Page 14 of Crushes to WHAT

“It is an emergency,” I assure him. “An emergency of girlie pop proportions. Emerson started work at my house tonight.”

One could argue that I could have taken care of this girlie pop emergency all by myself, being in possession of both a driver’s license and a little hatchback to exercise it with, but it’s dark outside. And scary. And, I’ll repeat, dark. And I have access to several of the biggest, safest men in town, even if it is the middle of the night.

Ergo, my girlie pop emergency is Sterne’s girlie pop emergency. That’s how transitive properties work, I’m nearly positive.

Sterne glides to a halt at a stop sign, twists in his seat, and considers me seriously for several long moments.

I raise my brows. “I helped you with Wolfe and Leora,” I remind him.

He rolls his eyes, turns forward, and resumes driving. “I’ll allow this bit of middle-of-the-night nonsense, but not because I believe that you helped me for any reasons beyond kidnappings being fun and Wolfe and Leora taking way too long to get into the meat and potatoes of their relationship. I’ll allow it because I was already up, on call at the firehouse, and bored out of my mind.”

“I thought you guys could sleep on call.” I’m at least thirty percent sure. Admittedly, most of my knowledge of firefighter work mechanics comes from romance books, not real life. Romance books being, maybe, perhaps, slightly not always the best at sticking to realism…

“We can,” he replies, restoring my faith in romance authors everywhere. “But I don’t. I don’t like the idea of me being sleepy on a call, and I really don’t like the idea of me being slow to get to a non-girlie-pop emergency because I’m not awake enough to move at top speed.”

I’m reminded that not only do I like Sterne, but I respect him, too. “You’re a good man,” I tell him earnestly. “Top tier. No matter what Muse says about you.”

The car jerks at his neighbor’s name, and I grab the seat to steady myself.

“What did Muse say about me?”

I tsk, nose scrunching. “Something about you being full of whimsy, backslash negative. Me personally, I think your whimsy is a backslash positive, but I might be a little biased, since you’re practically my third brother. And my favorite one, at that.”

My compliments and favor do not mollify him, insultingly. “She actually said the word ‘whimsical?’” he asks. “Muse? Muse Devoe?”

I nod, then voice my confirmation when safety-and-responsibility-driven Sterne doesn’t take his eyes off the road to see my bobbing head.

“I didn’t think she even knew that word,” he grunts. “Let alone how to use it in a sentence.”

I want to disagree. Really, I do. But Muse is… not whimsical. As an understatement. Love her to pieces, but she would never see the merits in an above-board kidnapping, let alone an unsanctioned daylight one. She thinks Sterne is a loose cannon, for goodness’ sake.

“She has her positives,” I say neutrally.

Sterne snorts. “And her many negatives, as well.”

“That’s Poem’s sister,” I point out, feeling the call of girl code to defend her. “And I don’t know how much you know about their childhood, but it wasn’t what anyone would deem sunshine and rainbows. It was bad. I only have some of the details from Poem, and she was protected by Muse a lot, so I can’t imagine how much worse it was for Muse. So maybe she’s not super fun, or very whimsical, or always a blast to be around, but she’s a really good person who’s lived a really hard life. We shouldn’t talk bad about her because you guys have some weirdness going on.”

His nose wrinkles. “Isn’t part of girlhood being on your friend’s side when they want to hate someone, regardless of if that hate is warranted?”

“Sure,” I agree. “But I’m not convinced that what you feel toward Muse Devoe is all hatred, so I thought maybe I’d try pulling at your heartstrings first. If you want to have an enemies-to-lovers, though, go right ahead. I support you in whatever endeavors you take on.”

He scowls at the road. “I’m going to enemies-to-lovers somebody, but it’s not going to be Muse.”

I perk up, reader ears tingling. “You want an enemies-to-lovers?”

“Of course,” he replies. “I’m not boring.”

Right, right. Of course. “Excluding Muse, what other enemies do you have hanging around that you could to lovers?”

He turns into the parking lot of Blackwood Brew, a brightly-lit swath of comfortingly familiar blacktop, and parks near the door before answering. “I could enemies-to-lovers you,” he suggests.

Three beats of silence pass before we both, in unison, gag.

“Yeah, yeah, no, that was horrible,” he says. “Never again. Ew.”

“I don’t know what compelled you.” I shiver, disgusted. “But maybe we take those compulsions and we put them through a blender, yeah?”

“I couldn’t think of any other enemies I have,” he admits. “But I didn’t want you to win.”