Three questions,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers as I spoke. “One: do you have a car? Two: do you have plans tonight? And three: how fast can you drive?
Jennifer Lynn BarnesTags: questions
Sometimes, having friends who were like family was a good thing, and sometimes, it was like having an endless supply of very nosy, very irritating siblings.
Jennifer Lynn BarnesDevon put an arm around me and curled his lips into an expression I recognized as Smirk Number One: sarcastic with a touch of I-couldn’t-care-less. “Why, Bryn,” he said with a hint of Scarlett O-Hara in his voice, “I do believe he’s given her your pen.”
Devon’s words freed up my mouth, which—true to form—spoke without consulting my brain. “Well, get Freud on the phone. He’ll have a field day with this one.
Callum’s basement had always been off-limits to me, and I wasn’t dumb enough to believe the restriction was in place because that was where he hid my Christmas presents.
Jennifer Lynn BarnesTen-to-one odds Callum has either Sore or Lance on Bryn-duty tonight,” I said, changing the subject with an unspoken apology for bringing up the previous one at all. “You Macalisters seem to be Team Bryn favorites at the moment.”
Devon’s lips settled into an easy, practiced smirk, and the nearly imperceptible tension in his neck and shoulder muscles receded. “If there’s any justice in this world, watching you should convince them how lucky they’ve been to be blessed with a son such as myself.”
“He says with patented Smirk Number Three.”
Devon shook his head and made a sound somewhere in the neighborhood of tsk-tsk. “You’re getting rusty, Bronwyn. That was clearly Smirk Number Two: sardonic with a side of wit.
Without even thinking about it, I sent Callum an image of a dog hiking his leg at a fire hydrant. And then one of a rebel flag from the Revolutionary War.
Callum didn’t respond in my head, but I knew he’d gotten the message, because he met me at the front door, and the first thing he said, with a single arch of his eyebrow, was, “Don’t tread on you?”
“More like ‘don’t metaphorically pee on my brainwaves,’ but it’s the same sentiment, really.”
“Vulgarity does not become you, Bryn.”
“Are you going to lecture, or are we going to run?”
He sighed, but I didn’t need a bond with the pack to see that he was thinking that I had always, always been a difficult child. And then, just in case that point wasn’t clear, he verbalized it. “You have always, always been a difficult child.”
I smiled sweetly. “I try.
Go on,” Ali told me. “Get dressed. Make your bed. And for heaven’s sakes, Bryn, brush your hair. You’re starting to look like a cavegirl.”
“Bryn want kill dinosaur,” I said, pantomiming what I thought passed for a decent dinosaur-killing motion.
For the first time in weeks, Ali laughed. “Go on. And if you’re very good, Ali show Bryn big heaping secret. Fiiiiiirrrre. Make tasty warm dinosaur meat.”
I snorted. “Dork.”
“Right back at ya, kiddo.
Lips twitching spasmodically, Devon put me back in the hold, and I did the only thing I could think of to alleviate his guilt and put him in fighting mode for real. “Armani is for mama’s boys, and a movie doesn’t count as a real film if nothing gets blown up.”
You’re going down, Bronwyn. Them’s fighting words.
And then, one Saturday morning, I came down to breakfast, and it all came to a head when she flat-out told me that I wasn’t going to training.
Straw met camel’s back. Breaking commenced.
“You have no right to tell me—”
“You do not want to finish that sentence, missy. You want to sit down, close your mouth, and eat.”
“How am I supposed to eat with my mouth closed?”
“Bryn, that’s enough.
Oh, I see how it is. Baby finds her Johnny Castle, and all of a sudden, she forgets about the small matter of her BFF?”
There was only one person in the world who could deliver that line with a straight face. Until I’d heard his voice, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed it.
“Devon!”
Chase stiffened as Dev’s name left my lips, and Devon beamed at me, doing a good impression of someone who hadn’t been bristling a moment before, when I’d buried myself in Chase’s arms.
“In the flesh,” Devon said. “When you call, Bronwyn, I answer. Always.” It was a testament to the gravity of the moment that he didn’t treat everyone present to an impromptu performance of “Ain’t No Mountain.” Lest Devon decide the situation did call for some tunes, I pushed on.
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