Page 97 of Secret Baby for My Brother's Best Friends

"Rough day?" he calls out.

I ignore him, hoping it will make him go away. Then again, he’s Adam, and it takes a lot more than that to get rid of him when he decides to latch on like a mosquito.

“How was your date?"

Once again, I don’t answer.

“I'm guessing based on your expression that you said or did something stupid out of your irrational jealousy and ruined it for all of us.”

“I wasn’t jealous.”

He coughs up a laugh. “Yeah, you weren’t jealous. Of course not. Which is why you're here beating the shit out of poor Merl.”

My breath puffs out at the stupid name that he gave the punching bag. “We almost ran into James.”

"Did you, now?” His voice doesn’t sound surprised for whatever reason, but I’m not in the frame of mind to evaluate why at that point.

“Yeah. And she basically shoved me to the ground so he wouldn't see us." At first, I thought she'd tripped or perhaps even intentionally pushed me so that we could get a little handsy. My body had immediately woken up, feeling her against my chest, my heart racing. The kiss had made birds sing in my head.

But then she’d dropped the bombshell. She’d revealed that the only reason she’d done it was to get me out of sight.

“I’m not sure I can do this," I admit.

“Do what?”

“Be the cool guy. Watch her be with the two of you and want you more than me.”

“Is that what you think is happening?”

“It's not about what I think. It’s obviously what’s happening. She introduced you to her brother. She and Sam have these secret looks all the time and all the inside jokes. All we have is sexual chemistry.”

“Really? You haven’t seen the way she laughs when she’s with you.”

"So I’m a funny guy. So what?"

"So, you can keep devaluing your connection with her just so you can sulk and feel sorry for yourself. Or you can use your two brain cells and think for a second."

"You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking that she was perfectly fine with introducing you as her boyfriend to Adam, but not me."

"Look, the thing with her brother wasn’t intentional at all. He caught us red-handed. I’m sure she would have tried to hide in my case, too, if she could, but unfortunately, she couldn’t because he’d already seen us kiss by the time we saw him, and that pretty much damned everything. If it makes you feel any better, he wanted to kill me."

My fist lands with a dull thud, and Merl swings back at the force. “What happened next?"

"Well, I talked to him. Let him know that I was dating her seriously, and I wasn’t just having fun with her. It took some talking, but he eventually calmed down."

"He did?"

"Well, he still wanted to take my head off, but I think he was just happy I wasn’t you."

I glare at him, and he grins.

"To be fair, I'm not the one who fucked his girlfriend."

"I didn't know she was his fucking girlfriend!"

"Easy now. I was just kidding."

I grunt, landing another strike to the Merl's midsection.