“First few days,” Jimmy Kincaid murmurs. “First few weeks, I wanted to slam him.”
“First few weeks,” Reid inserts with a crooked smile, “you did slam me. I took my beatings. I stepped into the cage, took my licks from every single man in that gym. I took the beatings that were intended for my brother, and at the end of the day, I thanked you for them.” He looks to me. “I’m not Kyle, and I wasn’t okay with that shit he was pulling with your sister.”
“Does she know you’re here?”
He points to the ground. “In this auditorium? Or this town?”
“This town. Does she know you live here?”
He snorts. “She and I ate breakfast together at the gym this morning while Jamie trained.”
I whip my eyes to Jamie and narrow them. “Really? She’s on timeshare with other men now? I don’t seem to recall that detail in our agreement.”
“For fuck’s sake. You’re as dramatic as she is, you know that?” He turns away and shakes his head. “Timeshare, my ass. Sit down, Will.” He points toward the stage when the lights begin to flicker to announce the show is almost ready to start. “Sit by me and you can continue to bitch even while she’s dancing.”
“It’s not front row.” I step away from Reid, away from Iz and Jimmy, away from Evie and the boulder-baby. Instead, I stop where Jamie stops, and glance down with a lifted brow. “This is third row.”
“Front row seats were already bought out.”
“So we go to the front row,” I explain slowly, “we lift the fat asses who thought they could buy those seats, and we place those people here where they belong. Problem solved.”
He only laughs and drops down in his seat. “Yeah, and a new charge on the ol’ rap sheet,” he smarts. “Sit, Will. You know she’s gonna kick your ass if you create a scene.”
“Down in front, please. We’re trying to see.”
My heart jumps, my breath catches, and my neck wrenches as I look to my right and meet the bright blue eyes of Olivia Conner herself. Fourth row, right behind me, right beside that fucker I was introduced to last month.
Olivia wears a dress tonight, one of those wraparound kind with the tie at the front, which means the way she’s sitting – one leg crossed over the other – causes the split in her dress to ride up and expose a fuck load of creamy white thigh.
The dress is red and white, her skin pale – too pale – her hair black as night. She’s a study in contradictions. A study in all the things guys like me can never have unless we steal.
But hell, nobody ever said I was opposed to theft.
“Olivia Conner.” I sit, but twist my torso and rest my arm on the back of the seat so I don’t have to look away. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I’d have brushed my hair or something.”
She smiles and reveals a perfect set of glistening teeth. “I could say the same about you; well, not the hair thing. No one mentioned Quinn’s brother would be back in town so soon.”
Quinn’s brother.
Not the love of Olivia’s life. Not the handsome rogue she’s been dreaming about for years. And not William, the one who holds her heart…
I simply get the throwaway title, to show me where I belong.
When the douchebag on her left clears his throat and bumps Olivia’s arm with his elbow, she jerks forward with surprise, and blanches at his look of expectation.
“Oh, shoot. How rude of me.” She turns a little to face her date, and places her delicate hand on his knee. “Brenten, um… this is William Quinn. Quinn’s brother.”
The guy narrows his eyes, grinds his jaw, and when Olivia makes to pull away from his leg, slaps his hand down over hers to keep her prisoner. He looks to me with an air of derision and, well, snobbery. “William Quinn…” he ponders with a fuckin’ sneer, “is Quinn’s brother?” He looks between us with a lifted brow that doesn’t indicate curiosity, but intolerance. “So Quinn’s name is… Quinn Quinn?”
I say nothing. I look away and ignore his very existence, and instead, I study that split in Olivia’s dress, even when everyone in a six-foot radius knows I’m doing it. Maybe she’s the princess in her family, the naïve, protected one. But she’s not a child, and she owns curves only a woman could possess.
Which makes her my mouse, and me, the tomcat.
“It’s a long story,” Liv says when I continue to stare in silence. “Super long story that’ll eventually end with Quinn’s last name becoming Kincaid, so…”
I smile and glance up when she squeezes her thighs tight. “Moot point. How are you, Olivia?”
She looks past me to the stage. “I’m actually trying to watch a dance recital, so if you could—”
“I like your dress,” I cut in. “And your hair is shiny as hell. New shampoo?”
She’s trained well. Perhaps she went to a boarding school for princesses or something, because instead of the boot to the face my sister would deliver to a guy for this behavior, Olivia merely readjusts her posture, and turns toward her date. She smiles for him – more powerful than any kick Quinn has ever delivered – and wraps her arms around his. “I’m certain he’ll turn away once the music starts. How was work today?”
“Turn around, fool.” Jamie grabs my shoulder and spins me to the front. “She’s protected, and you already knew she had a man.”
“Did I ever tell you the story about the Mona Lisa?”
He snorts and relaxes back into his seat. “No, you didn’t. What about it?”
“Bulletproof glass, security cameras, sneeze shields… protected.” I grin and glance back over my shoulder to catch her eyes. “And yet, that beautiful painting is stared at all day long.”
“That may be so,” he murmurs and yanks me back when the crowd hushes and a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound woman steps onto the stage in tiger print and six-inch heels. “But the bulletproof glass remains, and there’s another man sitting beside her tonight. Get ready;” he nods toward the stage, “Q’s coming on first with the babies. She wanted to lead them out while Bean stays back and prepares for her parts. Also, Ben’s coming.”
I let my eyes move to the door to the side of the stage as Ben Conner and his best friend Mac Blair step through together and head toward the first row. “Bulletproof glass? And those motherfuckers got first row?”
Jamie grins. “He’s the only protection she’ll ever need. Move along, Will. Find something else to look at.”
Two hours, one intermission, one super-sleuth episode of diving for cover and not letting my sister see me watching her show, and only six thousand glances over my shoulder so I could check out the raven-haired beauty sitting just two feet behind me – she looked, every fucking time – the lights come back on at the end of a dance recital that, if I said the dancing didn’t leave me misty-eyed, I would be telling a bold faced lie.
The show was so beautiful, so elegant, so fucking choregraphed and perfect, and, according to the little booklet that I may or may not have pocketed a dozen of for keepsake memories, all my sister’s doing.