“There it is,” Call muttered to himself. He set his beer on the coffee table with a sigh and walked to his door. He turned the deadbolt, unlocked the knob, and opened the door. He turned around immediately, walking back to his recliner. The door shut behind him, and then two thuds sounded as Brent toed off his boots.
Cal picked up his beer and sat down. He heard Brent pad into the kitchen and grab a beer from his fridge. Cabinets opened and closed, and Cal rolled his eyes because he knew Brent was hunting for food.
His brother still lived in the apartment they had shared. It was a decent place, and now Brent had a spare bedroom. But Cal . . . well, he wanted his own place. He wanted a garage and a yard and a deck where he could set up a grill.
Cal had found this two-story home on an acre of land, and even though it was old, he could manage a lot of the repairs himself. He had no neighbors nearby. None. He could walk around in his backyard naked if he wanted to. Not that he did, but he could.
He had a small basement, and the first floor had a family room, a half-bath, and a nice kitchen with an island, with a door out to his small deck. On the second floor were two bedrooms, plus a full bathroom with a big shower. He loved that damn shower.
It was worth the mortgage, even if he thought sometimes he should have kept the address from his brother.
Brent sauntered into the living room while chugging his beer. He lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hey.”
Cal narrowed his eyes. “I moved out for a reason, you know. I like quiet.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
“First, you can’t be quiet. And second, by quiet, I mean alone.”
Brent dropped onto the couch. “Come on, you don’t mean that.”
“I really do mean that.”
Brent ignored that. “I’m bored.”
“Get a puppy.”
Brent had selective hearing. That was not news. “So how about we talk about Jenna MacMillan.” Brent waggled his eyebrows.
Although Cal knew his brother was doing it to get a rise out of him, he couldn’t help wanting to wipe the leer off of his brother’s face. “That’s the last thing I want to talk about.”
“Okay, so she was hot in high school; I’ll give you that. The legs and the hair. But she got, like, way hot now.”
Cal growled into his beer.
“We’re just talking.”
“No, you’re just talking. I’m trying to watch the game.”
Brent’s gaze flicked to the TV. “Um, you don’t like either of these teams.”
“I dunno; thinking I like them a whole hell of a lot right now.”
“Anyway, you plan to do anything about it?”
“About what?”
“Quit playing dumb.”
Cal sighed. “It didn’t work back then; it wouldn’t work now. Just let it go.” He wondered who he was saying that to—Brent or himself.
He’d done everything he could to separate himself from that dumb, angry, impulsive eighteen-year-old kid who’d fucked up his future. The kid who’d lost the best thing that had ever happened to him.
For ten years, he’d been sure that kid was gone. Done. Buried with a tombstone. Covered over with a neat, orderly, simple life where Cal kept a lid on his emotions.
But he hadn’t anticipated the one wild card in his life to come back and dig up old wounds and feelings. Jenna still saw him as that same angry, hot-tempered teenager, not trusting him with the knowledge that the Charger belonged to Dylan.
And the worst part was, that bothered him. It dug under his skin like a splinter, painful enough to feel the need to set her straight.
Why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? He was good at that—the not-talking thing.
Except around Jenna. Around her, he’d always lost control. Spilled his guts. She’d been everything to him once, in a way no one had been before or after. Other than his family, no one could get extreme emotions out of him. He liked it that way. It was safe and comfortable.
He’d been in Jenna’s presence for ten whole fucking minutes, and the body of their past was already dredged up to the surface. He’d felt exposed, like he’d rolled over and shown her his tender belly. That wasn’t safe. That was the exact opposite of safe.
He squeezed his eyes shut and gulped down his beer. When he looked over at Brent, his brother grimaced.
“So maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” Brent muttered.
“Ya think?”
“I didn’t know that there was still—”
“There’s nothing!” Cal raised his voice, and Brent flinched. Cal took a deep breath and steadied his voice. “There’s nothing still. Okay? I don’t know why Jenna’s in town, but I’m sure she’ll be going back to wherever she came from after I fix her brother’s car. It was nice to see her and all of that, but that’s about it.”