Bro Code Read online

  “Hey, Ava. You okay?”

  I don't remember what I said back. Whatever my answer, it wasn't enough to convince him, and a second later, I was wrapped in the tightest hug of my life. He let me cry my eyes out against his chest until I had nothing left, and when I cursed out my friend for being such a pain, Barrett's laugh was a warm, deep rumble in his chest. When I was finally able to put myself back together, he walked me back inside where I made up with my friend.

  We never talked about it again. I don't know if he thought my brother would give him shit for being sweet to me or what, but it lingered in my mind for months. Years now, I guess.

  “Ava, honey, let's get this batch going.” My mom's voice draws me back into the present, and so does the aluminum cookie cutter she's waving in my face.

  When I lean over to check the recipe card, she shoos me away from it, pushing the cutter right into my hands. “You don't need to count how many you make per tray. Just shove them all on there.”

  Sue me for wanting them to bake evenly through. “Okay, Mom.”

  I press the little tree and star outlines into the dough over and over, cutting out dozens of cookies. Each one goes onto the tray, and my mom scrapes the excess together before rolling it flat again, which is just enough for two more cookies. Once they're arranged in a bunch of clean rows, I'm urged out of the kitchen.

  “I'll call you back in when it's time to frost them,” Mom says.

  There's not much else to do but wait for the scent of fresh cookies to fill the house, so I slip down the stairs and into the den. My dad is exactly where I left him a few hours ago, watching the news on the couch, but now that the sun's set, the entire room is dark. He doesn't seem to have noticed, but I flip on a lamp anyway before sitting down next to him.

  “What's the state of the world like, Dad?” I ask.

  He mutters something under his breath, eyes still locked on the screen. “Same as always. Your mother run you out of the kitchen?”

  “Yeah.” I don't mind, though, and he knows it. “You shouldn't stay down here in the dark, you know. It'll kill your eyes.”

  “Not like I need them for much anymore.”

  The bitterness in my dad's voice is new, raw. After decades of building a business with his own two hands, a heart attack last fall suddenly put him out of commission. Every doctor said it was congenital, that only a life of hard work and eating well had kept severe heart problems from starting earlier, but that was almost worse in a way. If there had been something he could change, my dad would have immediately put his nose to the grindstone and fixed it. Instead, he had to retire.

  Now I'm taking over where he left off. It would have been Nick's job but he loves living in the city, and being a store manager who gets to drink with the guys every night too much to stop and learn how to run a factory. When Dad asked, my brother said he'd just close the business and sell it off, locking the doors on the same place whose profits put him through college. Thinking about that conversation always puts a boulder in my stomach.

  I refuse to shut down the factory. My dad has hundreds of employees, from janitors to engineers, and they all rely on the company staying open. Every business around it would buckle without those people keeping a steady paycheck. I've driven past enough towns that were left to turn to dust and blow off the map because someone didn't care enough to keep the heart of it alive.

  “You know what the boys are up to?” Dad asks, squinting at the screen in front of him.

  I reach over to the table next to the couch, grabbing the case for his glasses. He sighs, but takes them anyway. “Not really. Barrett walked in and then Nick dragged him off.”

  “Some things never change.” Now that he can see, my dad looks at me instead of the television. “I'm glad you came home to start looking things over, Ava, but I wish you weren't by yourself. I’m so proud of you, but you deserve someone to share a life with.”

  Oh God, this again. “Dad...”

  “You're twenty-five.” He frowns, wrinkles pulling against old laugh lines. “You know, your mom and I were-”

  “Twenty when you started dating. I know.” It's the same story he brings up every time he sees me lately, and somehow, I feel just as guilty every time. He means well, of course, and I've never wanted to disappoint him. “I'm working on it, okay? But I've got to get everything with the factory stable first.”

  I don't think navigating the ins and outs of running the factory will be too bad, despite the learning curve. Even if I don't know anything about building new engines, I did go to school for business management. After graduating, I stuck almost exclusively to consulting work, but this could be the chance for a real career, something I can settle into for good. Then I can find Mr. Right and see about having a couple of kids before my mid-thirties start to loom on the horizon.

