Page 9 of Between Never and Forever

I frowned at him. This was how he greeted me after three years of silence? “I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are. I don’t really care one way or the other, except knowing my parents, they’ll be pissed if I let you stay up there and something happens. So, climb off the roof or so help me God, I’ll come up there and drag you down.” The words rumbled out vicious and condescending.

It’s true that our parents were still friends. I knew from what my father told me that Dex’s parents came around as much as my dad would let them, helping with bringing in the mail or asking if my mom wanted to walk their farmland some days.

Little things like that were big things for us. It was the best way to help when a family was experiencing the early onset of a degenerative brain disease. Not that Dex knew any of that.

“Whatever.” I rearranged my bikini top with my back to Dex and sat down on the shingles so I was out of his sight. I glared at Dimitri. “You gonna tell him you're up here with me?” I whispered down to where he lay on the shingles.

“No way in hell,” Dimitri whispered back. “He’ll be pissed I was up here ogling your ass.”

“You’d better not be ogling my ass, you dick.” I’d give Dimitri hell only because I knew he was a shameless flirt, but I also knew he only had platonic feelings for me.

“Is my brother up there with you?” Dex bellowed.

I tried to ignore the flutter in my stomach, the way my heart jumped immediately. It could have been a hundred years since I’d last seen him, and I would still react that way to anything regarding Dex.

Dimitri was already crawling away when he turned his puppy dog eyes on me. “Stall so I can climb to the other side and get down. I’m going to be late for my date if he catches me.”

I glared at him, saying nothing.

He furiously whispered, “You know as well as I do there’s going to be hell to pay if he finds out I’m up here with you. He’s the most jealous of us all.”

“He’s not jealous anymore. We’ve been done for years, and he never answers me.” I’d tried to apologize to Dex more than once for how I’d left. I’d gone to therapy, tried to work through the trauma of the car accident, how the label handled it, everything. Still, no response from Dex until this very moment.

I bit my lip and rolled my eyes before turning around and standing to catch Dex’s gaze. My heart beat fast as I stared at him. The years had been good to him. His chest was wider, his gaze stronger, his hate for me probably strongest. I wouldn’t let him see me cower though. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is where I get the best tan.”

“Kee.” He breathed my name as his eyes raked up and down my body, and immediately my pussy clenched and my nipples hardened.Damn him. He was still sex on a stick.

He rubbed his chin before glancing around, probably trying to figure out how I’d scaled it. “How long have you been up here?”

“Long enough.” I pointed to the corner of the house with the gutter drain and said, “Want to help me down?”

Dex hesitated now. Our connection had been broken years ago, and now we stood in our parents’ yards like kids again. “Why are you here?”

“At my parents’? Where I come to visit them?”

“You don’t come to visit often. Dimitri didn’t say—”

I popped a hip. “Why would he say anything to you about me being home?”

“Because he knew I’d be home, and that fucker probably wanted us to talk.”

I chewed on my cheek and glanced behind me. My lovely best friend was gone. Missing in action. “Maybe.” I shrugged and walked to the corner gutter. “Not much to talk about. You helping me down or not?”

He didn’t move forward. He actually stepped back like I was poison ivy or something.

So I scoffed and went to the gutter myself to swing my body over and loop my hand in the metal.

I was only half into my swing before his large, calloused hands found my bare waist. “Jesus. You want a broken leg? Is this how you take care of yourself without me around?”

His voice was deep, full of grit, and it sent shivers down my spine in a way it shouldn’t. I forgot how intense the electric shock was between us, how the air shifted, how the world seemed to stop. It was my turn to step back right into the corner of the house away from his proximity. He smelled like cedar and spice. It was just another damn thing I missed that I couldn’t get over.

“I’m fine,” I ground out and tried to brush his hands away from my hips. His fingers dug into my skin, sizzling and burning an imprint. “I take care of myself just fine, Dex.”

He narrowed the mossy-green eyes I was obsessed with and said through clenched teeth, “You come home just to tell me that?”

I hadn’t. I’d come home to check on my parents, to make sure my mother’s health wasn’t declining rapidly, that my father wasn’t panicking and spiraling out of control. He’d spent another chunk of our savings just weeks before, and I needed to right the ship. Otherwise, he was correct. I didn't come home much. It was too painful, too full of memories and regrets.