Chapter 19

Van

Take your hand away. Take it the fuck away, a small voice shouted inside my skull, but it was nothing in comparison to the sheer fucking pleasure that came from directing Kendall towards the dining room.

We’d downed tools when she went inside and got cleaned up, and Connor was standing there, hair brushed back from his face and a clean t-shirt on, though the combined stink of beef stock and sawdust still clung to him. He’d wanted to have a shower, but I’d determined we didn’t have time for that. Instead, we’d joined Gage in the kitchen, ready to help, only to get a whispered recount of what had gone down.

Something had completely turned Kendall off cooking.

That bakery she was working at? The food was all right, but it was nothing compared to the culinary excellence I knew she was capable of. The sausage roll didn’t explode with flavour on my tongue, making me want to gorge myself on that pastry and then another. If they had any idea of what they had standing behind the counter, they’d have dragged Kendall into the kitchen forcibly. Instead, she made coffees and took people’s money, a fragile kind of sadness flickering in her eyes, there and gone again when she made herself smile at the customers.

But why?

I thought we knew what had happened. Connor’s dad had been pissed about the whole thing, so he’d drilled Kendall’s parents about what went down. Kendall’s details had been passed along to the wife of one of his business associates when she tasted some of those little tarts our girl had made for Connor’s mum for one of her fancy dinner parties. Mr. Woods had puffed himself up, thinking he was the big man, brokering an apprenticeship for a girl on the street with a bakery that was far swankier than anything around us. Kendall’s success was somehow a reflection on him.

Just as her failure was.

I shook my head, never liking dwelling on the past, the room coming back with a snap.

“We dished you up some pasta.” I gestured to the head of the table. “And we made you some ramen, just in case you preferred that instead.”

“Ramen…?” She sank down into the chair, and my palm stung with the loss of her warmth. Her small little chuff of laughter was enough to make me feel better though. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“We wanted to have a family dinner.” Connor was trying to be all cool and calm, his arm slung along the back of the empty chair beside him, but I was completely unconvinced by it. Because I knew. He wanted this, all of us around the table, way too much. “You remember what it used to be like.”

There it was.

I sat down, sneaking a sidelong look at Kendall to see how she responded, and sure enough, her back jerked ramrod straight. Shut the fuck up, you dickhead, I thought furiously, shooting him a meaningful look across the table. Our girl was about ready to bolt.

“I remember.”

Kendall was being polite, picking up her fork and then poking at the pasta before taking a little taste. Gage watched her every move, already pushing the parmesan her way when she reached for it. She nodded and smiled at him before sprinkling it on her meal.

“Like when we—”

“So how was work today?” I asked Kendall, shooting Connor one last dark look. “Was it busy?”

“Not too bad.” She twirled her pasta around her fork. “How about you?”

I didn’t answer because her red lips parted as she took a bite of the pasta, my eyes watching her take that bite before I could think to reply. A grunt from Gage and an elbow had me responding, just not in the right way.

“We ran into Finn today.”

Her eyes went wide as she coughed and then frantically tried to swallow, forcing me up and out of my seat, ready to give her the Heimlich manoeuvre if required. I got a dark look in return as she grabbed a glass of water and drank deep.

“You did what?”

“We had a run in with Finn is probably a more accurate way of putting it.” Connor set his fork down with a sigh. “Your brother had… thoughts to share about you living here.”

“Oh, I bet he did.” She grabbed her phone and then angrily started to tap on the screen, as I plucked the poor unsuspecting device from her grip. This resulted in a low growl from her, right before I set her straight.

“We told him.” Her eyes locked with mine. “We made it clear that he has no fucking say over… anything. You’re an adult, so are we, and…” And now there was nothing standing between us being together, I wanted to say, but of course, there was. Me, her, them, even Finn, we all got in each other’s way, so I just sighed. “That there’s nothing he’s got to say about any of this that we want to hear.”

Why did that make her shoulders slowly drop down? How the hell did I make the tension leech from her body and how could I do that again? I had no answers, but I wanted them so fucking badly.

“You…” She looked from me to Gage and then to Connor. “You told Finn that?”

“We had to.” Gage sighed and pushed his bowl away from him. “He was real interested in our new female house mate, imagining some kinky shit was going down, right up until he realised you were the one living here. We’ve been best mates since… forever, but when it comes to this situation, he knows he needs to butt the fuck out.”

“Right…” It was only when she stabbed her fork back into the pasta that the rest of us felt like we could do the same. Kendall twirled her pasta speculatively, but in the end, she grinned when she looked up. “I wish I’d seen his face when you told him that.”

“It went all purply.” I gestured to my own face. “You know how he gets. Like remember that time when Connor beat his record for goals kicked?”

“God, he was filthy.” She let out a little laugh, then a bigger one. “He was so damn proud of being the best goal kicker, going on and on about it, and then Connor beat him.”

“By five goals.” Connor allowed himself a smug little smile. “I paused at the first goal over, but after that, I just kept going.” He shrugged. “I was already in the doghouse for the first one, so…”

“And he kicked his boots off, nearly hitting the coach in the head, so he got banned for a couple of games. Dad was pissed, and then the house was quiet for a while.” Her eyes scanned the whole table. “You guys weren’t allowed to come around.”

