Page 74 of Crumbling Truth
His laughter rang out in the small entryway, bright and joyous, and I watched him get decked out in similar fashion. When he was ready, we clomped across the newfallen snow on the driveway and headed for the back of the yard, behind the guest house. There were drifts up to my knees, but Theo caught me every time I stumbled.
As I slanted a suspicious glance in his direction, he grinned and said, “I’m not going to annihilate you until the fight has officially begun, my sweet.”
I snorted. “I’m not the one who’s been going soft down south for years. We’ll just see who annihilates who.”
Despite my bravado, I was fairly certain he’d be kicking my ass. I had spent too much time admiring the sleek muscles of his arms and back to doubt he could best me in a physical battle. Asa child, I’d actually hated snowball fights—my older sister liked to end them quickly by nailing me in the face with hard-packed snow—but I trusted Theo to be careful with me.
Unlike the rest of the world, he’d never been anythingbutcareful with me.
We squared off from opposite sides of the yard. When he shouted, “Go!” I ran for the sparse trees at the back of the property, figuring I’d need some cover to help me. Theo didn’t run at all, just dropped to his knees and started building ammunition.
Half an hour in, I was laughing so hard that my snowballs were ridiculously subpar, even if my aim was better than I expected. At least, it seemed like it, until I tried to nail him in the stomach and ended up hitting him right in the balls.
With a dramatic groan, he clutched his groin and fell onto his side in a snowbank. “Esther,” he moaned, peeking from one eyelid to see my reaction. “How could you do this to me?”
Chastened but highly suspicious, I edged closer to him, my gaze locked on his hands. “Poor dear. Do you surrender?”
“Of course. Come help me up, you little monster.”
It was a trap. I knew it, but I still couldn’t resist. Slowly, I approached, watching in case he made a move to suddenly chuck a snowball at me. By the time I was only two feet away, his hands were still cupped around his purportedly injured anatomy, so I decided I was probably safe enough. With a pathetic moan, he held out one hand for me to help him to his feet.
I clasped it and immediately recognized my mistake.
He yanked me forward so I landed perpendicularly across his stomach. Though I yelped, his thick jacket and the snow beneath us cushioned my fall. Now that I was immobilized by his arms, one across my back and the other behind my knees, he flopped onto his back.
“I can’t believe you fell for that,” he said, still breathless from my landing.
“You fight dirty.”
One of his hands stroked over my ass, padded though it was by the snow pants. “Dirty sounds good right about now, doesn’t it?”
I propped myself up on my elbows and said, “I thought you were mortally wounded. Now you want to get frisky? You’ve got balls of solid rock, Long John.”
We stumbled to our feet, pink-cheeked with the cold, and trudged through the snow to reach the driveway. The whole way, Theo whispered naughty promises into my ear, but when we clambered over the plowed pile of snow at the edge of the concrete, he stopped so suddenly I tripped over him and would have landed face first on the driveway if he hadn’t managed to catch my elbow at the last second. I hissed an expletive before peeking around him to see what he was looking at.
Alex was slipping something under the front door of the guest house.
I started to smile at him, but Theo lunged forward, grabbing his brother by the front of his coat. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Jesus, Theo, I was just leaving something for Esther,” Alex said as he shoved his brother off him.
Theo reared back. “It was you?” he bit out. “You’re behind all these fucking pranks?”
“What?”
“Theo, no,” I said, grabbing his arm. “It’s not him. Alex wouldn’t do that.”
“You two are friends now?” He glanced at me, his expression shifting so quickly I couldn’t get a grasp on it. “Jesus, have you been friends all along?”
I opened my mouth—to say what, I had no idea—but Alex beat me to it. “Yes, we’re friends. It’s a recent development.”
I flinched, but he wasn’t wrong.
Though I expected Theo to yank his arm free and go after Alex again, he went utterly still instead. “You always thought I’d stolen Michelle from you. You decided you could return the favor to get back at me?”
Now I was the one who jerked as if he’d slapped me. He shrugged off my hand, his gaze traveling between us, growing colder than the air biting at my cheeks. In that terrible moment, I barely recognized him.
“What are you saying?” I whispered.
