Page 143 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
Tessa’s eyes light up, and a slow, genuine smile spreads across her face to cut through the fatigue. “Rule breaking?” she muses.“Mr. Sterling would be very disappointed. He wants us to be traditional.”
“Mr. Sterling isn’t invited,” I grin. “And tradition is incredibly boring. I want O-Toro. And I want you out of that skirt.”
Ethan makes a low noise in his throat to signal his agreement.
“Pack up and leave now,” Ethan orders her. “Take the B-elevator straight to your apartment. Don’t stop for coffee, and don’t talk to anyone.”
“Protocol?” she asks.
“Protocol,” he confirms. “We’ll leave in shifts. I’ll go in ten minutes, Asher in twenty. Owen… try not to look suspicious when you leave.”
“I never look suspicious,” I wink. “I look charming.”
“Go,” Ethan says.
I watch her walk out, watching the sway of her hips in that pencil skirt and the click of her heels on the polished concrete.
“We’re playing with fire,” Asher says, standing up and sliding his laptop into his bag.
“We just bought the fire department, Ash,” I say, clapping him hard on the shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
The vibe at the apartment is completely different tonight.
Usually, there’s a heavy desperation to us—a frantic need to connect before the world tears us apart. We exist in a constantstate of high alert, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Harper to find out, for the press to catch us, or for the company to fail.
Tonight, it feels remarkably lighter.
Maybe it’s the fifty million dollars securing the company’s future. Maybe it’s the fact that Harper is safely back in Paris eating croissants and leaving us in peace. Or maybe it’s just that we’ve finally stopped fighting the inevitable.
We’re finally together, and tonight, we’re getting wasted on high-end sushi and cheap sake.
The coffee table is covered in black lacquer trays holding enough food to feed a small army—fatty tuna, yellowtail jalapeño, wagyu beef rolls, and glistening piles of sashimi.
“I win again,” Asher states, placing a bright yellow card on the coffee table with surgical precision.
“You’re counting cards,” I accuse him, throwing a piece of popcorn at his face. It bounces harmlessly off his forehead, and he doesn’t even blink. “It’s Uno, Asher. You can’t count cards in Uno. It’s a game of chaos, not logic.”
“I’m calculating probability based on the discard pile distribution,” Asher says, completely unfazed. “It isn’t cheating. It’s optimization. You play with emotion, Owen. I play with data.”
“It’s definitely cheating,” Tessa laughs.
She’s sitting on the floor between Ethan’s legs, finally changed out of her stiff work clothes and wearing one of my oversized vintage rock t-shirts with a pair of tiny cotton shorts. Her hair is down, tumbling over her shoulders in a messy, wild wave. Herface is scrubbed clean of makeup, revealing the soft dusting of freckles across her nose.
She looks painfully sexy.
“Your turn, Ethan,” she says, tilting her head back to look at him upside down. “Destroy him.”
Ethan’s sitting on the sofa with one leg stretched out and the other bent so Tessa can lean against it. One of his large hands is absentmindedly playing with her hair, twisting the auburn strands around his fingers and tugging gently every now and then. He looks relaxed for the first time in months, a half-empty glass of scotch resting in his other hand.
“Draw four,” Ethan says, dropping the lethal card directly on me.
“You absolute traitor,” I gasp, clutching my chest. “I thought we were brothers. I thought we had a bond forged in blood and code.”
“There are no brothers in Uno,” Ethan says darkly, taking a sip of his drink.
“Uno is a bloodsport,” Tessa agrees solemnly. “Sorry, Owen. It’s survival of the fittest.”
I just look at them.
