Her Sexiest Mistake

Kevin heard the front door slam as Mia Appleby exited his fantasy life. Sounded about right.

Now back to his regularly scheduled program- reality. Mike still stood in the doorway, hair practically singed from Mia's fiery exit. He raised a brow and a questioning shoulder at Kevin.

Kevin shook his head and looked around him. His new house was a fixer-upper, a kind term, really, given all that needed to be done to it. But the property had been just his price-cheap. He figured he could rework one room at a time, at his own pace.

There were still boxes scattered around from the move, which he was ignoring because he didn't have the time for them right now. Passing the tousled bed where he'd just had some off-the-charts, mind-blowing sex, he stripped off his jeans, then stubbed his toe on a box. 'Goddamnit.' In the bathroom, he cranked on the water. When he turned around, Mike was right there in his face. 'Jesus, wear a bell, would ya?' He adjusted the water to his preferred Temperature-scalding.

Mike merely smiled.

'I'm not kidding,' Kevin said. 'You ever think about knocking?'

For that, he received another shrug of the shoulder, but seeing not-so-hidden misery in his younger brother's eyes, Kevin didn't step into the water. His brother was twenty-seven, a supposed grown-up, but that didn't compute quite the same as it did with other people because Mike was different. Special.

Deaf.

What's the matter? Kevin signed with his hands instead of speaking because Mike preferred that.

Nothing, Mike signed back.

Nothing, hell, but experience had taught Kevin that pushing Mike was like pushing a brick wall.

A big fat old waste of time.

Mike was smart as hell, his IQ off the charts. But as with certain kinds of genius, it was almost too much. Like his brain couldn't handle all the extras it'd been dealt. He pretended to be normal, and for long periods pulled it off, but then those odd little self-destructive tendencies would pop out, making it impossible to keep a job, a woman, friends.

But Kevin knew the bittersweet truth: he himself had made it too easy for his brother. He'd cleaned up too many messes, made too many excuses, and now Mike was what he was. A spoiled kid in a man's body.

The babe, Mike signed. She was a pistol.

A spoiled kid in a man's body, with a man's appetite. No, she was a tornado, Kevin signed back. Blew in and blew out.

Mike grinned. I like the blow part.

Get your mind out of the gutter, you perv.

Mike waggled an eyebrow. You had a good time.

Yeah, but she's not my type.

Mike laughed, a low, dull-toned sound that could have been mistaken for a cough. Could have fooled me.

But Mia wasn't Kevin's usual type. He liked soft women who laughed easily and loved hard. He liked women with causes to champion, who gave their heart one-hundred-percent, every single time.

Mia Appleby didn't fit the profile. Sharp, edgy, tough as nails, cool as cream-definitely. But soft and fast to laugh? Probably not. And he doubted she'd ever let her heart go with ease, and yet in bed… yeah, she'd done it for him there. But then she'd woken up, panicked that she'd stayed all night, and taken it out on him.

Bad in bed.

Bullshit. She was running scared.

Mike was still watching him. She's pretty.

Yeah, like a rose-with-hidden-thorns pretty. Like a sleeping-tiger-with-sharp-claws pretty. You think they're all pretty.

Mike agreed with a nod. So your big dry spell's over. You finally got yourself laid again… and then what? dumped? All within the same twenty-four hours. That's a record, even for you, huh?

Kevin gave him a very universal sign that involved only his middle finger, then got into the shower. Over the roar of the water he heard Mike's toneless but unmistakable laugh.

Fine. Let him laugh. It was the truth. Between getting Mike off the streets and trying to keep the local teen center open and available for the kids who needed it, and between teaching, moving, buying this damn house, Kevin's sex life had suffered. Actually, it'd died a slow, painful death.

Mike cracked the shower door. Can I borrow fifty? He smiled hopefully. You could just tack it onto what I already owe you.

You already owe me a bazillion dollars.

Mike gave him sad puppy-dog eyes and Kevin sighed. Here was the problem. He'd established himself as the Go To. When Kevin's father had died and then his mom remarried, Mike came along pretty quickly. But when Mike's father turned out to be not just an asshole but an abusive asshole, Kevin turned into the Go To not only for his mom, but his new kid brother, too.

That he'd not been fast enough, that at age two Mike had lost his hearing due to a blow to the head by said asshole while a five-year-old Kevin watched, made it much harder to turn Mike down when he needed something. Like now. I've got forty bucks in my wallet. Take it.

I'm going to get that job next week, Mike signed. You'll see.

Kevin wouldn't be holding his breath. For the past three years, Kevin had taught high school science and coached basketball in Santa Barbara, and Mike had happily fit right in to the heavy party college scene there and found trouble nightly. When he'd slept with the much older wife of a cop and then been arrested for a bar brawl with said cop, Kevin knew it was time to leave town. Now they were back where they'd grown up, in Glendale Hills, with the first day of summer school starting in an hour. In the fall, he'd add chemistry and more coaching to the itinerary. He just hoped the familiarity would give Mike a sense of balance, of security. Mostly he hoped Mike would grow up.

Kevin took his time getting ready. The one blessing of summer school: a later start than during the regular school year. He didn't have to be in the classroom until nine forty-five.

By the time he was dressed and walked through the house, Mike was gone. More, he suspected, from the need to put distance between them so that Kevin couldn't press for details on what was wrong, rather than Mike wanting to give Kevin any privacy.

Mike had no sense of privacy. For him, everything was out there, on his sleeve, to be accepted or not, no big deal either way.

People loved that about Mike, people being women. Yeah, unbelievably, given the difficulties in communicating, Mike, the jobless, directionless, happy-go-lucky bum, was a chick magnet.