Page 7 of Pour Decisions (Stryker Family #3)

JD

I’m a creature of habit, even on the weekend. So waking up without Bubba on the other side of the bed as he always is, and with the smell of coffee already brewing throws me off. Then I remember Katrina is here and my whole body feels like it’s on a rollercoaster’s downward swoop.

I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d left her without a place to go, but now I have to get my head on straight before I walk out of my room. We’re not friends. We’re just roommates.

Well, temporary roommates. Although I went out of my way to make it extra comfortable for her, so maybe she’ll stay a bit longer. For what? I don’t know yet.

This is too much to deal with before I have coffee. I was up late trying to get through a backlog of work, but I wake up at the same time every day regardless of when I went to bed.

I rake a hand down my face and go to brush my teeth.

My gaze wanders across all of Kat’s stuff on the side of the sink that I cleared, soaking in all the details.

When we dated before, she was at my place so much that she had all of her stuff at my apartment.

Some of the stuff is familiar, but a lot of it is new.

By the time I’m done, I’m still not fully awake, but I’m alert enough to go get the coffee I need. My palms are sweating and I haven’t even seen her.

I make my way down the hall and to the kitchen, which has a sliding glass door out to the deck. Katrina is outside on a yoga mat, ass up as she does some yoga pose. The sun is hitting her just right, spotlighting her soft brown skin like nature wants to call attention to how beautiful she is.

All the blood in my body does a hairpin turn to shoot back down to my cock. She’s in a pair of stretchy shorts that ride high on her thighs.

Her thighs are my weakness—a nice, thick blend of softness and muscle. She has a birthmark on the back of her left one that looks like a turtle. It was always ticklish when I touched it in a specific way.

I want to touch her, badly. Kneel behind her, run my hands up the curve of her hips and brace myself over her, grinding against her. Pull her panties to the side and sink into her hard the way she likes.

She suddenly comes out of the pose and looks right at me, catching me staring at her ass. Shit.

Bubba must have alerted her, because seconds later he comes trotting over from where he must have been laying.

He’s happy to see me as always, and completely unaware of how awkward he’s accidentally made things.

I want to go pour myself a cup of coffee to give the tension a second to defuse, but Bubba paws at the door to be let in.

“Morning!” Katrina says, sitting down and stretching her legs out in front of her. She has a surgical scar on her knee that wasn’t there before. Can she still dance? I hate the idea of her having to stop. Dance was everything to her.

“Morning.” I step aside for Bubba to come in, but he lingers in between us, tail whipping back and forth. “Come on, Bubba.”

Bubba turns back to sniff Katrina’s face. She opens her arms and he snuggles up close, his tail wagging faster. Like they’re best friends instead of near strangers.

Bubba’s a great dog, but if someone broke in, he’d probably follow them around with a toy in his mouth while they ransacked my house.

“He’s not bothering me,” she says, scratching his side. “We were just hanging out while I did my stretches.”

“I know, but…” I don’t have a solid reason for him to leave her alone besides my own discomfort. “Fine.”

“Should I not let him outside next time?” she asks slowly, adjusting her hair where it’s in a loose bun on top of her head. “He was scratching at the door.”

“It’s fine.” I run a hand through my hair.

“So…” She scans my body, eyes lingering on my chest and shoulders. My whole body flushes with heat, even though she could just be looking at me rather than checking me out. “Is it fine that I’m out here?”

“It’s fine. It’s all fine.” I scratch at my beard. “Just…whatever.”

“Okay?” Her brows furrow and she shifts positions, going back to her stretches. I go back inside.

I finally pour myself coffee. Will it make me magically normal around her?

What the fuck am I doing? I don’t even have a game plan for once in my life.

All I know is she’s not married and she still (rightfully) hates me.

Throw in the fact that she’s my physical therapist, and I should really rethink my most recent actions.

Once I have my coffee, I retreat to my office to do some work before I have to go to my parents’ house. It’s Wes and Waylon’s birthday, so we’re having Sunday brunch with our family. The twins had their annual party last night at their house, which they invited me to—just to be polite, probably.

When they were younger, their party was way too much—everyone getting drunk and blasting music.

Now it sounds like a much more low-key event, but I still don’t go.

They’re not that much younger than me—just four years—but the gap between me and all of my brothers feels too big to shorten at this point.

I manage to tell Katrina I’m heading out for a while without making an ass of myself. I get Bubba in the car and drive over to my parents’ house.

