Page 43 of Three Pucking Ex's Brothers

“Fuck, baby, not now I—” I hear him say, and then I hear it. A giggle.

“Are you with Nora right now?” I ask, panic lacing me.

“Who?” he asks, as if he doesn’t even know who she is. As if he wasn’t dating her for the last year.

Norawho?

Anger flares within me as I hear the giggling voice along withanotherfeminine voice in the background telling him to hang up.

“What the fuck, Brett?” I demand.

But he just says, “Can’t talk right now, bro. Little busy.”

And that’s when I hear his heavy grunt and curse, and I hang up the phone. I nearly throw it across the room because the anger that festers in me is palpable.

I know he wasn’t with her.

He was with someone else—two someones from the sound of it.

I called my brother to ask about his breakup and he was fucking two other women and didn’t even seem to know who Nora was.

Maybe he was drunk. Or high. I don’t fucking know.

But even so…drunk, high, or sober, how do you forget a woman you were supposed to love? A woman who would have done anything for you?

That fucking bastard.

I shove my phone in my pocket, not wanting to think about what I just heard. What I now know to be the truth.

My brother isn’t just an asshole. He’s a cheating asshole who doesn’t deserve a woman like Eleanor Brighton.

I grab my keys, needing to get away from here, needing to get my mind off wanting to strangle my brother with my fucking bare hands.

I’m pretty sure my mother would kill me if I killed her firstborn in a fit of rage.

So I head to my Lexus and floor it over to my mother’s, hoping the distraction will be enough to soothe my nerves and my anger.

10

NORA

“I’m fine, sweetheart, really,”Pam says as she dismisses me with a wave.

Abby gives me a knowing look.

“I told Abby she didn’t have to come, I was fine. I didn’t want to ruin your night over some minor fender bender.”

“Minor? Mom, your whole back end is fubar.”

Pam sweeps the floor, letting out a heavy sigh. “That car has been through the war and it’s still kicking, like me. Ain’t no distracted driver going to be the reason Christine goes kaput, that’s for sure.”

I reach for my coffee, noting the time on the clock. My one fifteen cancelled, and I don’t have another appointment until two thirty. I’m feeling a bit under the weather thanks to the hangover—even though it’s mostly dissipated—and the whole mortifying situation in general this morning, and I debate if I should just crash in the back room or maybe run to the Cool Cat Café for a pick-me-up coffee and then head back.

Not to mention, I can’t stop thinking about Rush—or more aptly, how I woke up cuddled beside him with his arms around me. For the briefest moment, I thoughtmaybeit had all been a bad nightmare—Brett and that woman. Throwing up in the back of Freddie’s car.

Hazy bits and pieces have been forcing their way through all day. Though things still feel a little blurry, I remembersome things.

Primarily Rush’s touch, his hand on the small of my back. His sweet, spicy scent.