Roll the Dice

twenty-two. brother abernathy

"Of course you do." After clearing my throat and allowing Dacey some time to laugh a little, I continued, a little more seriously, "But yeah. Dom's getting to know Carter right now." I shot Dacey another glance. "You know, he gave me the most annoying snort that I've ever heard when I asked him to be our inside man."

"Why?"

"I don't know!" I threw up my hands, feeling my cheeks warm up. Oh God. I hadn't even been talking about his face or anything. "I don't think he's ever been caught up in something so...girly in his life." I covered my face with my hands. "And it's totally humiliating that one of the only times I text him, it's for a matchmaking favor."

"It's all for a good cause." Dacey patted my back with the arm she already had around my neck heartily. I swore that my heart could feel the vibration from her thumping. "Don't worry about it. I bet Dom loves me. I mean, I'm his first friend who's also friends with you."

"What?" I squinted at her. That reminded me that I really needed to purchase myself a nice pair of Ray Bans someday. But again, I never was a fan of sunglasses on my own face. On the other hand, Dom looked the sexiest when he had a pair on his face...

"Hey!" a voice called from behind us. Instinctively, I ducked-and stopped for a second. Huh...I swore that it sounded vaguely familiar. Before I could turn around to inspect the person, a volleyball flew over Dacey's head.

Dacey let out the loudest squeal I'd ever heard-it probably had something with the fact that she was practically screaming in my ear-and dove away from me. What did she think she was doing? She wasn't in some minefield on a battlefield, which was a good thing for her.

I swore she was the most dramatic person I'd ever met sometimes.

Gingerly, I turned around, meeting a pair of sheepish cornflower blue eyes. I got up immediately. "Oh my gosh! Levi!"

Levi quirked up his eyebrows. "Hey, Lottie." He pointed behind me. "Could I have the volleyball back?"

I glanced behind him, where there was a group of people playing volleyball. Of course. However, they all looked a lot older than he was. I also caught sight of someone's blonde hair and a flash of blue eyes when he turned his head in my direction. I looked back to the kid, who looked more and more antsy by the second. In fact, he was looking everywhere but at me. "You're playing with them?"

Levi shook his head. "Nah, I'm just hanging with my brother. My mom didn't want him to leave me at home alone for, like, no reason."

I turned around and took the ball from Dacey, who raised her eyebrows. She had such a bad memory sometimes; I swore I told the story of how Evan blurted out that his brother had a thing for me at least a hundred times out of pure amusement. "Here you go," I said, handing over the ball to him.

Did I just catch him staring at my boobs? Well, it wasn't really his fault that I was in my favorite lavender bikini. I sighed, failing miserably at keeping my mouth straight. I really did want to give the kid a hug-he was adorable and so polite too, which was a nice plus. However, I didn't think he could...handle me. So I settled for ruffling his hair.

"Hey!" Levi ducked out from under my hand. Wow, he really was that much shorter than I was. (I wasn't even that tall!) Well, from his brother, I knew he'd have a growth spurt sometime. He was such a cutie.

I shook my head at him. "I don't know why you keep being so mean to me." Oh God, it was really, really hard to keep from bursting out into giggles now, especially with Dacey poking my ankle. "I mean, I've been nothing but nice."

"It's nothing personal," responded Levi, who turned another shade of red. Cue the aw in my head. He pointed behind him again. "Um, they're waiting for me."