“Who the f**k is that?” a female voice shrieks. Logan turns around and slaps at the light switch, and the room goes bright. A book flies across the room and hits his shoulder just as the light comes on. I step back out of the room, because whoever that is in his room is throwing shit like crazy. She’s blonde. And she’s na**d. Completely and starkly na**d. Shoot.

She jumps out of bed and starts grabbing for her clothes. Logan swipes a hand down his face and sticks his head out of the room. He motions toward Paul, who is leaning casually against the wall, a grin on his face. Paul walks down the hallway, his stride full of swagger, and he removes me from the doorway and goes in himself. The door closes with a thud.

“I thought you knew she was coming!” Paul says with a laugh. I imagine him doubled over, because that’s how the twins are, they’re laughing so hard. They’re high fiving each other and listening to what’s going on behind the door.

Logan must have signed something to him. Because he says, “She said she was going to surprise you.”

Well, she did that, apparently.

Paul heaves a sigh and says, “He wants you to go.”

More thuds in the room make me think she’s throwing stuff again. Good God.

“He doesn’t want you to surprise him again,” Paul says quietly, but I can hear it. I want to press my ear against the crack in the door, because things have gotten quiet. I can hear her sniffle.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” she says with a loud inhale. “I’ll never sleep with you again.” The door flies open and she steps out it, and then she attempts to crowd me back against the wall. The twins freeze, their mouths falling open. She’s almost six feet tall. I’m not.

“Oh, shit,” one of them says.

I tolerate her until a piece of spittle flies out of her mouth and hits me in the cheek. “You better back the f**k up, bitch,” I say. And I draw my fist back. I don’t hit like a girl. I never have. I never will.

Like one of those hooks on the gong show my grandma used to watch, Logan wraps his arm around her waist, picks her up and spins her away from me. He shakes a finger at me. He better be glad he caught her, or she’d have my fist up her ass.

“Don’t shake your finger at me,” I warn. I’m pushing against him to get to her. “I’ll rip every extension from your head.” She actually has nice extensions. I’d love to ruin them. “I’ll wrap them around your skinny neck and strangle you with them.” I’m still reaching for her, and Logan can’t sign, because he has her on one side and me on the other. I swipe at my cheek. The bitch spit on me. He hands her to the twins, who try to calm her down.

He holds up one finger at me. I think he wants me to wait. Wait for what? That skinny little no account whore just spit in my face. He shakes that finger at me again. I grab it and bend it back, until he winces and makes me let go. He’s stronger than me and I know it. But it felt good. I could get tired of that finger really quickly.

He bites his lips together and sets me back from him. Then he walks to her, takes her by the elbow and escorts her to the door. She slides her shoes on as she goes, and her pants are still unbuttoned. She’s going to be doing the walk of shame and she didn’t even get laid. I take a good bit of joy in that. I’m more content than a cat in a windowsill. Logan signs something to Paul.

Paul turns to the twins and says, “One of you walk her home. It’s late.”

They both volunteer by raising their hands and jumping up and down. He calls on the one on the left. “Pete, you take her.” He glares at him. “Don’t stay long.”

“Asswipe,” the other one grumbles as he stalks back to the couch. “Pete gets to do everything.” He clunks his feet down on the table. Then he changes his mind, stomps down the hallway and slams the door to his bedroom.

“Pete’s not a man whore,” Paul calls in the wake of his departure, deadpan.

“Since when?” Sam complains, sticking his head back out his door. “I’ll have you know-” But he shuts his mouth when Paul glares at him. The door slams closed behind him again.

Logan swipes a hand down his face and then grabs my arm, leading me into his room. He closes the door behind us. “I didn’t know she’d be here,” he says. His voice is halting and slow.

I pout, crossing my arms beneath my breasts. He looks down at them. He is such a guy. “When was the last time you slept with her?” I don’t know why I want to know this.

He holds up three fingers and points behind him. He’s not quite meeting my eyes.

“Three days ago?” I clarify.

He nods. “But I didn’t invite her tonight.”

“Is she your girlfriend?” I ask.

He shakes his head. He holds up that finger again and I roll my eyes.

He leaves the room and comes back with a stack of clean sheets. He jerks the slut sheets off the bed and throws them in the hallway. He motions for me to walk around to the other side of the bed, and then he snaps the sheet open and makes a movement like he wants me to help him. I might as well.

I work quietly with him to make the bed. Then he crosses to me and tilts my chin up. I think he’s going to try to kiss me and I’m balling up my fist to deck him again. But he just looks into my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is clear. Halting, but clear.

“I’m not sleeping with you,” I say.

He jerks his head back, clearly surprised. He steps back and shakes his head, and I think he’s biting back a smile. “I brought you here to keep you safe. Not to have sex with you.” He smiles again, and then he walks out of the room.

I follow him, because I don’t think we’re done yet. He goes to the fridge and pulls out a beer, pops the top of it and offers it to me. At the last second, he takes it back. “How old are you?” he asks, his brows drawing together.

“Nineteen,” I admit. He puts the beer back and hands me a cold bottle of water. I take it. It’s cool. And I’m thirsty. “What now?” I ask. He takes a sip of his beer.

He shrugs, and goes to sit on the couch. I look around. The place is a mess. There are pizza boxes everywhere, and dirty laundry piled up in the hallway. There are dishes in the sink, and the counter is full of clutter. There hasn’t been a woman in this place for a really long time.

“Can I use your shower?” I ask. It has been a few days since I had a shower. It’s hard to protect my stuff when I’m wet and na**d, but I’m not too worried about it now.

Paul looks over his shoulder and then signs something to Logan. Logan looks at me and nods, pointing down the hallway. He makes a two with his finger and points, and I assume he means the second door. So, I grab my bag and head that way.

