“Dude. The hair is me. I am my hair. I made this hair look cool way before Troy Polamalu started getting paid mad bucks for his.”
“Who?”
“Eh.” Brian leaned back and shrugged. “Football player who jacked my style. Retired when you were just a young’un. So, what else? Did LC tell you how dead sexy I am?”
“Oh yeah,” I mumbled sarcastically. “That was our very first conversation.”
“Damn straight it was. LC knows what’s up.”
I bit back a laugh and let another minute pass before I said, “He told me about his tattoo for Chase, and what you said after you finished it.”
“Was I high?” he asked teasingly, but the humor quickly died and he stopped tattooing and sat back. After a few beats of silence, I turned my head to find him staring at me with a look of shock. “He told you about the initials?”
“And the entire story behind it,” I confirmed with a nod.
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Dude number one, LC doesn’t tell anyone that story.” Brian was silent again for a while, and with a laugh, he shook his head and got ready to keep going. “Christ. I knew my boy was in love with you. But, homie, he is in love with you.”
“You’re wro—”
“No, I’m not,” he said, cutting me off. “You in love with him yet?”
“Again, no, Brian.”
“That’s okay. I’ll ask again when I’m done to see if you’ve realized it yet.”
There was no stopping my smile over the next couple minutes as Brian finished up. Despite how crazy Brian seemed, I could easily understand why Liam and his family liked him so much. His weird personality was addicting.
“Dude number one,” Brian said when he finished. “You in love with my boy yet?”
I laughed in frustration and amusement, and shot him a look. “No, Brian!”
“ ’Kay, ’kay. I’ll check back with you tomorrow.”
“Do it, I can’t wait to give you the same answer.”
“Uh-huh. We’ll see.”
I rolled my eyes, but didn’t say anything else regarding the topic as he got me ready to go, and Kira and I paid.
“Come back to me, dudes!” he called out when we reached the door to leave, and pointed at me. “Tell my boy to come feed me!”
“Will do! Thanks again!”
“Strange one,” Kira said as we walked back to the car, and I nodded in agreement.
“Strange but fun.” I grabbed my phone to see the time. “Let’s make a coffee run and then get home. Liam will be over in an hour.”
Kira stopped walking and pointed back to the shop. “Oh, don’t you mean the love of your life?” she teased.
“Shut up,” I grumbled, and pushed her away.
WITH A QUICK knock, the front door opened and Liam came walking in half an hour after we’d gotten home. “You really need to lock your door,” he murmured, then pressed a quick kiss to my neck.
“We do lock the door, I just unlocked it about five minutes ago because I knew you’d be here soon.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, and Kira nodded and pointed at him as she finished off her coffee.
“I agree,” she said, and dropped the empty cup on the table. “With our family, leaving the door unlocked for anything is probably a big no-no. Can you imagine how Dad would react if he showed up and found it open?”
“Exactly,” Liam continued. “A detective’s daughter should know better.”
I glanced at Kira and pursed my lips. I knew she was talking about the Juarez threats, which had only continued and multiplied as a few of the members of the crew had been released from prison, but Liam didn’t know a thing about it, nor did I want him to know.
I didn’t feel the need to worry him about threats that I doubted would find their way to California, and knew telling him would only cause him to become overly protective. Kira and I already had that with Dad and Uncle Mason, and now we hadn’t seen them or Mom for almost half a year because of their paranoia.
Kira’s eyes widened when she remembered that Liam didn’t know about Juarez, and she sent me an apologetic look.
“Yeah, sure. I won’t leave it unlocked anymore.” Looking up at Liam, I asked, “Happy?”
“Yep.”
“Good. As much as I love having you two gang up on me over an unlocked door, how about movie time?”
He started walking toward one of the couches with me, but came to a stop, then took a few steps back. “I left my candy in the car.”
“You brought candy?”
“Movie night means candy,” he answered simply.
I bit back a smile and held my hands up in surrender until he turned and jogged out of the condo.
Less than a minute later he was back, and as soon as he was inside he was yelling, “You didn’t lock the door.”
“You weren’t even gone for sixty seconds!” I yelled back, and narrowed my eyes when I caught sight of his amused expression. “You’re so—” My words caught in my throat, and I froze as I eyed the offensive boxes in his hand. “What the fuck is that?”
Liam seemed startled by my horrified question, and glanced around him for a few seconds before looking at the candy in his hand and holding it up to show me. “This? It’s Sour Patch Kids candy.”
“Oh my God,” Kira whispered, her voice expressing the same horror as mine.
“Yeah. Saw that. Why are they in our condo?”
“Well, shit, are you allergic to these too?” Liam asked quickly. “You need to tell me these things.”
“We’re not, but we might as well be!” I waved my hand at the boxes and made a gagging noise. “You need to get rid of those.”
“Fuck no, they’re my favorite.”
“Since when?” I asked dramatically, like Liam had just told me he had an incurable disease.
“Since always! What is your deal?”
“You need to get rid of them,” Kira repeated my earlier words.
“Tell me what’s wrong with them first!”
“ ‘Sour Patch’ is our dad’s nickname for Mom,” Kira explained. “They’ve never told us why, and we’ve never asked. But they eat Sour Patch Kids like they need them to breathe. Kennedy and I can’t stand them because of our parents—they gross us out.”
Liam’s lips turned up. “Seriously?” He dropped one of the boxes on the kitchen counter and walked toward us as he opened the other. “I’m sure you’ll get over it.”
My eyes and mouth widened. “You’re really going to eat them?”
“Yeah, Moon. And I’m gonna kiss you as soon as I’m done.”
“I will castrate you,” I swore, and his smile widened.
“That’s not nice.” As soon as Liam was sitting on the couch, I started walking over to sit near Kira on the love seat, but Liam grabbed me and pulled me back, so I was sitting on his lap. “Movie time, and you’re sitting with me.”
Kira laughed as she started up the movie.
“So you’re allergic to anything that comes from water,” Liam muttered, and tapped my nose before popping a couple pieces of candy in his mouth. “What about you, Kira?”