug, and with a tone that said this disturbing news weighed heavily on his three-and-a-half-year-old self, said, “I dun make the ladybug wules.”
A startled laugh burst from my chest before I was able to slap my hand over my mouth.
“This isn’t funny, this means war on all ladybugs,” Deacon said seriously, but when I glanced at him, the amusement that had been lighting up his face abruptly disappeared.
I looked back at the road and tried to push back the sick feeling twisting through my stomach, weaving through the betraying fluttering that hadn’t left since he’d sat next to me.
Deacon turned his head again to face Keith, and jerked back. “Hey, kid. Kid,” he called again when he didn’t get a response, prompting me to glance at Keith.
“He’s asleep,” I mumbled.
“But we were just talking.”
It took a few moments for me to realize Deacon was watching me, and when I glanced at him, I found his stare expectant. I swallowed past the tightness in my throat, and lifted a shoulder as I attempted to give him the same indifferent tone he always gave me. “Yeah, he has this thing about cars. He always falls asleep as soon as we start driving, and sleeps throughout the drive and for a few minutes after it ends. If the trip is long, he’ll sleep through most of it, but I think he wanted to talk to you, so he tried to stay awake once he woke up.”
“Huh.” There was a brief pause before Deacon said softly, “This kid . . . he’s actually really funny. Is he always like this?”
I couldn’t contain my next smile. “For the most part. He just talks about the most . . .” I trailed off when I met Deacon’s gaze again.
Cold. Unforgiving.
Confusing.
He’d never treated me like this before, and I didn’t know what had happened to make him look at me and talk to me the way he did now, seeing as we hardly ever spoke to each other, even when we were in the same room.