Page 3 of My Weakness

“I flirted with him.” Silence. Not a peep from any of them.

But then, I hear a chuckle come through the screen, a deep chuckle that doesn’t belong to any of the faces staring at me. “That’ll do it. I told you.” Reed’s voice is muffled.

“Don’t start that again.” Bella’s voice is clear, but her face is turned away from the screen.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

Bella sighs as she turns to face us again. “Reed thinks that River is secretly in love with you.”

I’m stunned. Completely and utterly speechless.He’s joking, right?

“What the fuck?” Mia shouts. “He hates her, like they actually loathe each other.”

“And what is love often disguised as?” This comes from Bella. Surely, she’s not actually believing this nonsense, is she?

“You’re telling me that my stepbrother, the bane of my existence, loves me?”

“I’ve thought it for a while now.” Reed’s face appears on the screen and we all swoon at the ridiculously handsome man Bella managed to land.

“To be fair, he has mentioned this to me a few times, but I just ignored it.Oww,” she squeals as Reed obviously does something to her we can’t see.

“You’ll pay for that later,” he mutters just before he disappears off camera again. I can’t help but smile at them, they love each other so much.

“So, what sort of flirting are we talking about?” Harper asks.

“Little touches, lots of smiling, being overly nice to him. Basically, a complete one-eighty on how I usually am around him. Oh, and I tried to feed him my dessert.” I chuckle as I remember his face. “I swear his eyes nearly bugged out of his face when I held my fork out for him to try a bite of my soufflé.”

“Did he take it?”

“Of course he didn’t. Told me he didn’t want to put weight on, unlike me.”

“The fuck he did? You’re the skinniest of all of us!” Mia is absolutely outraged on my behalf.

“Meh.” I shrug. “It didn’t even bother me. One, I know it’s not true, and two, I was having way too much fun playing with him.”

We talk for a bit longer, each of us giving our opinion on the matter. None of us, except Reed who pipes up every so often, believes it’s actually true.

“Girls, as much as I adore you all, I’m going to have to steal my fiancée back.” Reed’s face appears on the screen again.

“Someone’s jealous of girl time,” I sing.

“She’s about to make it up to me,” he smirks at us just before her square of the screen goes blank and her call disconnects.

“I swear that man makes me orgasm every time I see him,” Mia sighs. “If I didn’t love Bella so much, I’d honestly hate her for landing that hunk of man.” We all nod. Reed is another level of hotness and the way he loves our girl just makes him even better.

“I better get going, too; the movers arrive early tomorrow.” They nod their agreement and wish me luck for the move.

Tomorrow, I’m finally moving into my own apartment. I cannot wait. It’s tiny, cute, and exactly what I want. It’s my own space where no stepbrother can stop by unannounced.

“Thanks for the chat as usual. Love you.” I blow a kiss to them before disconnecting.

Reed’s words play on my mind long into the night, though.

Chapter Three

River

It wasn’t the goddamn dessert I wanted last night when she held her fork out to me, I wanted to take a bite ofher. Every time I see her, she’s more and more beautiful.