They moved into this house toward the end of my time in high school.

It’s a big house on an even bigger plot of land.

I’m not sure why they chose to upsize a few years before they became empty nesters, but if Mom’s very open desire for grandchildren is any indication, she’s planning on having a lot of the family over.

For now, she hosts almost every event on either side of the family.

Our families are large on both sides, so she gets to flex her hosting skills often.

Bubba rushes up the front steps ahead of me, meeting my parents’ labrador, Lady, on the front porch.

They were littermates, and Bubba practically tackles Lady.

Before I can pet her, Wes and Waylon’s dogs, Murphy and Duke, join the chaos.

They scramble down the stairs, near one of my mom’s flower bushes.

“Don’t you dare, Bubba,” I say as Bubba starts to sniff one bush dotted with butterflies. “Don’t.”

Bubba looks at me, then at the bush, then pretends he didn’t hear me. He slurps down a butterfly like it’s a potato chip, then another, before I can shoo him back up the stairs with the other dogs.

I have no fucking idea why he loves to eat butterflies. Moths? Too plebeian for him to nibble on. Ants? Doesn’t see them. Spiders? Fun little friends.

But butterflies? Maybe one wronged him in a past life, because he can’t get enough of eating them. I think they caught on that my yard isn’t a place to build a cocoon because he eats them whenever they’re even close to where he lounges.

Now that Bubba has had his butterfly fill, he stands directly in the way of me getting inside, along with the other dogs.

“Let him inside,” Waylon says, appearing in the open doorway. Like magic, the dogs obey and make a path. “Hey.”

“Hey. Happy birthday.” I glance at the tiny Pomeranian in his arms, his fiancée, Bianca’s, dog Sadie. The dog is passed out asleep with her tongue poking out, like nothing is happening around her.

But Waylon seems a bit on edge, and the laugh floating from the living room confirms why.

“Ash is here?” I ask, unable to keep the contempt out of my voice. “For your birthday?”

My other younger brother, Ash, has been a pain in my ass ever since I’ve had memories. Usually he’s off doing whatever the fuck he does with his band and only comes around to bother me on holidays or important events like Wes’s wedding last year.

“He was in Nashville?” Waylon shrugs.

Wes and Waylon actually get along with Ash, so I’m not surprised that they told him to come. It’s their birthday, so my irritation with Ash is secondary.

“Why was that a question?” I ask.

“Because he rarely is.” He glances over his shoulder and shrugs again.

That’s true—I’m sure he has more reasons to go to Nashville than most, but he rarely ever swings by Jepsen when he’s there.

I hold in a sigh and head to the living room to rip off the Ash bandage. I find him, Wes, and Rose sitting on the couch, laughing at something on Rose’s phone. Wes and Rose look up at me with a friendly nod, but Ash looks up at me with a smirk like he knows his presence alone is pissing me off.

He’s right.

It’s a little absurd, yes, since he hasn’t done anything. But he will. It’s a given at this point.

“Hey, happy birthday,” I say to Wes and Rose.

They both thank me—Rose’s birthday was this past week too.

“Well, fuck me, I guess,” Ash says before I can even say hello to him. “And fuck you.”

“If you had an ounce of patience, I would have said hi to you too.” I walk past him to the bar cart. “But now, fuck you too.”

“It’s been less than thirty seconds,” Wes says, almost in wonder. “Setting the ‘fuck you’ land speed records over here.”

“You think my ‘fuck you’ would travel faster over the sea?” Ash asks with a smirk, sipping his drink.

“Does it matter if you’d always lose?” I ask. “Why are you here anyway? Don’t you have shit with your band?”

The smirk on his face falters for a second.

We’ve gone back and forth so often throughout our lives that I know he doesn’t crack that easy.

Then again, he looks like hot garbage, like he hasn’t slept in weeks, so maybe he’s weak.

At least he gave himself a buzz cut so his hair doesn’t look like he rolled out of bed.

I’ve always been a little jealous of how he never seems to have a bad haircut, even during the phase where he did a lot of weird shit with his hair. But you’d couldn’t pay me to tell him that.

“I was close by.” He shrugs and puts his hand out for Bubba, who trots over to him, butt swaying from the force of his wagging tail. “What’s it to you? It’s not like I showed up on your birthday. What do you do for yours anyway, jerk off to color-coded spreadsheets alone in your home office?”

“Fuck off.”