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Vaughn shut his truck door and walked over to me. “Cinderella’s got a lot of shit to clean.”
5
***Ella***
Ifollowed Vaughn through the front door and nearly ran into his back when he stopped short just inside. I grunted when the box I was holding slipped out of my hands and clipped the back of his ankles. It set off a chain reaction of everything else in my hands falling.
Vaughn turned and shot me a look before stepping aside. “Roommates, meet roommate. Roommate, meet roommates.”
The guys looked more surprised than I was, which was saying a lot. Jogging guy, AKA Mr. Rowing, was standing a few feet away from me, still shirtless, still as wildly good looking as earlier. Beside him was a mountain of a guy with the prettiest brown eyes and dimples I’d ever seen. Even staring at me with a weirded out look on his face, those dimples shined.
“What? V? Why is there a pretty girl moving a lot of shit into our house?” Jogging guy bounced back quickly. He grinned at me and bent down to swipe up Constantine, my stuffed cow. “Not that I mind. Who’s this little guy and does he need to be replaced with someone a little bigger, but just as cuddly? I mean, he was on the floor, after all.”
Vaughn punched him in the arm. “Fuck off. This is Ella. She was my step sister back in the day.”
I was still processing the fact that Jogging guy volunteered to replace my stuffed animal. I looked from him to Vaughn and back to him. “Um. Hi?”
His grin just grew more devilish, if possible. He held Connie to his chest and looked me up and down. “Little sis? That’s fun.”
I frowned. “I’m not his little sister. Our parents were married for three years. That’s all.”
Vaughn pulled me farther into the house and shut the door behind me. “She got cheated on and is homeless. I’m being a great ex-step brother and told her she could live here as long as she cleans up after us.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned up at him. “You don’t have to just say it like that. I wasn’t homeless. I could’ve stayed at the Roadside Inn. I just didn’t think it was a long-term solution.”
“The Roadside Inn? You were at the Roadside Inn?” Dimples shot Vaughn a look and shook his head. “You’re more than welcome to stay here. That place is a fucking cesspool. I went there to buy weed once and saw people running a tra-”
I tilted my head when he stopped talking in the middle of his sentence. “Running a what?”
Vaughn snorted. “Yeah, Booth. What were they running?”
Booth, otherwise known as Dimples, actually blushed. “I realized mid-way through that story that it wasn’t really appropriate to tell in mixed company.”
Jogging guy full out laughed. “Wow, Booth. Your momma would be so proud of those manners.”
“She can move into the empty room, right? Any objections?” Vaughn shook his head at his friends and turned to me. “Having our own personal Cinderella will be pretty nice, guys. Think it through.”
“You seriously think I’m going to object to a pretty woman moving into the room next to mine?” Jogging guy sank his teeth into his bottom lip and winked at me. Even holding my stuffed cow and making cheesy faces, he was hot.
Booth shrugged. “Yeah, no objections here.”
“Let’s get one thing straight.” Vaughn’s voice was deeper, just as serious as it’d been in the parking lot of the Roadside Inn. “No one touches her.”
I made a disgusted face at him. “Vaughn!”
He turned to me. “I’m serious. You’re not my step sister anymore but you were and it counts. She’s off limits. Understand me? Fisher?”
Jogging guy, Fisher, rolled his eyes. “You just want me to fall in love with her, don’t you?”
Booth pulled Connie from him and held him out to me. “Sorry about him. We’ve asked around about getting him help but there’s just nothing anyone can do.”
Vaughn glared at his roommates. “I’m serious.”
My face was on fire. Fisher was just playing around and Vaughn was acting like his friends were going to fall all over themselves to get to me. It was humiliating. “Vaughn. Just…stop. No one is going to touch me. Can I just go to my room and unpack now?”
He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure he was done being embarrassing, and then nodded. “We’ll get the rest of your shit after I show you which room is yours.”
“I could show her.” Fisher let out a loud laugh when Vaughn whipped his head around to glare at him. “Fine! She’s all yours, big bro.”
