ever the peacemaker, stepped between Alexis and the man scowling hard enough to freeze his face that way, trying to be the voice of reason in this awkward situation. “Hey, hey,” he said when Alexis didn’t immediately back down.
“Jesus, woman,” the man beside Erik said to Alexis, still miffed that she’d tried to neuter him with a donkey kick to the jewels. “I didn’t know you were in there. Give me a freakin’ break.”
“What are you still doing here?” Erik said, gently pushing Alexis back to protect his friend.
Alexis stepped back and winced as a jolt of fresh pain took her breath away. “Ow,” she gasped, immediately lifting her foot to relieve the pressure. “I think I hurt my ankle,” she admitted with an irritated glower when Erik frowned with concern. “And we’re here because my memory sucks. I drove to pick up Em, but we decided to take her SUV from her place. Then just as we headed down I-25, I realized I left my laptop charger and we swung back because there wasn’t going to be time to get a new one once we got to Emma’s parents’ place. By the time we could leave again, they had closed parts of the interstate. We figured we’d wait until midmorning to leave. Roads should be clear then.”
“So that’s why your car wasn’t in the driveway,” Erik surmised.
“Yeah. I thought you were working,” Alexis huffed, moving past Erik to sit on the bed next to Emma so she could get a better look at her ankle.
It was then that Emma whispered, “Lex, you don’t have any pants on.”
Oh yeah, there was that. She hadn’t exactly been planning to entertain and most times she slept naked, so the fact that she had a shirt and underwear on was a bonus. She shrugged, more interested in the state of her ankle than anything else at the moment. “How different is this from my bathing suit? Crap, my ankle is really swelling,” she muttered, momentarily forgetting about the guy, her brother and the whole shebang because holy hell, that smarts!
But apparently someone else was still holding a grudge because Stranger with the Sexy Ass piped in with, “She punched me and then threw a shoe at me.”
“You scared the crap out of me,” Alexis said with a glare. As if he had any room to bitch—if he hadn’t been in her bed, she wouldn’t have had to defend herself. And she wasn’t even going to mention how Grabby McGrabbyhands had been all over her—she wasn’t in the mood to clean up a massacre. As even-headed as Erik was, he might take exception to the fact that his friend had been touchy-feely in his supposed sleep.
“Okay, okay.” Erik held his hands up, obviously bone tired and not in the mood to deal with this nonsense all night. “Let’s all just calm down. This was a big misunderstanding. No harm, no foul.”
But Alexis was feeling more petulant by the moment as her ankle ramped up in pain. “Speak for yourself,” Alexis muttered, rubbing her ankle. “I tripped over my suitcase when I was chasing that pervert out of my room.”
“Pervert?” the guy said. “I’m not a—”
Erik looked aggrieved and shook his head. “He’s not a pervert. Well, not usually. This is Layton Davis,” Erik said by way of introduction. “He drove me home after we worked a blaze. I told him to take the spare room. I thought you were gone. You were supposed to be gone.”
Oh sure, blame it on Alexis’s inability to keep details straight. She shot a withering look Layton’s way. Was she being irrational? Possibly. Sure, they could chalk it all up to a weird, unfortunate coincidence that would make really funny sitcom fodder, but pain made Alexis ill-tempered and she’d never been much of a good sport when it came to being on the losing end of an argument.
“Well, we weren’t gone,” Alexis said, unable to keep the grumpiness from her tone. “And who doesn’t check where he’s going to sleep before plopping down on top of someone?”
“Someone who’s tired as shit and unaware someone’s friend’s sister is occupying the bed he was given,” Layton said, clearly just as annoyed and as ready to put the argument to bed as she was.
Erik shrugged, rubbing his eyes. “Like I knew. Let’s shelve the accusations and take a page from Emma’s book and not freak out.”
Everyone looked at Emma. Oops. Alexis had forgotten about Emma again. Emma managed an awkward smile and Alexis wanted to say, I feel ya, sister—this bites, but didn’t because she didn’t want to embarrass Emma any more than she already had. And Alexis held no illusions that Emma wasn’t mortified to her dainty toes over this mishap. Of the two, Emma was the more reserved, more conservative and least likely to be voted Most Outrageous in a peer poll.
Awkward silence followed as they each came to the conclusion that no further beating could be done on this particular horse and it was time to lay it to rest.
“Okay, good. Now, since it’s cold as frick outside and the roads are too dangerous, let’s bunk up and get through the night,” Erik said.
“Your sister probably needs an ice pack or something,” Layton said with a reluctant sigh as if he hated to be helpful in this regard because he was still holding a grudge, and gestured to Alexis’s swollen ankle. “How about I grab some ice while you figure out the sleeping arrangements.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him not to worry about it, that she could tend to her own injuries, but Layton had already split. Maybe he needed ice for his nuts, too.
It was then that she realized her brother was swaddled in a blanket like a Scottish laird.
“Why are you wearing a quilt?” Alexis asked.
“ʼCause I’m naked under here,” he said, tugging the quilt up higher.
Ah. Yeah, good idea. Therapy for getting an eyeful of her brother’s junk was not in her budget. But wait a minute...if he was naked under there...her gaze swung to her friend.
“Wait, did you climb into bed with Emma while you were naked?” Alexis asked, grossed out for Emma. Not that Erik wasn’t good-looking, but, eww, Erik was like a big brother to Emma, too. He used to torment Emma just as enthusiastically as he’d tormented Alexis. He’d been an equal-opportunity torturer.
“Yeah,” Erik admitted, and color climbed Emma’s cheeks. Was Emma embarrassed because she’d seen Erik in his birthday suit or, worse, because she’d liked what she’d seen? Ugh. The very idea... Alexis couldn’t handle it.
“Well, how come you didn’t scream?”
“I rarely scream,” Emma said, as if that made perfect sense.
“Well, if a big bozo sat on you, you would,” Alexis countered, not quite buying Emma’s explanation.
But there wasn’t time to push the argument because Layton reappeared with a bag of frozen broccoli wrapped in a dish towel. “Here. I’m happy to take the couch,” he said.
“And I’ll give you your bed back and sleep with Alexis,” Emma said to Erik. “I feel so bad about being here when you—”
“I told you to,’ Alexis interrupted, still thinking about Emma’s reaction. “He was at work.”
A beat of awkward silence made ten times
