“Fuck, that’s cold,” I hissed.
I looked up at the same time Justin and Sean looked at me. Sean took one glance at me and narrowed his eyes. He looked back to Justin who grinned at me in amusement.
“What’s with you two?” I asked.
Justin scratched the back of his head and fully smiled at me while Sean glared.
“Seriously, what?” I pressed.
Justin nodded to my chest; so I looked down to see what the big deal was. When I spotted what had both of the lads acting weird, I tensed and instantly held my hands up as I looked back up to Sean.
“Sean . . . Mate . . .”
Sean shook his head. “She’s twenty-five; I can’t say anything, but fuck, man . . . She’s my little sister.”
I looked back down to my chest and at the large red scratches across it that Neala had caused during the second round of sex last night, and decided to get them both seeing my back out of the way, because it hurt ten times more than my chest did. I held my breath and turned around.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Sean growled.
I turned back around and grimaced. “If it’s any consolation, they sting like fuck.”
Sean grunted. “Good. I’m glad it hurts, you bastard.”
I looked down and couldn’t help but grin.
When I looked back up to Sean he was looking past me. “Where is she?”
I jammed my thumb over my shoulder. “Bedroom.”
Both my brother and Sean shook their heads.
“I can’t believe this. You both really shagged?” Justin asked.
Sean looked like he was about to cry or be sick.
Possibly both.
I groaned, “What happened to saying Merry Christmas?”
“Merry Christmas,” they both said, and then Justin repeated, “Did you shag?”
I blushed slightly, then laughed in response, along with a one-shouldered shrug.
“This is the worst Christmas ever,” Sean grumbled.
I momentarily felt bad for him – he knew I’d had sex with his little sister. That must be a horrible thing to hear. I was impressed with his composure, though; Neala was everything to Sean, so I wondered how much restraint he was using to stop himself from beating me senseless.
I laughed at Sean and gestured them into the house. “Awkwardness aside, thanks for digging us out. I tried doing it two days ago and the fucking makeshift tunnel I made collapsed on me.”
Justin widened his eyes as he glanced to Sean, then back to me. “Fuck. Were you hurt?”
I grunted. “Only me pride, because Neala had to pull me out.”
Sean and Justin looked at one another, and after a moment they both burst into laughter.
Dickheads.
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. I was close to blacking out because I couldn’t breathe.”
That put a sock in the hyenas’ laughter.
“Fuck,” Justin muttered.
Sean nodded. “Glad you’re okay, man, but I’m sort of happy that you almost died. It makes me feel better about you and Neala . . . you know.”
Yeah, I knew.
I looked up at the sky and smiled. “I never thought I’d be this happy to see the sky. I don’t think we would have lasted much longer in there. The power cut out three days ago.”
Justin looked at me, his face frozen. “Was there anything for you both to eat?”
I shook my head. “My cooker is electric, so we had to eat beans and stuff, because everything I bought needed to be cooked. I’m out a couple of hundred quid this week already; all me food in the fridge is spoiled, so I have to buy everything fresh.”
Justin raked his hand through his hair, while Sean looked down at the shovel that was in his hand and twirled it around.
Odd.
“Was everyone affected like us?” I asked Justin, who looked perplexed. “You said you were snowed in too when I rang the other day.”
He gnawed on his lower lip. “Yeah, man, but it wasn’t as bad as you and Neala had it. Everyone helped out everyone else in the village, but it was . . . difficult to get up here with the roads being so bad.”
I nodded in understanding.
“Yeah, I bet it was bad . . . but it’s clear now?”
Sean and Justin nodded. They momentarily reminded me of robots.
“Yeah,” Sean said. “The council gritted the roads so they’re easier to drive on now.”
That was some good news.
I was about to tell my brother and Sean that, but I hesitated when I caught them exchanging glances. I looked down at myself to make sure I wasn’t sporting an awkward boner, but when I saw I was wood-free I looked back to the lads.
“What’s wrong with you both?”
Sean gnawed on his inner cheek. “Nothing, lad. I’m just wondering how you aren’t cold. I’m freezing me arse off here and I’m fully clothed. You’re in underpants and you aren’t even shivering.”
The cold was bothering me, but I was just stalling from moving away from the door, because as soon as they stepped inside my house it wasn’t just me and Neala anymore.
“His morning mattress dancing probably still has him warm,” Justin teased.
I was about to correct him, but I let his comment lie when Sean came at him with his shovel raised.
“I’m messing!” Justin screeched, and fell backward into a huge pile of snow.
I burst out laughing and so did Sean.
“No joking about sex when it involves me little sister, ever.”
Justin groaned as he got to his feet and brushed the snow from his clothes. “Noted.”
I held up my hands and nodded to Sean so he knew I’d got the memo. I mean, if he came at Justin and threatened him with a shovel for playfully teasing about sex with Neala, I’d hate to think what he’d do to me if I pissed him off for actually having sex with her.
It wouldn’t end well for me – that was for sure.
I looked behind me, and when I saw my bedroom door was still closed I gestured for the lads to come into my house.
“Come in; she’s still out,” I said.
I walked down the hallway to my sitting room and opened the door.
I smiled when light filled the room instead of darkness.
“I shovelled most of the snow and cleared it away from the glass – I was hoping to scare you if you were in here,” Justin said from behind me.
I entered my sitting room and laughed. “Cheers for that, you prick.”
The lads froze behind me as they looked through the door.
“You actually finished decorating?” Justin asked, more than surprised from the look on his face.
I smiled. “Not me – Neala.”
“Sounds like her.”
Sean commented.
I nodded.
He grimaced then. “So . . . what’s happening now with you both?”
My stomach dropped at the question, because I honestly had no idea.
“I guess we’ll go back to our old ways and do what we normally do – hate each other.”
I didn’t want it to be that way, but the Neala I knew wouldn’t let go of things so easily. We had had fifteen years of problems, and I just couldn’t see Neala forgetting about that after one night together.
Justin furrowed his eyebrows at me while Sean full-on glared.
I swallowed and blew out a breath. “I know it sounds harsh, trust me, I don’t want to say it, but when she wakes up and realises what’s happened she will go crazy.”
Sean stepped forward. “Realises what’s happened?”
Oh shite.
I’d worded that terribly.
“She knows what’s happened, last night . . . We were caught up in the moment. What I mean is that she’s gonna regret what we did. I know how she is, and the blame will, as usual, fall at my feet. It’s going to ruin what was said before the sex happened. It’s too good to be true.”
Justin frowned. “What was said?”
I scratched my neck. “We made friends, and called an indefinite truce on our bullshit. We were pretty happy last night, and then we necked down a lot of wine and, bam. Sex.”
It was weird now that I thought of it. I had drunk a fair amount of wine, and so had Neala, but we had both been sober. At most I’d probably felt a tiny bit tipsy, but I hadn’t even noticed it, so I can say for certain the drinking hadn’t made us lose control; we had done that all on our own.
Sean pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, man.”
I forced a smile. “Me too.”
Justin continued to frown at me. “Do you regret what happened between the pair of you?”
I was torn.
“I don’t regret making friends with Neala, but I do regret having sex with her. I mean, not the initial act but the impending aftermath . . . It was just a mistake. I can’t believe I thought it would actually be good for us and that it could be a step in a new direction. I was wrong. The best thing for us is just being platonic friends and—”
“And what?”
I froze, Justin froze, and even Sean froze.
The lads took a step away from one another and revealed a beautifully flushed Neala wrapped in my bed sheets. She was a thing of elegance, and just as I was about to smile at her I looked into her eyes, her hurt eyes, and my heart cracked.