I cleared my throat and then looked back up at her. “After the last month or so I’ve started to change my mind about that luck. Salem came back and set my world right even though I didn’t know it was upside down. Poppy will always be important to me in a different way that still really matters. Phil found me and taught me how to make a living off of art. My mom might be gone but everywhere I turn now I run into someone that loves me and considers me family . . . including you. That’s more good fortune then most men get in a lifetime.”
Her eyes got really shiny and she told me, “You’re going to make me cry.”
I grunted a little and decided to change the subject. “What about you? No one was pissed about you picking up and traipsing off to find your long-lost little brother?”
She made a face and it was her turn to be unable to meet my gaze. “I was engaged before I left, but it just wasn’t a good fit. I broke it off before I moved and the fact I was more concerned about you and what you would think than him and how I might have hurt him was a huge indicator that splitting up was the right choice.”
“That’s a bummer. Were you together for a long time?”
“Five years, engaged for two. He was a nice guy, just not the right guy for me.”
“That’s still rough.”
She lifted her chin up and gave me a grin. It so surreal how much of myself I could see in her when she looked back at me.
“I think I’d like to hold out for something like you seem to have with Salem. I want someone that looks at me like I’m the beginning and end of everything. That’s the way you look at her.”
“My first and last.”
She cocked her head to the side and looked at me in confusion. I picked up my beer because she might be my sister but she was still a virtual stranger and getting all personal and gooey and emotional wasn’t really what I had planned for this meet-up.
“Salem was the girl that was a lot of firsts for me even if I didn’t recognize it at the time. Now that she’s back in my life I’m trying to focus on the lasts that she’ll be to me.”
Sayer nodded and picked up her own beer. “Like the last girl you’re going to love?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s what I want.” I was going to tell her to hold out for it and to ignore Asa as he walked over with two more beers and put all of his southern charm and hospitably on display, but I didn’t get the chance because Zeb walked in looking like he had been rolling around in sawdust and Spackle for hours. He had wood particles stuck in his beard and grime streaked across his forehead.
I was used to his burly and unkempt appearance but I thought it might intimidate Sayer when he pulled out a chair without asking and ordered, telling Asa to bring him a beer. Asa walked away laughing and sent Dixie back over with a drink for Zeb.
“Who is this?” His voice sounded like it was hewn from the mountains and rattled with thunder. I wasn’t sure but beneath the beard and dust I think he was leering at Sayer.
“My sister. Sayer, this is my buddy Zeb Fuller. He actually designed and built the new tattoo shop in LoDo.” I was surprised how effortless calling her my sister was and how much I liked the way it sounded.
Zeb’s leafy-green eyes glinted in humor. “You have a sister? A hot, classy sister?”
I saw Sayer blush and look at me with big eyes. Zeb kind of resembled a grizzly bear and there was nothing about him that came across as welcoming and cuddly, but I think he was actively trying to flirt with my sister.
“It sure looks that way.” I narrowed my eyes at him and tried to kick him under the table. It was like jamming my boot into a tree trunk.
“Full of surprises, aren’t you, Rowdy? First the cutie from back home and now a gorgeous sibling you’ve been keeping all to yourself. Who else is gonna come crawling out of the woodwork after you?”
I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of telling him Poppy was also in town, so I just glowered at him while he continued to grin at me through his beard. I was expecting an awkward silence to descend, but like she kept doing, Sayer surprised me by being able to talk shop with Zeb like a pro. As it turned out, she had purchased an old Victorian in Governors Park and the thing was in absolute disrepair. Two beers later I think they had plans in place for him to come check her property out and look over the work she thought her current contractor was ripping her off on. She also didn’t bat an eyelash when Zeb disclosed his criminal past. She in return informed him that because she was a lawyer she knew all too well that sometimes the legal system got things wrong. By the fourth beer I think she was actively flirting back with my giant friend and I was distinctly uncomfortable and feeling like a third wheel.
I texted Salem to see if she was home yet, and when she responded with a selfie of herself in bed, curled up with her glasses on and from what I could see nothing else, I bid a hasty good-bye and headed to my girl. Poppy let me in the door and just laughed at me as I brushed past her with hardly any kind of greeting or acknowledgment on my way to Salem’s room.
She was awake and waiting for me and she really did only have on those trendy black frames she only wore when she was at home. Her black-and-red hair was a wild mess all over the pillows and it took me about three seconds to strip down and join her. At some point when I was making her moan and holler my name, it occurred to me that we weren’t exactly alone in the apartment and I should have some consideration for Poppy, but then her hands started rubbing over the piercings in my dick and I couldn’t think about anything but how amazing she was and how I never wanted anyone to put their hands on me again besides her.
We fell asleep wrapped around one another, spent and satiated. Her hair was stuck to my chest and her taste was all in my mouth and it was perfect. Her soft weight on top of me was kind of like the anchor that I had tattooed on my neck. It held me in place, kept me grounded, reminded me she was my home port when we had both been adrift for so long.
I JERKED AWAKE AND SWORE in aggravation when Salem’s elbow landed in my gut as she scrambled up and out of bed. At first I couldn’t figure out what she was doing, but then I heard Poppy frantically knocking on the bedroom door and the dog barking his fool head off. I groaned and reached for the jeans I had left on the side of the bed the night before. Salem had commandeered my shirt, so I was only half dressed as I made my way out into the living room to see what all the commotion was about.
I told Jimbo to hush and fetched him a tennis ball to distract him as Poppy shrieked incoherently at Salem. I was about to whistle and tell everyone to chill the f**k out when the buzzer from the security door at the front of the building went off on the wall unit. It buzzed and buzzed like someone was leaning on it. It was only four o’clock in the morning and this obviously wasn’t a locked-out neighbor.