“What did you expect, Camilla?” She frowns, tossing my spoon into the sink. “We can talk about it when he gets here. Go put some clothes on unless you plan on staying in your underwear all night. Which, wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest.”
This piece of news gets me off the couch. “Wilder is coming here?”
She props herself against the kitchen counter like this is news to her, too. Talent stays here from time to time. But they typically come home after I’ve gone to bed for the night, narrowing down our interactions to the coffeemaker in the morning. He holds a mug he doesn’t particularly like, and I drink as we touch on the weather and talk about our day, leaving out the gritty details about prostitution and racketeering. We’re polite and unintrusive.
One time, Dog Mom dropped off homemade cinnamon rolls. Talent and I shared one while he waited for Lydia to finish her hair.
But she said we’re having guests over for dinner.
“Movie night,” she replies, making it sound more like a question than an answer. “They’re bringing pizza.”
“I’ve never had a movie night with other people before,” I admit.
Lydia’s brows move up. “Neither have I.”
“It sounds like normal people stuff.”
Lydia pushes herself away from the kitchen counter and circles around it, unfastening her earrings as she walks past me. I follow her down the hallway.
“It’s Talent’s idea. I think he’s trying to domesticate me.”
We face each other before walking into our respective bedrooms across the hall from one another. She, in a pencil skirt and lace top. And me, in the most comfortable pair of underwear I own and an unpadded, unwired bra.
“Domesticate you?” I reject. “Like he isn’t a whole criminal? He’s on a first-name basis with the mafia.”
She shrugs one shoulder, turning away from me. “I tried to tell him I wasn’t the one.”
But men are maniacs, I finish in my head.
Men are also really freaking hungry.
Wilder and Talent show up with enough pizza to feed the neighborhood, but they ultimately eat most of it themselves. Folding entire slices in half, they take massive bites and mumble things like,so hungry,didn’t eat all day, andLydia, baby, pass the pepperswith food in their mouths.
“Are you going to eat?” Wilder asks from across the dinner table. He licks a dot of pizza sauce away at the corner of his mouth.
I haven’t recovered from our run-in earlier today, but Wilder acts like it never happened. And with Lydia watching us like a hawk, I don’t want to bring it up for discussion. At least he’s talking to me.
“I did.” I throw Dog my pizza crust. “I had two slices.”
“Amateur.” He winks before devouring another slice.
Sitting this close to the Ridge brothers, it’s easy to pick out their differences. Wilder’s eyes are lighter than Talent’s, and his hair isn’t as curly. Talent’s tall and athletic, and Wilder is tall and muscular. That’s probably because Talent handles the burden of his responsibilities better than his older sibling does, seemingly cool and unbothered. Wilder wears his stress like a badge, narrow and speculative, always ready for the jump off. I have no doubt he tames that beast by punishing himself in the gym.
But despite their differences, they work like a well-oiled machine. One is always looking for the other, so there’s never a moment when either is out of sight. I catch their wordless conversations across the table in the form of an arched eyebrow, a slight shake of a head, or an almost undetectable shrug.
Wilder passes Talent a napkin before he asks for one, and Talent opens the box with pepperoni and pineapple pizza for his brother before Wilder is done chewing the last slice.
Lydia is either used to it or doesn’t notice.
But then she grabs a towel right before I knock over my can of soda, and I find myself talking so she doesn’t have to.
“What are you smiling at?” Wilder asks. He sits back like he might finally be full.
I reach over and pluck a pineapple from what’s left of his last slice of pizza. “Nothing in particular.”
Popping it into my mouth, I chew slowly because he’s watching with a stare so smoldering, I don’t want to miss the embers catching fire in his eyes. It’s the same heat kissing the curve of my neck, the bend of my elbow, and the hollow spot of my belly button. Lower, and lower, and lower, like his lips did the single night we spent together.
“Talent, did you know Camilla and Wilder are sleeping together?” Lydia announces like one announces they’ve run out of toothpaste or they’re taking the dog for a walk.
