“I know, but I’m not leaning forward like that. I’m not giving you a clear view of my crack.”
“I’m going to give you a clear view of my fist if you’re not careful.” I was deadly serious. “I guarantee you saw my crack last night … along with a few other things.”
“Yeah.” Rex rubbed his cheek. “I can’t remember the other things, though. I mean … instinctively I know that I saw them. Not being able to remember them feels like cruel and unusual punishment.”
A horrible thought occurred to me. “Are you flirting with me?”
“No.”
I wasn’t so certain that was true. “I think you are.”
“Hey, if I was flirting with you, Booby Ruby, you would know it.”
Anger the likes of which I’d never felt before bubbled up, hot and acidic. “Stop calling me that! I can’t stand it.”
“You like it, and you know it. Also, if I were flirting, this would’ve been the perfect time. I mean … we’re already naked. I would be crowned king of the sex gods if I managed to pull that little maneuver off.”
“And who would be doing the crowning?”
“You know … the people who hand out crowns.”
“Right.” I glared at him. “You’re kind of an idiot. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Actually, I don’t happen to think I’m an idiot,” he countered. “I’m just trying to ease the tension.”
“You mean because we’ve now seen each other naked?”
“That would be the sort of tension I’m referring to,” he agreed. He rubbed his cheek. “Was I at least good?”
My eyes narrowed to the point where I couldn’t see anything. “Is that really something you want me to answer?”
He did consider the question long before nodding.
“I have no idea if you were good or not,” I lied. Unfortunately, I remembered the deed all too well now. At first it had been nothing but a hazy memory niggling at the corners of my mind. It was all back now, though. I could remember every detail … in excruciating splashes of color. “That really doesn’t matter. It’s also not what you should be worried about.”
“What do you think I should be worried about?”
“Whether or not my brother is going to kill you for sleeping with me.” Why I said that was beyond me. I was looking for something to snap him back to reality, though.
Rather than react out of fear, he snorted. “Oh, right,” he said. “This is the one thing Zach can never give me grief about. I mean … he’s married to my sister.”
“He could still be upset,” I argued. “You were upset when you found out he was really with Livvie.”
“That’s different.”
“Give me one way it’s different.” I was in the mood to fight. He was the only one present. That meant he was going to have to be the target of my ire, whether he wanted to be or not.
“Well, for starters, Livvie is my only sister.”
I waited for him to expand. When he didn’t, I shot him an incredulous look. “And?”
“He has three sisters. All of his worry and care has to be split between three people. That means the pool of emotions he has to draw from is one-third the size of my feelings for Livvie right from the start.”
“You’re totally making that up.”
“No. It’s true. Zach loves the three of you the same amount I love Livvie. That pool is split, though.”
“Yeah, that’s not the way it works.” He was even dumber than I thought. “What else have you got?”
