AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sorry, Pop Pop. I gotta go.”
He walked away, leaving a confused twin and grandfather in his wake. He didn’t stop until he was standing next to Kelli’s table. “Hey, Kell. You got a second?”
“Sure.” She rose quickly, no doubt curious about Brooke’s reasons for stonewalling him the past week and a half.
He grasped her hand, leading her to the back of the pub.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Upstairs. Can’t talk down here. Too loud.”
“Okay. So what did Brooke say?” she asked as they climbed the stairs.
“Not yet,” he said when they reached the top of the first flight.
Kelli started to walk toward the couch, but Colm pushed her toward the second set of stairs that would take her to his bedroom. “Keep going.”
She paused for a moment, then shrugged nonchalantly, climbing the stairs. “Not sure what’s wrong with the living room. Everyone else is downstairs,” she argued.
He didn’t reply, just kept his hand on the small of her back, guiding her up the stairs, then turning her toward his room once they reached the top. And she didn’t hesitate.
It spoke to their level of friendship, to the innate trust that existed between them, forged by thirty years of living within each other’s space. He and Kelli had grown up together, seen each other through every single awkward phase of their lives. They’d eaten hundreds of school lunches at the same table, played a million different games, gone to concerts and football games, and too many bars to count. They’d laughed and fought like siblings and enemies—and friends.
“Colm?” she asked, as they entered his bedroom. “What the hell did she say? Why are you so worked up?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
It was Kelli.
It had been Kelli all along.
He shut the door and locked it.
She frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
He walked over to his dresser and picked up her panties, swinging them nonchalantly on his finger.
She realized what he had—and blushed. “Oh damn. Yeah. It occurs to me I probably should have told you something that…I forgot. Paddy and I were in your bed Halloween night. Did you just find those?” She was grinning now, clearly thinking he’d brought her up here to give her a hard time about sleeping with his brother in his bed.
She couldn’t be more wrong.
She reached out, intent on taking them from him, but he closed his fist and held them away from her.
“Don’t be a perv, Colm. That’s my favorite pair of panties.”
“They’re mine now.”
“Don’t think they’ll fit you,” she joked.
“I took them off you Halloween night, Kell. Claimed them. They’re mine.”
“You…you didn’t take them off me.”
“Brooke wasn’t in this room with me. She was next door. With Robbie.”
“No. You were at Brooke’s apartment. I saw you leave.”
“We went downstairs to borrow a bottle of vodka from the pub because she was out. Told Brooke to meet me up here while I fixed the tap on the keg, but everyone was still playing that stupid game. Brooke didn’t hear me whisper second door at the top of the stairs. She went to Finn’s room.”
