Page 19 of Midnight Curfew

“You sleep with all of my brothers,” I spit out, “and I’m the bad influence on yours?”

“Precisely.”

I snicker under my breath. What a load of shit. I never had to close the door to take a piss with my sister around. She’d simply ignore it and move past. Now we’ve got Clay and Krisjen and all these damn kids.

And yes, I’m a twenty-five-year-old male still living rent-free, but it’s as much my damn house as her husband’s.

She speaks through the crack in the door. “Now, I admire the never-ending desire for a sexually confident man like yourself to repeatedly shame me…”

I snort.

“It’s such a vintage look, by the way,” she teases. “But try to remember that I’m the one who bought the Jag.”

I stop pissing, my body going still.

“And Macon still hasn’t gotten around to switching over the security notifications,” she starts to whisper, “to his phone instead of mine.”

Security notifications? Does that mean…

I drop my head back. “Ugh, fuck.”

She gets notifications when the Jag is driven? And where it’s located?

Like when it was parked at the fucking Coldwells’ for two hours last night?!

Motherfucker.

I slide my dick back into my jeans and flush, opening the door.

She stands there, her long brown hair beautiful as it falls down over one of Macon’s white button-ups.

She smiles, cheeks rosy. “Is this where you beg?”

“Never,” I growl. “But if you say anything to him, I can make your life a lot more miserable.”

She nods, beaming. “Same.”

Oh, what the fuck? I never had much power over my oldest brother, but she has more power over him than all of us put together.

“Wash your hands,” she tells me.

Then she spins around and heads down the stairs in her bare feet. I grit my teeth, hitting the lever and quickly rinsing my hands. Patting them dry on my pants, I descend the stairs, smelling the bread baking a moment before my stomach growls.

“Anything I need to know about my car?” she calls back at me.

“No, it’s good to go.” I yank open the fridge, pulling out a Gatorade. “I’m sure Macon will have an opinion about how I did it, but it’s fixed.”

She starts the coffee maker. “Thank you.” She looks over at me, her eyes sincere and not teasing now. “I just didn’t want to bother him yesterday with you all being out the night before.”

I swallow a gulp, remembering our midnight liquor run. Yeah, it’s been a couple of days since I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

My ire fades; I appreciate that she’s protective of him, at least. It helps, even though I won’t tell her that.

“It’s fine,” I say. “Just keep him off my ass, okay?”

“Oh, he’s still asleep.”

I lower the bottle from my mouth. “He is?”