Page 82 of Love Is Brewing

There was silence over that and she realized she might have slipped there.

“Don’t you think you should let the story be told before you start volunteering your boyfriend to be your bodyguard?” Matt asked.

“I don’t need the details,” Elias said. “If she wants me to take care of something for her, I will. No one would consider messing with our sisters.”

“You said Laken was the boss,” she said, laughing. She had to turn this into a joke now that she slipped with those words.

“She is but that means nothing,” he said. “Stand behind your woman. Always.”

“Your woman?” she asked, clearing her throat.

Matt laughed. “I don’t even have to say anything else. This is entertaining. Give it to him, Phoebe.”

“No disrespect,” Elias said. “It’s only a term. It’s not like I’m calling you my little lady. I know damn well you can take care of yourself. If you tell any woman in my family otherwise I’m going to have many people pissed at me.”

If he wasn’t looking like he was nervous she might have thought he was joking, but then he winked.

Her mother was smiling and her father shook his head while he hid his smile.

She moved over and pinched his arm. “I expected Matt to pick on me today but not you.”

“You were telling a story,” he said. “Does she always avoid or, I’m sorry, redirect her stories and thoughts?”

“Dude,” Ben said. “This seriously is entertaining. Good for you. Saying she was scattered got me into trouble.”

“I’m not scattered,” she argued. How the hell had this turned into everyone ganging up and airing out all her traits and fears?

“Of course you’re not,” her mother said. “You have Elias with you and no one is going to get you in the pool house. Matt knows better.”

“Is someone going to tell me what happened?” Eve asked.

“Matt and one of his friends came out at midnight and made noises. Animal noises. Some girls were scared. They thought a bear was going to get us.”

“A bear?” Elias asked, laughing.

“She wasn’t the smartest of my friends,” she said. “We all told her she was being silly.”

“But then I knocked over the garbage cans,” Matt said.

“And made other noises. He opened the glass doors too and sprayed this horrible scent inside.”

“I wanted them to think there was a skunk that got inside. The girls screamed and ran out,” Matt said, roaring with laughter.

“Which woke us up,” her father said. “And we got all the girls in the house and had me looking around the yard until Matt confessed.”

“I got grounded for three weeks,” Matt said, shrugging. “Totally worth it.”

“That is kind of funny,” Elias said. “We did nothing like that. My mother would kill us. But we did a lot of wrestling. My brother Rowan could be convinced to try anything. When someone got in trouble, Rowan was involved, or Foster since he was a hothead.”

“Meaning someone egged on Rowan to get on Foster’s nerves?” she asked, looking at him.

“Maybe,” he said. “But the two of them started wrestling. Rowan kneed Foster in the groin or something. I’m not sure, but Foster decked him. That was the end of it andeveryonegot grounded for a month.”

“That’s not fair you got grounded,” Phoebe said. “If you didn’t participate in the fight.”

“Yeah, legal reasoning means nothing in my house when people are fighting. Anyone within sight got grounded. If for no other reason than they should have been trying to stop it.”

“I like your mother’s thinking,” her mother said. “And if I had known Ben had a part in all of that, he would have gotten in trouble too.”

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