Pleased with her ninja-like escape skills, Remi jumped the last three feet, landing in the flowerbed between a petite Japanese maple and a clump of ornamental grass. When she took a step back, she came up against something warm, hard, and leafless.
When two hands closed around her arms from behind, she spun around and assumed the ball-kicking position.
“Easy, trouble,” came a low, familiar chuckle.
“Holy Billie Holiday, Brick!” She stomped her foot in the mulch. “You scared the hell out of me. I thought the landscaping grew arms!”
Silhouetted by streetlights, he made quite the hulking shadow.
“Good,” he said. “Get back upstairs.”
“You have got to be kidding me. No! What are you even doing here?”
“Keeping you out of trouble,” he said, crossing his very large arms over his massive chest and peering down at her.
“Well, what’s the fun in that?” she scoffed, refusing to be intimidated.
In the year that she’d known him and his brother, Remi had learned his secret. The man might have been built like a sequoia and had the conversational skills of a brick wall, but Brick was a teddy bear underneath. An extra-large one.
“I’m serious. Get your ass back up to your room and stay there.”
“Maybe you’re in charge of Spencer, but you have no authority here, Brick Callan,” she said, drilling a finger into his chest.
“You have no business going to Round Island to party, Remi Ford.”
Even though she was busy spitting fire, she sure liked how he said her name.
“My business is none of your business. Besides, Spencer’s going! He’s waiting for me.”
“No, he’s not. He’s sitting in front of the TV pouting because he’s grounded. Just like you will be if you don’t get your ass back up into that room. Now.”
There was something positively delicious about the way he gave her orders. Not that she had any intention of following them. But still, some previously undiscovered part of her felt like it was waking up for the first time. “Or what?”
She could have imagined the growl she heard rumbling in his chest.
“You’re a smart girl, right?” he whispered finally.
Remi narrowed her eyes at the man. She smelled a set-up. “Get to the point.”
“What kind of ‘work thing’ do you think your mom has going on tonight? Do you think it’s a coincidence that she’s running logistics on some secret operation the same night Eleanora Reedbottom decides to trespass on federal property to host an underage drinking party?”
She gasped. “How did you find out about the party?”
“Because Eleanora Reedbottom has a big fucking mouth. And so does my stupid little brother. He also doesn’t have your skill with lies.”
She gave a little curtsy. “Thank you.”
“Not a compliment, Remi.”
“I’m taking it as one anyway,” she said with a shrug.
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were in the throes of a migraine.
“You ever get your head checked? Seems like you get an unnatural amount of headaches.”
“Only when I talk to you,” he shot back.
She wrinkled her nose. “Mean. Can I at least come over and hang out with you and Spence?”
“You’re already grounded. I’m not busting the chief’s daughter out of her house. That’s illegal on a whole lot of different levels.”
“You’re no fun.”
“So I’ve been told. By you. Repeatedly.”
She wasn’t ready to climb back up the trellis just yet. This was the most number of words Brick had strung together around her, and she didn’t want to waste the conversation. “You could have just let me go and get caught,” she mused.
“I could have,” he agreed.
She tapped a finger to her chin and studied him in the dark. “You came swooping in to save me from having my own mom arrest me.”
“I pity the idiot who has to arrest you the first time.”
“There you go again with the compliments. You like me. You don’t want me to get arrested,” she sang.
He winced in the dark before recovering his flat expression.
“I didn’t mean that as a shot against your dad, and you know it. Lots of people get arrested. Pretty sure I’m gonna be one of them at some point. Lots of people go to jail. Doesn’t mean they’re bad people.”
He was back to pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s exactly what it means.”
“Is it exhausting seeing everything in black and white? Don’t you have any room for any other colors?”
“Right is right. Wrong is wrong. Now, don’t make me regret sparing your mother from having to handcuff you and send you off to military school.”
“She knows better than that. I’d burn it to the ground and lead a rebellion within my first forty-eight hours. Hey, so how’s your grandma doing?”
“Stop stalling,” he ordered, putting his hands on his hips and staring down at the toes of his boots.
She waited, staring at him until he cracked. “She’s fine. The surgery went well. She’ll be home later this week.”
“Good. Maybe I’ll make her a pie.”
“Fine. You can give it to your sister to deliver since you’re grounded.”
“You are infuriating!”
“Right back at ya, baby. Now climb.” He pointed toward the porch roof. “Or I’ll march you through the front door and deliver you to your dad.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
Realizing she wasn’t going to get past the Wall of Good Time Ruining, she accepted temporary defeat in the battle to save the war. “Fine, fun police.” She climbed up onto the edge of the porch and reached for the trellis.
“Good girl,” he said.
Good girl.
The way he said it, with that rough edge, gave her a delicious, full-body shiver. She wanted him to say it again. She wanted to make him say it again.
“Oh, Trouble?”
She paused mid-climb and glanced down at him, the mountain of a man waiting in the shadows to catch her if she fell.
“Don’t wear those shorts again.”
“Why not?”
“You know why and because I said so.”
It was her least favorite reason. Remi let out a growl and released her hold with one hand to flip him the bird.
His soft laugh followed her back up onto the roof and in through her window.
She waited ten whole minutes, practically a lifetime, before her second attempt.
“Still here,” came the gruff whisper.
She peeked over the edge of the roof. “Damn it, Brick.”
He edged closer to the porch. “You’re gonna fall and break that face, and then I’m going to be pissed.”
“I’m not going to the island. I’m supposed to meet Audrey at the dock. I don’t want her to get in trouble.”
“Then call her,” he said dryly. Brick crossed his arms again and looked as immovable as an oak tree.
“I can’t. We decided not to take our phones.”
“Why?”
“Well, if you must know, nosy. If anyone’s parents or annoying big brother called, we could say we forgot our phones.”