  Which means dating again. Which means going on a date in the first place, instead of focusing on how I've been single so long. That's a rabbit hole I'm determined not to go down, unless I find myself in the mood for a good cry later.

  “I'm not rushing you.” Dad gives my shoulder a fond pat. “I just don't want you to be alone. You've got a lot to offer a man.”

  “I'll put that on a sign next time I go up for auction,” I tease, and he chuckles before shaking his head.

  “Ava! The cookies are ready!”

  It's kind of amazing how my mom can make her voice carry through an entire house. There's a reason I never got away with anything as a teenager.

  Dad gives me a little salute. “Duty calls.”

  I hustle back up the stairs to the kitchen, ready to be wrist-deep in frosting and sparkles until every cookie looks appropriately festive. Thankfully, I get a system down quickly, and once my mom's stretched clear wrap over the tray, I'm ready to wash my hands and relax with a glass of wine. That master plan is swiftly derailed by my mother stacking the dishes under the faucet and shooing me out of her way.

  “Use another sink, honey.” She's already turned away from me, looking in the cabinets for a washcloth. “I've got to wipe everything down before the dough sticks like glue.”

  Trudging up another flight of stairs to the bathroom, I nudge the door open with my elbow before stepping inside. The light is already on, and I have about a second to register why before the shower curtain slides back against the wall.

  Barrett steps out from behind it, and my thoughts scramble in sixteen different directions at once. I've known those brilliant blue eyes for years, but not the way water looks clinging to his dark eyelashes, or dripping down his sculpted frame, the valleys and ridges of all that muscle, the sheer breadth of his shoulders. He towers over me, making it easy for my eyes to draw lower, tracking a single, clear drop from his chest down to his chiseled abs.

  The lucky little drop falls into fine, dark hair, neatly trimmed around the thick base of—holy mother of mercy—the largest penis I have ever seen. My breath catches in my throat and I have the sudden urge to take a step back, and I would have, had I not been rooted in place so firmly. I wasn't sure my legs would ever work again.

  Heat sparks under my skin and settles as a needy pulse between my thighs as I take in the impressive length of his shaft. Even soft, he's huge, and that thought is all it takes to imagine Barrett hard and so deep inside me, that powerful body pinning mine right to the wall. With all that muscle framing his hips, he could keep me there, taking me over and over until we were both totally exhausted...

  Now he's not the only one who's dripping wet.

  I’ve never been madder at myself before, remembering again how far away my vibrator is right now.

  “Uh, Ava?” Barrett's very real voice snaps me out of my erotic fantasy. “Are you okay? I'll be out of here in a second if you need the bathroom.”

  I was staring at him. I've been staring at a naked Barrett Wilson, my brother's best friend, for a full minute, straight-up ogling like he was in a dirty magazine. What was I thinking? My first attempt at words come out as an intelligible whimper,
and my face is heating up so fast I'm pretty sure something in my brain is about to short-circuit. No, scratch that; all of me is going to short-circuit.

  My nipples pebble inside the cups of my bra, and my heart hammers dutifully behind my ribcage.

  Making no move to cover himself, Barrett smiles, and somehow that makes everything ten times worse. “Ava? Can I help you?”

  There's a hundred ways I want him to help me, and every single one involves having my clothes ripped off, his body on top of mine. Except I can't do any of that when I'm staring at him like a total fool, and this isn't supposed to be how my evening ends.

  I don't have a plan. The only thing I can do is rush out of the bathroom, yanking the door shut behind me. It slams a bit loudly, but at least I can start to pull myself together with a barrier between me and Barrett's gorgeous body. Those sinfully perfect abs, his sharp jawline, that stunning face, and most of all, the baseball bat-sized appendage between his legs.

  My evening was going to end with a relaxing glass of wine. The only thing I know right now is that there’s not enough wine in this county to calm the fire Barrett has ignited inside me.

  Chapter Three

  Barrett

  The door slams, and with it all the oxygen in the room seems to disappear.