I open the door without knocking and I find Matthew hunched over the toilet. I move to step back and he looks me in the eye, his watery and red. “Don’t tell my brothers,” he warns. He starts to wretch again, and I step in the room and close the door. I open the cabinets and find a wash cloth, wetting it with cold water. I pass it to him and he wipes his face. He closes the toilet, flushes it and sits down on it. “Fucking chemo,” he says. “It’s a bitch.”

“Do they know you’re sick?” I ask.

He shakes his head and flushes the toilet again when it stops running. “Please don’t tell them. They have enough to worry about.”

“I won’t.”

“Did you need to use the bathroom?” he asks. He doesn’t look like he has enough strength to stand.

“I was going to take a shower,” I say. “But I can wait.”

He gets up, groaning. “I think I’m good for now.” He smiles a watery smile. “But I might have to barge in on you.” He removes a towel from the cabinet and lays it by the sink for me.

“You’ll be here to puke and not to look at me na**d,” I say.

“I don’t mess with Logan’s women,” he says. Then he goes on to say, “Ever. It’s a brother thing.” He burps and I worry that he’s about to toss up his cookies again, but he doesn’t. He smiles at me and walks out, closing the door behind him.

“I’m not Logan’s,” I say more to myself than to him.

He opens the door back up, startling me. “Yes, you are.”

Logan

Kit’s in my bathroom and she’s na**d. Or she will be in just a minute. I look down the hallway at the closed bathroom door. If it was any other girl, I’d be in there with her. But with the tattoo this girl wanted, I already know there’s a vulnerability there that no one gets to see. I don’t want to make her run away. I want to get to know this one. I’ve never had this kind of curiosity about a girl before. I usually sleep with them. Then I send them home. That’s one of the reasons why it surprised me so much to find Terri in my bed tonight. She knew what we did wasn’t the start of a relationship. I never bought her flowers or candy or took her on a date. I never bought her dinner. I just said let’s go with my eyes and led her back to my room. Why she thought I might want a repeat performance is beyond my comprehension.

I go get another beer and Paul glares at me like the time I let the toilet lid fall on his dick when he was seven and I was four.

“How did you end up with her?” he asks.

I shrug. I found her in the subway tunnel busking for change.

“And she followed you home like a lost puppy?”

No. I had to carry her. You saw me. Why is he asking so many questions? It’s not like I’ve never brought a girl home before. I followed her to see where she was going after I bought her dinner. And she stood in line at the homeless shelter until they closed the doors. They were full. She didn’t have anywhere to go, so I brought her here.

He’s still glaring at me.

What? I ask.

“I told you not to mess with that one.” He sits back, huffing out a big breath. “She’s not like the others.”

I know that. I’m going to sleep on the couch, dickwad. I’m not going to sleep with her.

His brows shoot up.

Shut up, I sign.

“You’re going to sleep on the couch.” He might need a two ton jack to pick his jaw up off the floor.

I nod. How’s Matt?

“Sick.” He takes a swig of his beer. “I don’t think he wants anyone to know.”

I nod.

His brows are still up. “You’re really going to sleep on the couch?”

I nod again, raising my hands in the air to say what the fuck.

He shakes his head. “I just don’t believe it.”

I have a heart.

“Yeah, but it usually gets overruled by your dick.” He takes a sip of his beer. “Does she know you put her tattoo on your wrist yet?”

I shake my head. Not yet.

“Are you going to tell her?”

Why should I?

“Maybe because it’s personal to her. I still don’t understand why you wanted it.”

He’s going to get a permanent crease between his eyebrows if he keeps scowling like that.

I don’t understand it either. I look toward the bathroom door again. Does she look familiar to you? Like you’ve seen her before?

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

I nod and shrug. I would say she just has one of those familiar looking faces, but she’s so f**king beautiful that can’t be the case. She’s gorgeous. She would stand out in a crowd. And that’s not just because she’s in my bathroom na**d.

“How’s your nose?” Paul asks.

I shrug. It’s fine. Nothing I can do about it either way. And I kind of deserved it.

The bathroom door opens up and she comes out. She’s wrapped in a towel and her hair is wet and hanging down over her shoulders. She looks like she just brushed a comb through it. She doesn’t have any makeup on. There’s no black stuff around her eyes and I see she has a line of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She ducks quickly into my bedroom, and I sit back, forcing myself not to go and see her. She probably wanted to get dressed somewhere that’s not all steamy.

I get up and go to the bathroom, closing the door behind me. The mirror is fogged up from the steam of her shower. The countertop is clean for the first time in months, and she even cleaned the toilet and the shower before she got in it, apparently. Everything is all clean and shiny. I assume it’s because she’s a girl that she felt the need to clean it before she used it. It looks nice and I remind myself to tell her thank you.

She left her shampoo bottle in the shower, and her soap. It smells nice in the bathroom for a change and I realize it’s her stuff that left that clean scent in the air. Makes me want to go and sniff her. I want to bury my face in her hair to see if it smells as good as the bathroom does.

She’s had enough time to get dressed now, hasn’t she? I knock on my bedroom door and I crack it open, peeping in. She’s sitting on the edge of my bed wearing the towel. It’s open over her thigh, showing a long expanse of na**d leg.

I motion to her, asking her silently if I can come in. She grips the towel where it’s tucked between her br**sts and hitches it higher. But she nods.

She looks toward my closet, which is standing open, and then back at me. I raise my brows at her in question. Does she need something?

“Can I borrow a shirt?” she asks. She looks down at her bag. “All my clothes are dirty, and I hate to put on dirty clothes when I just got out of the shower.”

I must have looked at her funny. Because she rushes on to say, “I’ll return it to you tomorrow, before I leave. I just want to sleep in it. Do you have a washing machine?”