Page 67 of Old Fashioned
“Yeah, but still, you don’t want to see some titties?” Mikey asked.
Noah looked at all of us with an unreadable expression. “Does it make me the biggest pansy in the world if I say the only titties I want to see for the rest of my life are hers?”
There was a chorus of soft laughter from each of us, but not much of an argument, which was a testament to what we’d been through in the last few years. There was no doubt in my mind that had this night happened five years ago, wewouldhave been at a strip club — whether Noah wanted to go or not. We would have snuck Mikey in, if we had to. Back then, none of us were settled down, and it wasn’t even on the radar.
Now, we were different men.
All thanks to women we never saw coming.
“I would tease you about it,” Logan said. “But the truth is, I’m in the same boat.”
“Me, too,” Mikey chimed in.
“I’llbetyou’re in the same boat, Logan. Especially now that Mallory’s boobs are getting baby-ready, if you know what I mean,” Noah joked, waggling his brows.
Logan pointed a finger at him from his corner of the treehouse — which was filled with books — and narrowed his eyes. “Talk about my girl’s baby-ready boobs again and we’ll be fighting, brother.”
Noah threw his hands up on a laugh. “I told you, I’ve got my own boobs.”
“Can we change the subject?” Mikey interjected. “Now I’m thinking aboutbothyour girl’s boobs and I don’t like it.”
There was another shuffle of laughter, and then Noah was refilling the whiskey in our glasses. We were drinking a bottle from one of the single-barrel releases last summer — on the rocks, of course, Noah’s favorite way. And Mikey was indulging inhisfavorite drink, a rootbeer float, since he’d volunteered to be our designated driver.
The conversation flowed on, and I stayed mostly quiet — which no one questioned me about since it wasn’t unusual, thankfully, even though tonight’s silence had more weight than my norm. My chest was still tight from Thanksgiving, from the night I’d spent with Sydney, from the feelings for her that were growing and stirring in my gut with the need to tell her and to hear her reciprocate, too.
I knew when she opened up to me about Randy last night that it wasn’t the time, but I hadn’t seen her today, either, and Noah’s wedding was tomorrow. She would be in our family photographs forever. She would be there for one of the most important days of my little brother’s life. This wasn’t a family dinner or a public date, it was more.
Having her there as my plus onemeantsomething to me.
And it was driving me mad that I didn’t know if she felt the same.
Part of my brain told me to shut up and relax, to take her actions as reassurance. She’d spent the entire day with my family yesterday, and then we’d spent the entire night wrapped up in each other after she came to me with something she didn’t go toanyoneelse with. She trusted me, felt comfortable with me, opened up to me. And over the last two months, we’d explored each other, discovering just as much about one another as we did about ourselves in the process.
But this was new for me.
I’d never opened my heart to someone before, and I worried about what I was feeling, whatshewas feeling, and where we would go from here.
If we would go anywhere, at all.
I wondered if I read all the signs wrong, if I was in too deep when she was wading in the shallow end, if we would be able to survive working together if whatever this was between us didn’t work out.
And I knew she was wondering how we would survive working together if whatever this was between usdidwork out.
I was worried about one thing, and she was concerned about another.
How could we meet in the middle with those two facts being true?
This was the constant whirl of my thoughts over the last twenty-four hours, and I couldn’t shake loose from them, no matter how I tried.
“So, Jordan,” Mikey said, snapping me back to the moment with my brothers. “You going to fill us in on the Sydney situation willingly or do we have to beat it out of you?”
I blinked, trying to think of the right words to assure them that there was nothing to talk about, but Logan rolled his eyes before I could speak.
“Oh, come on. Mikey told us that you kissed her earlier this season, and though healsotold us she didn’t want it to ever happen again, I think it’s pretty clear after yesterday that it has.”
“A lot, I’d wager,” Noah added with a smirk.
I narrowed my eyes at Mikey, who threw his hands up. “Hey, we’re brothers. Don’t act like y’all didn’t talk about me behind my back when I was going through my shit with Bailey and Kylie.”