  Holy fuck.

  Ava had barged in on me, and had gotten one hell of an eyeful. Watching her take in every inch with surprise lighting up those beautiful eyes—my cock twitched. Even with my prompting, she hadn't said a word before dashing out of the bathroom, but I swear before the door slammed shut behind her, that shock became something more—for just a split second. It had transformed into something hotter and a whole lot less innocent.

  She wanted me.

  I’m trying to convince myself that it isn’t just my dick talking.

  But the thought gets me so damn hard that before I can picture anything else, my cock strains up toward my stomach and demands attention. I glance back at the shower, wondering if I should burn through the rest of the hot water and rub one out or turn it to the right and let the cold wrangle my hard-on back into submission.

  “I must have been seeing things,” I say out loud, combing my hands through my wet hair. I've got to find a way to make those words true, because the alternative is off-limits.

  I've known Ava for years, and she's never looked at me like that. With Nick and I hanging out together all the time, I must have seemed more like another brother than anything else. She'd never shown a hint of any interest when we were younger.

  Closing my eyes, I try to knock that thought away. The problem is, my cock is happy to do the rest of the thinking for me, and if I don't get a handle on it, I'll be spending the rest of the night blue-balled and frustrated with the object of my fantasies mere feet away from me. Better to blow off steam now instead of trying to sneak a quick jerk off session later. I twist the lock on the door, something I should have done in the first place, and I place one hand against the tiled counter, while my right hand slips down to my shaft.

  I could get it over with fast, vent the tension coiling through me with a dozen old and reliable images, but the only thing that comes to mind and sticks is Ava. Her wide, blue eyes filled with surprise, the tiny shudder that passed through her when she saw me.

  I imagined how she'd touch me, unsure at first, using slow, tentative strokes as she learned my cock, then moving faster as she found some confidence in handling its size. The closer I got, the more she would tease, drawing out her touch until I couldn't take anymore, threatening to blow then and there. I roll my thumb over the sensitive tip, imagining the look on Ava's face as she dropped to her knees and—

  “Goddamn it,” I curse under my breath, but my hand doesn't stop.

  She's off-limits. She absolutely has to be off-limits. I lean heavily against the counter to keep myself steady while pumping in firm strokes, trying to get my libido focused on any woman but her. But nothing is satisfying enough compared to the thought of her mouth on me—except for imagining pinning her down to my bed, her body wrapped around mine like a vise. I would give her everything she asked for, until I was sure I was the best she ever had. Hard or slow didn't matter, as long as I could see Ava's face the moment her orgasm hit and bliss overwhelmed her, milking me for all I was worth.

  My breath quickens, muscles rippling in my forearm as I squeeze the base of my cock, ratcheting up the tension until pleasure blazes hot through my entire body, come spilling in thick spurts over my hand.

  Holy shit.

  I wash away the evidence in the sink, but the feeling doesn't fade until I finally deflate. Another passing thought of Ava almost makes me twitch, but for the moment I've got everything on lockdown.

  “Behave,” I mutter under my breath while turning off the water, “or Nick and I are going to end up in a fist fight in the middle of the goddamn snow.”

  After towel-drying my hair, I wrap the towel around my waist and go into Nick's old room, unzipping my overnight bag where it sits on the bed. I yank out a pair of sweatpants and a college football shirt to sleep in, running a thumb fondly over the fading logo. A cabinet in the corner of his rooms displays the trophies we won proudly. Mine are in a box somewhere in my mom's garage. At least I think they are. Unless she sold them at her last garage sale. I have a thousand memories of Nick's parents cheering us on, with Ava watching with her friends in the stadium.

  Most of the time my mom couldn't make it. The school only gave me a handful of free tickets a year, and they usually weren't enough for her and my siblings. Getting a babysitter on her strict budget was out of the question. I handled it alright, though. I always knew that someone was rooting for me, even if she wasn't there. Nick's family has always had my back.

  Which is why I have to quit thinking with my dick. I'm here for the Saunders family retirement party, not to get laid. If I can't keep a hold of myself for a long weekend, what kind of man am I, anyway?

