Brothers of Paradise Series

“Yes,” I say, though that had made me uneasy. “They’ll all arrive at the club the week after next.”

Parker leans back into the couch. “Fantastic. You’re a godsend, Jamie. Now shut off that computer before it kills itself from the pressure.”

I close the old laptop. It doesn’t like running any programs heavier than MS Paint, and the fan slows down in gratitude. “Hey, this is an octogenarian. Show some respect.”

“I have absolutely none,” he says. “You know, this feels oddly familiar.”

I lean back against the couch beside him. Our thighs touch. There’s no reason for them to, in this three-seater, but here we are. Touching. “It does,” I say. “But we’re not arguing over the remote.”

Parker raises an eyebrow and grabs it off the coffee table. “Come and get it.”

I laugh at that. “Do you think I have a death wish? I remember seeing you tackle guys on the football field!”

“I’d never tackle you,” he says, eyes oddly serious. “You should laugh more, Jamie.”

“Laugh more?”

“Yes. You have a beautiful laugh.”

The air feels sucked out of the room. I take a useless breath regardless. “I’ll try, Boss.”

That makes him smile. “Not outside the yacht club, I’m not.”

“Or off a boat,” I say. “You’re the captain there, and everyone follows orders given by the captain.”NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

Parker’s lips tip up. “Except you,” he says. “You never have to obey the captain.”

“Never?”

“Never,” he says quietly. “Unless you really want to.”

“Oh.” Something warm blooms in my chest, and he shifts from the grown version of a boy I’ve known most of my life into a stranger. Someone I don’t entirely know, a new and foreign landscape to explore. A man with actions and words I can’t predict.

“We could, um… put on the TV.”

“Give us something to fight over, you mean?” His smile shifts, turning intimate. “Okay, James.”

I nod. It’s all I can do. The tension inside of me is rising, and I don’t know what it’ll do when it snaps.

“We could see if there’s-what’s that sound? It’s raining?”

Parker looks over my shoulder at the bay windows. “It’s pouring.”

I fly off the couch. “Oh God. No, no, I have to take in Emma’s bike. Oh my god…”

He follows me to the front door. “Isn’t it waterproof?”

“Not the basket. Mom got her this beautiful wicker thing, and she stuffed it with a teddy…” I shove my feet into a pair of sneakers and open the front door. The rain is pounding outside.

I take a deep breath and rush out. She left it in the front yard, but where? I should have done it earlier, but there had been dinner, and laundry, and-

“Is this it?” Parker is standing beneath the oak tree to the side of the house. In his hands is the bike, pink embellishments dangling wetly from the handle. There’s a sad-looking teddy bear stuffed in the basket.

“Yes, yes…”

He carries it to the porch and I follow, cold water sluicing down my hair. I have to wipe some away from my forehead to stop it clouding my vision.

Parker rests the bike gently against the railing, right underneath the porch. His hair is damp and looks almost brown in the darkness. Tendrils have fallen over his forehead, the way he once wore it. “It should dry,” he says.

“Thank you so much.” I run a hand over the teddy’s fur. Soaked through. “I should bring him in.”

“A few days inside will cheer him right up.” Parker looks down at the small pink bike. “A new purchase?”

“It’s my old bike, actually. Mom gave it a new coat of paint recently, and Emma is in love with it.”

A smile spreads across his face. He looks back out at the pouring rain. “You told me she likes rain, didn’t you?”

“Yes. If she’d been awake now she would be begging me to let her outside. My daughter is crazy.” I tug at the hem of my T-shirt. “Why?”

He takes a few deliberate steps down the porch, back into the rain.

“What are you doing? Come back!”

Parker grins. “I’m testing her theory.”

“You’ll get soaked!” His T-shirt is quickly becoming the color of ink, clinging to his shoulders, arms and torso. The previously damp hair is slick against his scalp.

“I can see what she likes about it,” he calls. The pouring is so loud it ricochets from the porch roof, a deafening sound.

I run down the steps to him. “You’re insane. Move, Parker!”

He shakes his head. “I think I’ll stay out here all night.”

The water is cold, and wet, and I can’t stop grinning. I wrap both of my hands around his forearm and tug. “Come on.”

He doesn’t move an inch, grinning down at me. Water runs down his jaw and gets diverted along the stubble. “Make me, James.”

I’m laughing and tugging at the same time, pulling him toward the porch. But he resists, standing strong like the oak beside us.

“You’ve officially lost your mind,” I say. “Are you still seventeen?”

He laughs. “Maybe!”

I use a shoulder to push against his back, but it doesn’t make him move. So I change tactics and wrap my arms around his waist.

“You’re making me wet too!”

“Yes,” he says calmly, like we’re not heading toward hypothermia with every second. “And don’t you love it?”