“Must’ve been a nice break for you,” I said, wishing the opposite was true.

“Not really. Finn was always a prick when he was bored, and he was plenty bored without the three of you. He and Dad were squabbling all the time until Mum talked to your mothers and told them to send you back around.” She waved her fork in the air. “Then it all started up again.”

When her eyes dropped down to her bowl, I think we all saw it, the reign of terror we waged in that house, so I wasn’t expecting to hear this.

“Thanks, though.” She nodded to each one of us in turn. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever stood up for me against my brother.” Her lips pursed. “Even me.”

Dinner passed much more quietly after that. Not quite the rowdy moment of connection Connor craved, but I found a kind of peace in it, broken only by the silvery scrape of utensils against bowls, until Kendall got to her feet. I found myself rising with her, only to realise why seconds later. She was carrying her bowl to the sink, but I swept in, taking them from her, then the guys’ when they held them up. My girl just shrugged and collected up the glasses before filing into the kitchen. I was forced to stop her when she started to run the water, pulling open one of the drawers to reveal a dishwasher.

“Of course you’ve got one of those.”

What did that mean? I didn’t know, but we scraped the bowls’ contents into the compost bucket and then stacked the dishwasher, but right as I was putting the detergent in, she held up the pot, showing me the aftermath.

“Fuck’s sake,” I said to Gage. “You’re gonna be the one to clean that. We talked about this. Stop burning food onto the bottom of the pots.”

“You get a say when you start cooking,” the big man said, walking over and taking the pot from Kendall. “I’ll clean this up.” He pulled out a much-used scourer, and Kendall frowned at the messy tangle of steel wool before looking at the two of us.

“Do you have any Bar Keepers Friend?” she asked. Gage and I just looked at each other. “Well, if you’ve got a dishwasher, you must have…” She reached down under the sink, and I was a very good boy and didn’t look at her arse as she bent over.

Much.

She produced a dishwashing tablet, unwrapping it before plucking the pot from Gage’s fingers then putting a little warm water in the bottom.

“This is an expensive way of doing it, but apparently using one of these like a scourer…” Her hand moved through the mess, and we both stared as the muck started to come off easier.

“Lemme do that.”

Gage shoulder checked her, nudging her out of the way and forcing her to drop the tablet into the water, but he was there to catch it. Apparently this wasn’t some kind of magic only she could perform, as the crud started to lift for him too. She spluttered, then grabbed a tea towel and started to wipe her hands.

“Don’t remember you guys fighting to wash the dishes when we were kids,” she said.

“Oh, I dunno.” I reached into a drawer and pulled out a clean tea towel. “We might not have volunteered, but we managed to make it fun when we did.” I smiled slowly as I grabbed the tea towel by the corner and then started to twirl it into a tight tail. “Remember the tea towel wars we used to have, Gage?”

“Pretty sure you started them all because you like getting your arse spanked,” he said, shooting me a sly smile.

Not quite. I felt something twitch in my pants as I approached Kendall slowly. Her eyes went wide then narrowed as she watched me wield my weapon.

“No.” She held up a hand, but the tea towel was still clasped in the other. “Van, no. I mean it. Van!”

Gage dropped the dishwashing tablet when I got too close, coming to stand between me and Kendall. His massive frame blocked everything else out as he crossed his arms.

“The lady said no.”

He glared down at me, making clear his position, right up until a sharp crack filled the kitchen. Gage’s eyes went wide, then he spun around to find Kendall cackling as she started to twist her tea towel tighter, ready to attack again.

“The lady is perfectly capable of defending herself.”

That light in her eyes, the way her grin was entirely spontaneous rather than forced, I’d store this moment away in my head forever. But Gage had to go and ruin it.

“That right?” I was abruptly disarmed, my tea towel snatched out of my grip, ready to be used by the man who was supposed to be my best mate.

“Oi!” They ignored me, starting to circle the other warily, so I grabbed another couple of tea towels from the drawer, wielding one then shoving the other in my back pocket for back up. “Two against one,” I crowed. “I like those odds.”

Because it wasn’t hard to imagine a whole other scenario, where Gage and I worked together to make Kendall feel—

“No one’s ganging up on Kendall.”

I spun around to find Connor grinning at me, right as he snatched my pocket tea towel then went for my other one. I flicked it out at him, cracking him on the arm, making clear what a mistake that would be, only to cop a lash across my chest, leaving a stinging trail.

“The fuck…?”

Kendall grinned at me, then dodged backwards, spinning her tea towel in a circle to create tension again. But right as I was forced to deal with her, further treachery happened. Another stinging flick across my back from Connor, right as he went to stand by Kendall.

“So you’re on my side now?”

Her voice was full of exaggerated mistrust, but there was nothing fake about the way Connor looked at her.

“Always.”

But they didn’t have time for a nice little moment, because Gage and I nodded to each other and then advanced. Trying to ingratiate himself with the babe? That was an unforgivable sin.

“Then let’s take these fuckers down,” she said with a wild grin, right as I spread my arms wide.

“Hey, come and get me.”