8

Asher

Whistling a random tune, I flipped the eggs over, silently congratulating myself when neither of the yolks broke. The scent of toast filled the kitchen and I wondered how long it would take for the smell of food to wake my brothers up.

Heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs. Not long, apparently.

“Morning,” I said right as the toast popped up.

I heard the scrape of a chair, then Evan muttered a greeting. I plucked out the toast and tossed it onto a plate.

“Hungry?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Whistling again, I scraped some butter onto the toast, then slid the eggs on top. Perfect.

“You’re in a good mood,” he said.

I set the plate in front of him. Hell yes, I was in a good mood. How could I not be? I’d bared my soul to Grace—told her I loved her. And she’d agreed to give us a chance. “Yeah. So?”

“It’s too early.”

I went back to the toaster and dropped in two more slices of bread. “I was awake, so I figured I’d get up.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, then picked up his fork. “Me too. I had an early class last semester and now I can’t sleep in. Where’s Gram?”

I glanced out the window. “Out in the garden. Probably trying to do her thing out there before it gets too hot. Were you guys out late last night?”

“Yeah. After Gram went to bed, Logan and Levi and a bunch of their friends went down to the river. Gavin, too. I knew they’d have beer, so I went with them to make sure no one did anything stupid.”

“Thanks, man.” I felt kind of bad about that. Usually I was the one making sure our brothers got home in one piece. But by the time Grace and I had come back, the party had already broken up.

“It wasn’t a big deal. No one got too crazy. Gavin jumped in the river with all his clothes on, but that’s not new.”

Chuckling, I cracked two more eggs into the pan. It was a running joke in our family that if there was water nearby, Gavin would get wet. When he’d been little, Gram had brought at least two changes of clothes for him wherever we went.

Now, she’d just shrug and tell him he was old enough to know how water worked.

I finished cooking my eggs, buttered my toast, and brought it all to the table. Evan had almost finished his breakfast, but he still didn’t look awake.

I wondered if something else was bothering him. He tended to keep to himself, but he’d been extra quiet since coming home from school.

“You okay?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, just tired.”

“Are you sure? It kinda seems like there’s something going on.” I folded a piece of toast around one of the eggs and took a bite.

He looked away, but instead of grumbling about needing more sleep or our brothers driving him nuts, his mouth turned up in a smile. “I sorta met a girl.”

“No shit?” I paused, half-expecting Gram to scold me for my language even though she was outside. “Who is she? How’d you meet her?”

“Her name’s Carly LiMarza. We were in a history class together last fall, but I didn’t really talk to her until we wound up in the same study group for econ this semester. That was the early class. I probably would have dropped it, except she was in it.”

I smiled and licked egg yolk off my fingers.

“Anyway, I finally quit dicking around and asked her out. Things have been going great, but she went home to California for the summer.”

“And you miss her.”

“It sounds stupid, but I’m basically counting down the days until we go back. We talked about getting together, maybe having her come up here, or me driving down there. But we both have to work all summer, so we decided to just suffer through. We’ve been Facetiming a lot.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Does Gram know?”

“Yeah, I told Gram, but I didn’t want to make a thing out of it yet. We’ve only been dating for a few months.”

Evan was trying to play this off like it wasn’t a big deal, but I knew him. And I recognized the look in his eyes. He was only twenty, but even though he was young, it wouldn’t surprise me if he put a ring on that girl’s finger sooner rather than later.

I just wondered which of us would do it first.

Probably me.

Thinking about rings made me think about Grace, which made me think about our date. And about kissing her last night. Her soft lips and my hands in her hair. I wanted to run next door and wake her up, just so I could kiss her again. I didn’t want to wait until tonight.

I mopped up some egg yolk with my second piece of toast. Evan watched me with a furrowed brow.

“What?” I asked.

“Where were you last night?”

Grinning at him again, I took a bite.

“Ash.”

“Grace and I went for a walk.”

Grunting like he’d been hoping for a more interesting answer, he put the last piece of toast in his mouth.

“And I asked her out.”

His eyebrows shot up his forehead and he swallowed almost without chewing. “You did what?”

“I asked her out on a date.”

“Our Grace? Grace Miles?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? Because I want to go out with her.”

He stared at me for a few seconds, his brow furrowing. “Since when do you want to go out with Grace?”

“Since I do. You got a problem with that?”

“No, it’s not a problem. I’m just surprised. She’s…”

“She’s what?”

“She’s Grace. She’s like our sister.”

I scowled, like he was being gross, but I wasn’t surprised he said that. I’d tried pretty hard to keep my feelings for Grace to myself, and it had obviously worked. “She has never been like a sister to me.”

“Who’s never been like a sister?” Logan asked through a yawn. He shuffled into the kitchen, dressed in nothing but a pair of plaid pajama pants.

“Grace,” I said. “Nice bedhead.”

He raked his hands through his hair, messing it up even more. “I smell food.”

I thought about telling him to make his own damn breakfast, but I was in a great mood, so why not. I got up and went to the fridge for more eggs. “Sit. I got it.”

“Really? Awesome.”

I put more bread in the toaster and kept the eggs out, since I was undoubtedly going to keep playing short-order cook when Levi and Gavin made it downstairs.

“Who’s the girl you were with last night?” Evan asked.

Logan pulled out a chair and sat. “Which one?”

“The one you were making out with.”

He grinned and scratched his head, making his hair worse. “Which one?”

I shook my head and cracked an egg into the pan.

“You’re playing with fire, little brother,” Evan said.

Logan just snickered.

More footsteps heralded the arrival of my last two brothers. Levi didn’t say anything, just took a seat at the other end of the table. Gavin held a palm to his head, like he was in pain.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.