Page 187 of Five Brothers

Paisleigh rushes in. “¿Puedo tomar algo?”

“Huh?”

“¿Puedo tomar algo?” she says again.

I look at Army in confusion.

He chuckles, looking at my sister. “Yes, you can have something to drink,” he tells her. “Go in the kitchen and ask Mariette. She’ll get you some juice.”

But I grab Paisleigh before she runs off. “You’re learning Spanish?”

“Jasmine only speaks to us in Spanish,” she informs me. “Traeme una limonada,” Army tells her.

She salutes him. “Bueno.” And then she runs off, behind the counter and into the kitchen.

First, riding a bike. Now a new language.

“Seriously?” I say again. “She’s spent less time over here than me, and she speaks the language already?”

“Kids are sponges,” Trace adds.

“You don’t know Spanish.”

“Talking will never be what I’m best at,” he taunts, his double meaning clear with the gleam in his eyes.

Army and Dallas chuckle at his comeback, and I struggle not to roll my eyes.

Glancing over at Macon, I see a couple of women at the counter, one of them swiveling her chair in his direction and smiling. He doesn’t smile back, but he’s talking to her. He nods, his expression calm, his breathing relaxed. Tranquil.

“What’s going on with him?” I hear Army ask.

I tear my eyes away.

I don’t have to ask to know he’s talking about Macon. “Have you asked him that?”

I don’t want to talk about Macon behind his back, even though his family should be involved.

He’s talking to me, though, and I don’t want to ruin that.

“I mean with you and him,” Army clarifies.

“Nothing.” I shrug it off. “He just needs sleep.”

“You’ve slept in his room all week.”

Goose bumps spread up my arms at the reminder of how I can’t wait for the days to end now. How he just looks at me and doesn’t have to say that he doesn’t want to be alone, and I get my pillow and follow him.

Nothing has happened, but I wake up with his arms wrapped around me.

I stare at him talking to the girl. She taps something on her phone and hands it to him. He slips it into his pocket.

Wait … That was his phone. What was she typing intohisphone?

Is he going to kick me out of his bed tonight?

“We’re just sleeping,” I murmur to Army. “Nothing else.”

“He keeps looking at you,” he states. “I don’t like it.”