“Wait, what?” Cooper glances between us.
Jordan wraps an arm around Jo and looks over at us. “You look pretty cozy for not together.”
“What he said.” Jo points to Jordan.
Elliot glances at me, and somehow we manage to have a whole conversation without speaking.
I don’t have to tell them.
They’re your brothers.
That doesn’t matter. You matter.
It’s okay, really.
Are you sure?
I nod slightly, and he studies me for a few extra seconds, his deep blue eyes locked with mine in a way that makes me feel like we’re the only ones in the room. Then he sighs, pressing his leg against mine again as he looks around the table.
“Amelia is helping me with a project, so we’ve been spending some time together. The professor/student thing hasn’t gone away, and the dean of the computer science department is suspicious, and it all makes this…complicated.”
He doesn’t mention to his brothers that the project we’re working on is a personal one, which makes me wonder whether he’s told them.
“It’s not just a professor/student thing,” I clarify, pouring the Diet Pepsi the waitress sets down in front of me from the glass to the mug. No one bats an eye or asks why I’m doing something so weird, and my affection for this family grows. “He’s my advisor, and any kind of relationship is very against the rules. And I…” I trail off, glancing over at Elliot who covers my hand with his and tips his head as if to say,I’ve got you.
I don’t know whether it’s the cozy diner on a cold winter day or the obvious closeness between Elliot and his brothers, who are all looking at me with nothing but openness and acceptance, or the solid warmth of the man sitting next to me, but I find myself wanting to open up in a way I never, ever do. I take a deep breath and leap.
“I’m kind of trying to keep a low profile. My brother is…sort of famous, I guess? Or, well known at least. He’s in tech too, and I’ve always kind of been known as his little sister wherever I went. But here…”
“You just want people to know you for you, not as the sister of someone famous or the student who dates her professor.” Jo gives me a smile and a nod like she understands completely, and whatever nerves I had left about opening up to Elliot’s family vanish. It’s possible I’ll wake up tomorrow and freak out at the fact that I divulged so much, but somehow, I doubt it.
“Yeah, got it in one.” I sit back heavily in my chair and feel Elliot’s arm lay across the back of it, his finger stroking over my shoulder. He’s quieter than he usually is, and he’s giving off a kind of anxious, edgy energy I’ve never felt from him before. Something about that, and this quiet gesture, makes me want to wrap him up and keep him forever. To know all the different parts of him.
The waitress comes over with breakfast and sets plates down in front of everyone. “Great minds think alike, Mystery Girl,” Elliot murmurs to me, nodding at my giant waffle. I was too wrapped up in my conversation with Jo to notice what everyone ordered, but now I see that Elliot and I ordered the same thing.
I shrug, swiping my finger through the whipped cream on top of my waffle and sucking it off my finger, loving the way Elliot’s eyes track the motion, darkening just slightly. “Waffles are my favorite. Especially diner waffles.”
“Mine too. But weirdly, Noah makes the best waffles I’ve ever eaten.”
“Damn right, I do, and nothing weird about it. Come visit us, Mystery Girl, and I’ll make you the best waffles you’ve ever had.”
“No,” Elliot says, pointing at him and shifting his body closer to me.
“What?” Noah asks through a mouthful of pancakes, looking wounded. “You don’t want your girl to come visit us?”
“Oh, I do, and she will, but you don’t get to call her Mystery Girl. Only I get to call her that. You call her by her name. Find your own girl and give her a nickname.”
The possessive note in Elliot’s voice has me clenching my thighs together because honestly—so fucking hot. It’s so hot I don’t even bother clarifying that I’m not, in fact, Elliot’s girl, because as inconvenient as it may be, in this moment, I want the shit out of this man.
“I’m trying,” Noah grumbles.
“You are?” Jo asks. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“No one,” Noah says quickly, fixing his eyes on me. “So, who’s your brother?” It’s such an obvious way to direct attention off of him that I have to laugh, even though I’m still not entirely sure I’m ready to answer that particular question.
Cooper seems to have the same thought because he digs an elbow into Noah’s side. “None of your business. You don’t get to pry into her life because you don’t want anyone asking about yours.”
“That’s not what I was doing,” Noah grumbles again, rubbing his side.
