Neat (Becker Brothers, #2)

by Kandi Steiner

“That’s the point of reading it, Mallory — to find out.”

“You’re like a walking encyclopedia,” I commented. “Like, you know a little something about everything it seems.”

“It’s all useless, except for maybe a trivia night. But like I said, I love to learn, so I usually find myself deep in the rabbit hole of the Internet reading about some subject I didn’t even know existed before I stumbled upon it.”

I smiled, feeling completely surrounded by her. And in the next instant, my stomach dropped so violently I nearly puked. I shot up in bed, causing Dalí to scamper off much the way he did the night before. He hid under the couch as I had my heart attack, and I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling the hard pumping of the frantic organ beneath.

His eyes were glossy, lids heavy, and a permanent smile was fixed on his face — which, again, was rare, considering he smiled about as much as I left my bed unmade in the morning.

I’d have given anything to hear her laugh, see the crinkle of her nose as she shoved him off playfully, only to watch him go back to the room where my brothers and I were, all the love in the world in those eyes of hers.

On the inside, I was the loneliest I’d been in my entire life.

“I see the first woman to steal my heart, and the only woman I ever want to keep it.”