  A knock on the door stops that train of thought cold. “Yeah, come in.”

  When the latch clicks open, the last person I expect to see standing there is Ava. The faint blush on her cheeks I glimpsed in the bathroom is gone, but that doesn't mean I can stop thinking about what that warm color looked like. Her smile is a quick flash of teeth, cute as I remember from so long ago. If anything, it suits her more now, with a little crinkle at the side of her mouth like she's trying not to grin.

  “Hey, Barrett. I just wanted to apologize for earlier.” She sighs, her eyes not quite meeting mine. “I barged in on you without even knocking.”

  “It's no big deal. I'm in your house, not the other way around.” I want to tell her exactly how much I didn't mind, how much her unexpected voyeurism inspired every moment of my jerk off session a few moments ago, but I know better. The logical part of my brain knows better, anyway. “You okay, though? You were kind of like a deer caught in the headlights.”

  What the fuck is that cheeky, challenging tone to my voice?

  The heat returns to her face, a blush that she doesn't even bother to hide. “Yeah, well, you ended up being a lot…well…more than I was expecting.” She clears her throat.

  “I was, huh?” It's impossible not to tease Ava when she's playing coy. Literally impossible. “Sorry, I'll keep it in its cage next time.”

  “You're such an ass,” she says, but chases the words with a laugh. I can't remember the last time I heard Ava laugh—it's been years. I missed that sound more than I realized, enough to make her want to do it over and over again.

  Running a hand back through my hair, I give her an exaggerated, innocent look. “I didn't think my ass was the part of my anatomy in question.”

  A good-natured roll of her eyes has me grinning, and my shoulders relax by a few degrees. This can just be banter, just be fun without any screw-ups. We haven't talked in a long time, so maybe now is my chance to do that. Focus on the friendship, because sex certainly isn't on the table.

  “You're alright though?” I ask again, needing t
o hear her say it, needing some reassurance that I didn't scar her for life or make her too uncomfortable to sleep right across the hall from me for the next four days.

  “Yes, it's just. Okay, in all seriousness ... how do you walk around with that in your pants all day?” The determined look on her face is priceless.

  “I strap it down to my leg with duct tape,” I say in the most serious voice I can muster.

  Her eyes widen. “Holy shit, seriously?”

  Unable to hold in my laughter, I chuckle at her. “No, Ava. That was a joke.”

  Her cheeks are bright red again, and fuck, what is this perverse part of me that likes teasing her. Maybe because it feels a lot like flirting, something I've never allowed given our age difference.

  She breaks into a laugh, her shoulders relaxing and we spend the next few minutes reminiscing about the football games she attended of mine and Nick's throughout high school and college, and it's crazy how at ease we are with each other. A few minutes of talking and we're both laughing, remembering some of the stupid shit her brother and I used to do. I guess some things never change.

  “You're doing well?” I ask, genuinely wanting to know.

  “I'm good,” she says. Her eyes are just as blue as I remember. The rest of her, however? She's grown and filled out in ways I never imagined.

  “You look good.”

  Fuck.

  Why did I just say that?

  She looks right at me then, and holding her gaze is harder than I expect. I don't want her to sense what's on my mind, to have any idea what I was just doing a few minutes ago while thinking about her. Even if by some miracle she felt the same way, Nick would flip and for good reason. He's been my best friend since we were six, and his whole family practically took me in. Paying that back by sleeping with his baby sister over a long family weekend would make me a complete asshole.

  Besides, I'm leaving in a couple of days. It'd be one thing to be dating Ava and break the news to Nick at the right time, but I don't have time for a relationship. I barely have time to go to the gym or eat a dinner that's not at my desk. My life is in Chicago, and hers is going to be here in Indiana with the factory. I can't be two places at once while trying to make partner. I barely got enough coverage to slip away for the weekend, and the last thing I'm hunting for now is something serious. I turn and stretch my arms over my head, feigning a yawn. Otherwise, I'm about to do something really stupid. Like try to kiss her. Or show her my dick again.