Page 29

“Your palms are clammy. It’s like I’m holding a fish.”

“What a lovely comparison. C’mon, it’s warm, Dax.”

“It’s not even sixty degrees outside.”

“Standing next to you, it’s rarely under one hundred!” she replied, feigning seriousness.

Dax laughed softly, squeezed her fingers, and pushed her up the stairs. “Not that I don’t appreciate your smarmy compliments… But you’re nervous, Lucy. Again.”

Oh God, yes, she was. Even the old, creaky stairs couldn’t drown out her shallow breathing. “My compliments aren’t smarmy. They’re highly original,” she stated, glancing over her shoulder. “And I’ve never introduced a guy to my sister.”

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “ Never ?”

“No. It was always too…intimate for me. It would have meant it was serious. Which it never was. But now it is. Maddie will pay you far too much attention, ask you about your intentions, how many children you want, whether you prefer a civil ceremony or a church wedding… It could get awkward.”

A leisurely smile spread across Dax’s face, which she felt deep in her stomach. “Well, first: two children. Second: The devil doesn’t marry in church. Third: It would be highly entertaining to explain my uniformly chaste intentions to Maddie in great detail. I can also draw her dirty pictures.”

Lucy’s cheeks heated up…because two children and a civil ceremony sounded good to her. But aside from that… “Yes, dirty pictures would make it less awkward. You’re absolutely right.”

“Fine, then I’ll just draw pictures with my words,” he promised in a dark voice. “I can explain to her all about what we did yesterday, when I...”

“Guys, you’re not alone,” came a tortured voice from behind Dax, and Lucy flinched. Oops. She had completely forgotten that Matt was here.

“Sorry, Matt,” she said contritely as she stopped on the landing in front of Maddie’s door. “It won’t happen again.”

“You’ve been promising me that for days, yet the nightmares continue. You know, the only context in which I want to hear the word earlobe is when someone shows me their pretty new earrings or tells me a fun fact about how you can tell the color of a chicken’s egg by looking at its earlobes! Expressions like nibbling or licking have no place in the same sentence!”

Dax rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so difficult. We both know you’re no more a virgin than I am… What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

“Lucy invited me?”

“Why?” he asked, staring at her blankly.

She shrugged. “Matt’s a good buffer.”

“He is?”

“I am. You should know that, Dax. I’m good at everything I do,” Matt confirmed.

Lucy sighed and raised her hand, but before she could knock, the door opened.

“Oh my goodness, you can hear Matt whining from ten miles away,” Maddie said, greeting them with a smile as she pulled Lucy into a tight embrace. “Congratulations on the promotion,” she announced. That was the excuse she’d used to lure Lucy and Dax here today: Lucy’s new private office and the title of senior PR consultant. “Hey, Dax, nice to finally meet you.” She let go of Lucy to turn to her new hot, hockey player boyfriend . “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Dax shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “From Lucy or Matt?”

“Oh, from both!”

“Shit.”

Maddie laughed and waved her hand. “It’s not that bad. But is it true that you sprained your wrist last year when you tripped over your own doorstep? Because you were watching a bird at your window, and not because you were drunk?”

“Oh, come on, Matt! You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!”

Matt shrugged. “Nobody on the team ,” he confirmed, grinning at Maddie, ruffling her hair in greeting as he walked past her into the apartment as if it were the most natural thing in the world—as if he were here all the time. Maybe he was. Lucy wasn’t quite certain how close he and her sister were.

“Hey, Matt, how was your date yesterday?” Maddie called out after him.

“Oh, pretty cool.” Matt plopped down on the worn, blue couch in Maddie’s cramped attic space. He and Dax were both so tall they almost bumped their heads on the ceiling. “You were right. Exactly my kind of humor, but she talked about knitting too much for my taste.”

Maddie nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll make a note. I won’t set you up with any more knitting enthusiasts.”

“Okay. Say, weren’t you going to do something about that water stain there?” He nodded toward a yellow stain on the wall next to Maddie’s open kitchen.

“I am going to, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

Matt snorted loudly. “Your pipes are so old, Maddie, you need an inflatable boat.”

Maddie scowled at him. “My pipes are none of your business. Just because your father is a handyman doesn’t mean you know everything.”

“I didn’t know you had a water stain, Maddie,” Lucy said, confused, while Dax said simultaneously, “I didn’t know you were dating, Matt.”

“Of course not, you’ve been busy with other things lately,” Matt replied lightly and nodded at Lucy. “But that’s okay.”

“Yes, really.” Maddie smiled brightly at Lucy. “I’m truly happy for you. So, Dax, tell me, what are your inten…”

“Do you set Matt up often?” Lucy interrupted hastily. Dax would only take the question as an opportunity to use the word earlobe incorrectly again, just to make Matt whine.

