I blinked, even more overwhelmed by this gesture than by the arrival of a brigade of snow warriors…
Which was the only excuse for my delayed reaction—and failure to block the doorway with my body—when the THWAC crew cheerfully pushed past me into the house.
“We were at the Hive when Brew left last night,” Kel announced, unzipping the top of his suit. “Man, he couldn’t get out of there fast enough once he saw how heavy the snow was. Reed said Brew was super worried about getting back to you.”
“Getting back tome?” I repeated, my hungover brain processing this information with the speed of cold molasses.
Hayes nodded, stripping down the top of his own snowsuit with the same practiced efficiency to reveal a thermal undershirt below. “Yeah, once he realized how bad the storm was getting, he was like, ‘Gotta get home to Delaney!’ We teased him, but he just got all serious.”
“That’s not… We don’t… Wait, really?”
“Kitchen’s this way, eh?” Hen interrupted, saving me from having to form a coherent sentence. He was already halfway down the hall, carrying the croissants.
“No, hang on, don’t—” I lunged after him, but it was too late.
“Holy crap!” Hen’s exclamation echoed through the house. “What happened here?”
The rest of the THWAC crew converged on the kitchen like vultures to roadkill, and I had no choice but to follow, my stomach sinking.
In the harsh morning light, the destruction looked even worse. The demolished cabinets littered the floor, and the gaping hole in the wall seemed even larger. Plaster dust coated every surface, undisturbed except for two sets of footprints and—oh God—what were clearly handprints on the wall, marking the spot where I’d jumped Brewer.
“Whoa,” Hayes breathed, eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Who did this?”
I cleared my throat. “I did. It’s kind of hard to explain. It was an accident, sort of. I?—”
“Dude!” Kel said, peering at the hole with the enthusiasm of a kid at a science museum. “You straight-up murdered your kitchen!”
“Did you and Brew have some kind of fight?” Janice asked, concern pinching her features beneath that ridiculous hat. “Was this like…” She lowered her voice. “The camper?”
“No!” I said, too quickly and too loudly, making my own head throb. “No, we just decided, um, that the cabinets weren’t working. It was a spur-of-the-moment renovation decision.” I spoke with as much dignity as I could muster while wearing another man’s sweatshirt and sporting sex hair.
Hayes snorted. “Yeah, I bet there was a lot ofrenovationhappening.”
I was saved from responding—or possibly committing murder; the jury was still out—by the back door opening and Brewer entering with Teeny. He’d added a flannel over his henley and boots on his feet, making him look irritatingly put together… while I still resembled something the dog had played with and then abandoned.
“Morning, everyone,” he said casually, as if finding the house invaded by Coppertians was a normal weekday event. “I see you’ve discovered our midnight redesign.”
“Yourredesign?” Hen asked thoughtfully, eyebrows climbing his forehead. “This was you?”
“Sure. Both of us, really. It’s Delaney’s house, after all.” Brewer moved to stand beside me—close enough to present a united front but with a careful inch of space between us. “And we should probably get back to it.”
“But…” Janice brandished her thermos again. “We brought provisions.”
“And Hen plowed your driveway, but we need to finish clearing a path to the porch,” Kel argued.
“Plus, I thought maybe Kel and I could stick around and clear a spot where we could take Teeny out to run around without getting too snowy,” Hayes said. “From a distance,” he amended with an eye roll when Brewer and Kel both gave him concerned looks. “I do remember that I’m allergic.”
Brewer’s face softened. “I appreciate the thought. But I—we,” he said with a nod at me, “can handle the rest of the snow removal later. Right now, Delaney and I have to clean up our mess.”
I forced a smile despite my nagging hangover headache. “We do,” I agreed.
More than one, in fact, if you counted what happened last night… which made the kitchen seem like the easier prospect by far.
Hayes smirked. “Which mess are we talking, cousin?” he asked, as if reading my mind. “This—” He nodded at the mangled cabinets. “—or the one in the living room?”
I choked on air, my cheeks burning hotter than the fire that had warmed our naked bodies just hours ago.
Shit. Of course he’d seen that.
