Our Parents Wed in June, So I Spent the Winter Claiming My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: My Boyfriend

The Safeway on Valentine's Day had a line of men with grocery-store roses that reached the dairy case.

Reeve and I stood in it with a basket holding two steaks, a bag of potatoes and a bottle of red.

His hand lay at the small of my back, under my coat, on bare skin above my waistband.

It had been there for ten minutes.

His thumb moved in a slow back-and-forth that made my knees unreliable.

"Stop that," I said.

"Make me."

"Reeve."

"I'm just standing here," he said, in his mild, answering-late voice.

His thumb slid a half inch lower.

The woman ahead of us in line turned around.

She was sixty, in a purple fleece, with a pharmacy bag on her arm.

She looked at Reeve's hand, and at my face, and she smiled the warmest smile.

"You must be Ray's son," she said. "I knew your mother."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And this must be the sister." She patted my arm. "Your brother's a good man, honey. Such a good man."

Heat went up my neck.

I felt Reeve go still behind me.

I felt his hand start to leave my back, out of habit.

I caught his wrist.

I held it against my skin.

"He's my boyfriend," I said.

The woman blinked.

Behind us, a man with roses made a small happy noise.

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