“Oh, all the time,” Maddie replied, laughing. “I send him clients who apply with me but are actually searching for something casual, something that won’t affect their everyday life too much, because that’s exactly what Matt’s looking for.”

"Wow. Seriously? You arrange casual dates for Matt?” That didn’t fit well with her sister at all. Maddie had made it her profession to make people happy for the long haul—not orgasmic in the short term.

Maddie shrugged. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m merely his wing-woman.”

“That’s very nice of you,” Dax said, impressed. “Matt wouldn’t get anywhere on his own. Not with his face.”

Matt blinked and glanced up from the couch. “What about my face?”

“Look in the mirror. It’s self-explanatory.”

Lucy skillfully ignored them. “Maddie, I thought your goal was to find soul mates, not one-night stands.”

“It is,” Maddie immediately reassured her. “Matt isn’t a client! It’s merely a small favor. I find him women who want the same thing as he does. No one gets hurt.”

Flabbergasted, Lucy opened her mouth. “That’s unfair! You never offered me that! I never wanted anything serious, either.”

Dax cleared his throat, embarrassed.

“Um, well, obviously I do now,” she replied hastily and leaned against his side. “I…” She paused, opened her mouth again…then laughed and leaned her forehead against Dax’s chest. “Oh God. Did I understate it when I said I’m not good with relationships?”

“No, not at all,” Dax answered earnestly.

Matt snorted. “You can’t take all the blame. Neither of you realized that you were in a relationship.”

Dax stroked her head and kissed her gently on the temple. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered. “At least you’re introducing me to your family, that’s relationship-like, isn’t it? And on Sunday we’re going out to dinner with Jack and Anna. Even more family.”

She nodded and asked quietly, “Where are we eating anyway? At Anna’s? Or do you and Jack finally want to show yourselves in public and come clean?”

“Nope, we don’t.” Dax made a face. “We talked about it and we both feel the world doesn’t need to know.”

“The world doesn’t need to know what?” Matt asked absentmindedly with his mouth full. He seemed to have found peanuts somewhere.

"That Jack and Dax are brothers,” Lucy replied impatiently. Sometimes Matt was truly a bit slow.

For a few seconds, it was dead silent. Then Matt exclaimed in shock, “They are… What? ”

Lucy sighed and turned to him to repeat it…when suddenly she grew pale. “Oh God.” Shocked, she put her hand over her mouth. What had she done?

Dax groaned quietly and rubbed his forehead. “Great.”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Dax!” She glanced up at him, her eyes wide. “I just thought this was a safe place and…shit, sorry. I didn’t use my brain!”

Dax sighed and put a hand on her neck while Matt jumped up from the couch, his mouth gaping. Bewildered, Maddie asked, “Why is that interesting?”

“Sorry, sorry,” a contrite Lucy whispered repeatedly and looked at Dax with concern. “Oh God, I can’t believe I…I…argh!”

She had just felt so ridiculously safe, the last few days! She had been so relieved that she no longer had to keep secrets, that everyone knew that she and Dax were together. She had been firmly convinced that they had nothing left to hide. But that wasn’t true at all.

“It’s okay.” Dax frowned and waved it off. “I wanted to tell Matt anyway. But no one else will find out, got it?” He looked seriously at Maddie and Matt.

“What the fuck?” was Matt’s friendly reply.

Maddie sighed heavily and pushed him by the shoulders toward her open kitchen. “Come on, help me prepare the champagne glasses. We’re here to celebrate Lucy.”

“But…he and Jack West…and I…this…”

Maddie stuffed an apple into his mouth. “Here. Eat something healthy. Peanuts have too much fat.”

Groaning, Lucy narrowed her eyes and tilted her head back. “Sorry, Dax. I can’t believe I did that.”

But when she opened her eyes again and met Dax’s gaze, he didn’t seem angry. Quite the opposite. He smiled broadly. “It’s fine, Lucy. I wanted to tell him. And to be honest, it’s reassuring to know that you’re not perfect.” He wrapped his arms around her back. “That takes a lot of pressure off me.”

She snorted, amused. “So, you’re not the only one of us with something wrong?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” she informed him, lifting her chin, not to make herself look taller, but to kiss him. “So, it’s really okay?”

“That we’re both incredibly flawed people?” he replied innocently, “Yes, very much so. Wouldn’t it be boring if we were perfect?”

“Oh, it certainly won’t be boring,” she agreed, smiling as she stood on her tiptoes while he cupped her face. As if she would always have this—as if they planned to do it for the rest of their lives.

And they did.

THE END

Thank you so much for reading Puck You Very Much!