Page 44 of Gather the Storm

“First, we have to rent a truck,” I said. “We’re going to have a lot of supplies to bring home. I called the home store and they do one-day rentals, so we can do that there before we start loading up.”

“We don’t need a truck,” Wolf said.

I sighed. “We do. And this won’t be the last time. There’s no way we’re going to fit Sheetrock and two-by-fours in Benji. And we’re definitely not fitting that stuff in the Corvette or on the back of Jace’s bike.”

“Agreed,” Wolf said. “But we already have the truck covered.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

“Take a look outside.”

I got up from the table and left the kitchen, then made my way to the parlor where the big windows offered a view of the front of the house.

Wolf was right: a navy Dodge Ram, so new it still had the sticker on the window, was parked next to the Mustang.

What the fuck?

I walked back to the kitchen and found Jace sitting at the dining table, which was apparently acceptable as long as I wasn’t sitting there.

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

Wolf tipped his head at Jace. “Ask him.”

I looked at Jace, who was back to scrolling his phone. “You bought a truck?”

The truck definitely hadn’t been there when I’d come home from work the night before, which meant that sometime in the last sixteen hours, Jace had bought a brand-new truck and had it delivered to the house.

He looked up from his phone, his green eyes filled with hate. “I didn’t do it for you.”

“Then why did you do it?” I asked.

He stood. “Because it’ll be faster than renting a truck every time we need one. And the faster we get the house done the sooner I can go back to pretending I don’t know you.”

He stalked from the room, leaving me confused and angry.

But not just those things. Because underneath it all, I was still Blake’s little sister, pining for attention from his three big friends, wanting them to like me.

Fuck me.

Chapter 23

Wolf

Iwas still thinking about my conversation with Jace when Daisy and I got in the new truck and headed for the home store.

I prided myself on being honest, even when it was uncomfortable, but I hadn’t been telling the whole truth when I’d said I was just having fun with Daisy while we worked on the house.

I mean, I’d have been lying if I said it wasn’t fun to tease Daisy a little, to watch her blush under those sweet little freckles she tried to hide with makeup, to watch her squirm when I knew she was probably at least a little turned on.

But that wasn’t all of it. I liked her.

Then again, I’d always liked her, even when she’d been that quiet kid flipping through old-lady magazines, tearing out pages like they were pictures of heartthrobs she was going to tape to her wall, knitting hats and mittens and all kinds of random things while other kids her age played video games and scrolled their phones.

But that had been different, a kind of distant admiration. I’d thought she was a quirky cool kid, had wondered what kind of adult she’d grow into in the same way you looked at a puppy’s paws and tried to guess how big it would get.

Now she was a flesh-and-blood girl, and I had to be honest, I was into it.

Into her.

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