Page 42 of Love By Design

“What a hero.”

I glared at Finn and took a swig of my beer.

“I called him the next day to make sure he was okay, and we sort of hit it off and made plans.”

“Plans for your not-date.” Finn was so fucking amused at the conversation, leaning against his fridge with his head bouncing around like a bobblehead.

“Exactly,” I said.

“And he spent the night.”

“Yes.”

“This is a dumb question, but are you going to do it again?” Finn scratched the side of his mouth. “I can’t imagine it’s advisable.”

“It’s probably not the best idea, but…” I trailed off because we both knew if I let him spend the night, that there was definitely going to be a repeat.

Finn let me stew in that for a bit, and we both drank the rest of our beers in mostly silence. He polished off the last swallow, smacked his lips, and said, “Remind me of the issues with the ki—with Silas’s dad? Why does Stanley have it out for you?”

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I frowned at the memories from college.

Stanley Ayres was older than me, but not by much. I’d had him as an adjunct professor for one of my first-year design classes, and he had all of the bitterness required for the role. Even back then, his design talents were stilted and stifled, and I hadn’t been scared to tell him as much. I’d pushed back against the syllabus from the start, which had rubbed Stanley wrong through both semesters of course work, and I made sure to let the administration know about it.

It was the only class I’d ever gotten less than an A in.

“We’ve never seen eye to eye on a single thing,” I said. “And he gave me a C once.”

Finn snorted and I finished off my beer, tossing both of our empty bottles into the recycle bin.

“Let’s finish this first coat.” I took one step back toward the hallway, and Finn reached out, grabbing my arm to draw me back toward him.

I looked at my brother, studied the way he studied me. Maybe we were more similar than I’d thought because it was easy to see my own expressions in the tight knit of his brow and the worry in the dark shadows of his eyes.

“Just tell me you’re not doing this to get back at an old man over a twenty-year grudge.”

“Whenever I’m with Silas, his father is the last thing on my mind.”

“Tell me this isn’t a midlife crisis.”

I shook my arm out of his grasp. “I’m not even forty yet.”

“So close,” he murmured, the tension relaxing out of his mouth.

“This isn’t anything like that,” I promised my brother, taking another step back toward his office so I could finish painting it crybaby pink. Then I admitted the truth of the whole thing to him, “Finn, I’m sincerely interested in Silas.”

“Oh,” he said, giving me an apologetic look. “Well…shit.”

CHAPTER 15

SILAS

On Sunday night, Marshall called.

I was on the couch with my head resting on Lincoln’s shoulder, his feet propped up on the coffee table. He’d tried to pump me for information about my night with Marshall, but I’d kept as much of it as close to my chest as I could. It wasn’t that I was keeping Marshall a secret or anything; it was more that I hadn’t found the words to explain the way I felt about our night together.

Lincoln had seen my bruises first thing when I got home, his brow knitting together into a tight and worried line.

“It was consensual,” I assured my best friend, who looked doubtful. “He set an alarm so I wouldn’t be late calling you. It was probably the most well-negotiated scene I’ve ever done.”