Page 43 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
“Come on,” I coax, reaching out to tap her hand. “I’m stealing you. No arguments.”
She stares at my hand covering hers. I see the conflict in her eyes—the need to be professional, warring with the desperate need to escape.
Something in her expression hardens.
“Okay,” she says. She hits save and stands up. “Get me out of here.”
She grabs her purse. I take her arm, steering her toward the elevators before she can change her mind. I know Ethan is probably staring at us through his blinds, but I don’t turn around.
The elevator doors slide shut, cutting off the view of the bullpen. The silence is sudden and absolute.
Tessa leans back against the metal wall, letting out a breath that sounds like it’s been trapped in her lungs all day.
“He’s going to kill you,” she says softly.
“He’s going to try,” I correct, hitting the button for the lobby. “But right now, he’s too busy sulking in his glass cage.”
She looks up. Her eyes are rimmed with red.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she lies.
“You’re a terrible liar, Tess.” I watch the floor numbers tick down. “Let’s go break some rules.”
The rooftop bar, Azul, is loud and packed with the Friday crowd, but I know the manager. We get a corner table away from the noise, overlooking the pool and the skyline bleeding purple into the dark.
The waiter pours the champagne. Tessa takes a long sip, closing her eyes as the bubbles hit. Her shoulders drop two inches.
“Oh my god,” she breathes. “I needed that.”
“Better?” I ask.
“Dangerous,” she admits, opening her eyes. “This feels like truancy.”
“It is.” I lean back, watching her. The wind picks up loose strands of her hair. She looks beautiful. And sad.
“He hates me,” she says suddenly.
“Who?”
“Ethan. I don’t know what I did wrong, Owen. This morning… We had a moment. A really intense moment. And since then, he’s been treating me like I’m invisible. Or worse, like I’m a virus he’s trying to quarantine.”
I sigh, twisting the stem of my glass. “He doesn’t hate you, Tess. He wants you.”
She laughs, a bitter sound. “Right. That’s why he won’t look at me.”
“That’s exactly why he won’t look at you,” I insist. “Ethan is a binary creature. Zero or One. He doesn’t know how to do ‘in between.’ He knows he can’t have you—because of Harper, because of the company—so he flipped the switch to ‘Off.’ But the wiring is frying.”
“He still thinks I’m a liability,” she mutters.
“He calls me a liability twice a week,” I grin. “It’s his love language.”
She smiles, shaking her head. “You guys are impossible. All three of you.”
“We are,” I agree. “But we’re loyal.”
She goes quiet again, looking at the bubbles in her glass.
