“And it better be done good enough for him, because I’m not…” And she breaks into air quotes, “doing it fifteen times until I get it right.” She mimics my father’s deep voice and dumbass alpha orders.

I laugh to myself, utterly delighted. Someone who hates him as much as I do.

Okay, okay. I don’t hate him. I just… hate myself.

She heads for the bathroom, and I can’t stop myself as I rush over and grab the door handle before she can.

“There’s another bathroom downstairs,” I tease, unable to keep myself from fucking up her morning some more.

“I need the shower.” She scowls up at me, her eyes red but her mouth tight. She sports cute French braids down both sides of her head and tries grabbing the handle from me.

“We’re going fishing,” I argue, shoving my body in front of hers in our battle for the door. “You’re just going to get dirty again.”

She slaps my hand. “I was here first!” And then she yanks at my arms and shoves at my chest. “If you have to piss, then you do it downstairs.”

“I need a shower, too.”

“Why?” she mocks, repeating my words back to me. “We’re going fishing.”

“’Cause I got dirtier than you did this morning,” I laugh out, taunting her.

She shoots me a dirty look, telling me she knows exactly how I got dirty, but neither one of us gives up. I yank one of her braids, she elbows me, and I laugh, seeing a little smile peek out from her, too, as we battle.

I finally get the door open only for her to shove herself in front of me to try to get into the bathroom first. I step on her foot and she stumbles, but I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her back as she grabs hold of the doorframe, not giving up the ship.

Laughter rolls through me, the sudden urge to take her to the ground and tickle the shit out of her clawing at me. I can’t wait to get her to the lake. I’m not sure I’ve ever played with a woman I wasn’t worried about screwing.

I pull her off the doorframe, and she screams, but it evolves into a laugh as her legs—bare in jean shorts—kick at me, and her stinky Vans hit the wall.

“Shit, you stink,” I say. “Did you roll around in shit or something?”

“I stepped in it!” she growls.

I chuckle. It’s like having a little sister. Maybe the day won’t wind up so badly, after all.

But just as I finish the thought, another voice pierces the silence. “Noah?” someone says.

My stomach sinks, and I halt, my smile slowly falling. Tiernan and I fall silent, and I release her, both of us standing upright as we turn our heads toward my bedroom door.

Remi stands there in the doorway, watching us.

And she clearly didn’t take the hint to leave as she’s only dressed in one of my T-shirts instead of her own clothes.

She crooks her finger at me, and I’d rather cut off my left ball.

I push Tiernan into the bathroom, following her, and slam the door shut, locking us in. I push her down on the toilet.

“What the hell are you doing?” She glares up at me.

“Just sit down,” I order her, reaching behind the shower curtain and turning on the water. “Just… sit down until she leaves, okay?”

“Why?”

Because I need a cock blocker. Why do you think, dumbass? If I shower alone, Remi might try to join me or some shit.

“Just do what I say,” I tell her instead.

Tiernan’s eyebrows pinch together in confusion, and I shake my head.

Remi’s sweat feels like it’s sitting on my lungs with the thousand other mornings of waking up to faces just like hers. I’m nothing, and the longer I’m not drunk, the longer I have to face that fact. I take a swig of the beer.

But as I drink, Tiernan bolts off the toilet seat and leaps for the door.

I grab the back of her jeans and haul her back, her body slamming into mine.

“Noah!” she scolds.

But I wrap my arms around her anyway, pulling her away from the door. “Don’t leave me. She wants my body again.”

“Ugh.”

I hold her, taking another big swallow.

But then a knock hits the hardwood, and we still.

Nooooo…

“Noah?” I hear Remi call. “Are you coming to the bar tonight?” the girl asks through the door.

“Yes!” Tiernan shouts. “He’s com—”

I clamp my free hand over her mouth.

And then another bellow sounds from downstairs. “Noah!”

I flinch. What the fuck? Is everyone obsessed with me today? Thank God Kaleb can’t talk, too.

Tiernan thrashes in my arms, and I don’t know why, but I squeeze her tighter as I back away from the locked door, closing my eyes.

“Noah!” he shouts again.

“I’m in the shower!” I finally belt out at my father downstairs.

Jesus.

But just then, Tiernan slams her heel into my leg, and I stumble backward, falling with her in my arms.

The backs of my knees hit the bathtub, I lose my footing, and we both fall back into the tub, Tiernan still in my arms as she crashes against my chest.

She yelps, tearing the shower curtain off a couple rings as my spine hits the porcelain and her head bangs back into my chin.

I grunt.

“Oh, my God,” she cries, spitting water as the shower drenches her clothes and hair and she tries to sit up. “You’re insane. What the hell?”

But I clamp a hand over her mouth and pull her back. “I need you to stay.”

The water sprays down as steam billows in the air, and I train my ears, listening for the people I’m hiding from as my stomach knots because I’m obviously a fucking girl.

“Noah!” Dad bellows again.

I drop my head back, letting out a sigh. “Why won’t he just fucking shut up?”

I take my hand away from her mouth, but when she tries to bolt, I grab the back of her collar and pull her back to me again.

“They’ll go away if we’re really quiet,” I tell her.

“Have you seen your father?” she spits back. “He’s bigger than the door, Noah. All he has to do is push really hard with his hand, and if he breaks in here, he’ll make me do more chores, and I already did my morning stuff!”

“Shhh!” I cover her mouth with my hand again. “They’ll shut up if we’re really, really quiet.”

She mumbles behind my hand, something sounding like, “You’re an idiot.”

I smile. It kind of feels like being a kid, hiding from our parents. Like hide and seek. I never had much of that. Kaleb stopped talking when I was three—too young to remember, so I can’t ever recall him as playful.

There were a few times with my father, though. Some good memories before he got older and angrier.

I look down at Tiernan.

I was angry with her yesterday.

But then I wasn’t.

They don’t talk to me. No one talks to me.

I wanted to wring her neck one minute, but then the next, I wanted to hold her.

I got it. I knew what was wrong.

She sucks in quick, sudden breaths, and I pinch her nose before she can sneeze.

It cuts loose anyway as she spits on my hand, and I snort at the little whimper she lets out. I rinse off my hand and wrap my arm around her again.