Isaiah turned off the open sign, locked the door, then asked, “Remind me what you came to pick up.”
“Calcium block for Chestnut, the squirrel,” Silas said.
“Right, yes,” his brother said, leading him into an office that had belonged to their father before he’d retired. Isaiah was the spitting image of him in his lab coat.
“Catch,” his brother said as he tossed the packaged item to Silas.
“Thanks, man,” Silas said.
“How’s lemonade-making?” his brother asked, taking a seat on the edge of the office table.
“Huh?”
“You know, that whole situation with Mountaintop and Raven that you’re trying to make the best of,” Isaiah said.
“Oh, yeah, it’s fine. It’s going along,” Silas said with a shrug.
“Need details. Is she closer to making a decision? Has she implemented any weird rules?”
“No, and no, but I did make out with her twice,” Silas said, surprising himself and his brother.
There was silence, then laughter from Isaiah. Real hearty, exuberant laughter that went on and on.
“Why are you laughing?” Silas asked, frowning.
“Listen, your love life has been boring. Nothing worth talking about,” Isaiah said, catching his breath. “You’re a straight athlete who’s always gotten the girl. Yawn. This though? Sleeping with the enemy? That’s some drama. It’s giving Tyler Perry Presents.”
“Now, who said anything about sex? Also, fuck you.”
“You have to explain how this happened,” his brother said.
“It was a heat-of-the-moment thing,” Silas said, rubbing his face.
His strictly polite approach had failed miserably. For the whole week following their moment in the storage closet, Silas had adopted a strategy he calledavoid, avoid, avoid.
“You in love with her?” his brother asked.
“Man, what? No. Why the fuck would you ask that?”
“Because if it were benign, you wouldn’t have even mentioned it. You wouldn’t be so… panicky.”
“If she were any other woman, it wouldn’t matter. But the kiss complicates an already complicated situation,” Silas said.
There was a common refrain in archery about how archers can’t shoot what they don’t look at, and Silas had found that to be the case in life too. He’d lost his entire career because he couldn’t keep his eye on the prize.
“I need to focus, and I’m not focusing,” Silas said to his brother. “And I don’t need her thinking I somehow gave up my dream of owning Mountaintop because I like kissing her.”
“The solution is obvious, no?” his brother said.
“I promise if it were, I wouldn’t still be standing here,” Silas replied.
“Talk to her. Say what you just said to me, to Raven.”
It was a simple answer. Maybe the correct one. They had never addressed their attraction—it was the elephant in the room they’d been conveniently sidestepping. Perhaps acknowledging the make-outs would lessen their power and clear the fog obscuring their opposing goals.
ChapterSixteen
“The factof the matter is he breached our telepathic agreement,” Raven said to her best friend on a call over speaker phone.
