Rafe didn’t care that Adam was behind the wheel or that he’d driven in from Seattle to help with fixing up the house. He was never going to let anyone get away with talking about Brooke like she was just some tramp he was screwing around with for a little while.
Rafe clamped his hand around Adam’s throat. "I said to be careful."
His brother lifted one hand from the wheel as if it were a white flag, and Rafe slowly slid his own away from his brother’s windpipe.
"Jesus, you know I like her." Adam rubbed his throat and coughed, wincing as he swallowed. "She was a cute kid and now she’s—" He cut himself off before Rafe could come at him again for saying the wrong thing. "Definitely not a kid anymore." Adam paused before asking, "You sure messing around with the girl next door is a good idea?"
Rafe was anything but sure. Which was why he answered his brother’s question with a question of his own: "If you were in my position, could you walk away from her?"
Adam pulled into the parking lot of the local hardware store. "There’s no point in bothering to answer that. She’s only ever wanted you." With that, he headed in to check through the store’s selection of flooring as if his brother hadn’t just been strangling him over a pretty girl five minutes earlier.
* * *
Brooke and Mia were both bent over paint cans in the living room, opening up the perfect shade of blue that Mia had brought with her. Rafe and Adam were at the hardware store, and it was the first time they’d been alone, just the girls, since Mia had arrived the night before.
"Remember that time we got into the paint in my parents’ basement and drew pictures on the walls?"
Brooke laughed as she shook her head at the memory of what naughty little girls they’d once been. "I still can’t believe Claudia and Max were so nice about it. Instead of yelling at us and making us clean it all up, your parents even added to our drawing and then asked my grandparents if they wanted to paint with us, too."
Brooke stirred the paint with a long wooden stick, then carefully poured it into a clean plastic tray. The two of them had been good enough friends that Brooke was more than a little surprised that Mia hadn’t brought up Rafe yet. Mia had never been the kind of person to hold things in, something Brooke had always envied about her. Envied, and was trying to emulate more and more.
Which was why she decided to break the ice by saying, "When we were friends as kids, we were never quite old enough to talk much about boys."
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Mia’s brush still where she was painting the trim along the ceiling. "We didn’t need to talk about it for me to know that you had a crush on Rafe."
Brooke felt a flush creep into her cheeks. But she had to do more than be brave enough to bring up Rafe with Mia, she had to follow through with the rest of the discussion...wherever it led.
She put down her roller and admitted, "My crush never went away."
Mia laid her brush down, too, and climbed halfway down the ladder. "He obviously seems to feel the same way."
From the look on her friend’s face, Brooke prompted, "But?"Mia sighed. "I love my brother, even though I want to punch him sometimes. You’ve probably noticed he’s changed since we were kids."
Brooke nodded. "He told me a little about the work he does as an investigator. I can’t imagine how awful it must be to catch that many people cheating on their marriages."
"Wow," Mia said, "I can’t believe he even told you that. He never talks about work. Not even with us." Her worried expression fell away, to be replaced by a wide smile. "Then again, you’re not like any of the other women he’s been with."
"We haven’t exactly—" Brooke cut herself off as she realized they actually had, at least on her end, last night in the linen closet. She let out a strangled laugh. "Is this conversation as awkward for you as it is for me?"
Mia laughed and said, "The really awkward thing would be if you started giving me the dirty details."
"No," Brooke promised, "I swear I’m not going to do that. Ever."
"Not that you’ve asked for my blessing," Mia said, "but I want you to know that you have it. Although there is one condition. Well, two, actually."
Knowing how close Rafe and his sister were, Brooke felt her heart thudding in her chest as she asked, "What are they?"
"One," Mia said as she held up her index finger, "don’t ever lie to Rafe or cheat on him. I can’t think of anything that would break my brother as fast as that would."
"I would never do those things," Brooke immediately protested.
"I know that, but I wouldn’t be doing my sisterly duty if I didn’t say it. So don’t be mad at me, okay?"
"Of course I’m not mad at you," Brooke reassured her old friend.
"Good, because the second condition has to do with your forgiving nature."
Brooke raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"You know how guys are kind of clueless and they sometimes screw stuff up without meaning to? Especially when they get scared about things moving too fast or being too good?"
"You’re the one with four older brothers, so I’m not going to doubt that you’re right."
"If he screws up—"
Brooke cut Mia off. "Honestly, there’s hardly anything to screw up yet."