Free Kissing Kendall by Jennifer Shirk

Brad.
    And more importantly, what exactly she was going to do about them.
    …
    What the hell had he been doing?
    It had been over twenty-four hours, yet Brad was still mentally berating himself for touching Kendall. Dammit, he was a fool. He’d told himself he only wanted to comfort her, but once he’d held her in his arms and smelled her sweet scent something overtook him. And then Dee had walked in. Who knows what he might have done if she hadn’t.
    He knew.
    God help him, he would have kissed her. Even worse, Kendall might have kissed him back. Although she gave him no indication of what she wanted, made no movement toward or away from him, he could tell she was caught off guard by the moment as well. Only, if she’d given in to the kiss, she might have regretted it later. And that was something he wouldn’t have been able to deal with well.
    Brad walked up to Walt and Georgie’s house and was immediately jarred from any further thought of Kendall when his sister opened the door and began bombarding him with questions. He took a small amount of comfort in the fact that they were at least questions he could handle for once, since they weren’t about his love life—or lack thereof.
    “They’re throwing me a shower, right?” Georgie blurted, worrying her lip. She grabbed the front of his jacket and twisted it in her grip. “I mean, they have to because they’re my best friends. Right? Right ?”
    Brad held up his hands in surrender, hoping she wouldn’t see through his lie. “Georgie, I may be your brother, but I’m still a man. I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about any baby shower.”
    His sister looked crushed. He was tempted to tell her the truth—to put them both out of their misery—but Dee and Kendall had already sworn him to secrecy, and he knew it would be much worse to get on those two women’s hit list than it would be to get on just his sister’s.
    Brad brushed Georgie’s hands away and tried to sidestep her, but she blocked the door with her arm, looking ready to try a different interrogation tactic. Luckily, Walt appeared at her side and affectionately threw his arm around his wife’s shoulders.
    “Let’s give it a break for five minutes, okay?” he said to his wife in a calming tone. “Besides, do you honestly think your brother would give you that kind of information even if he had it?”
    Georgie stuck out her bottom lip. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But you’re not giving me any information either. I can’t take it anymore. I’m dying to know!”
    “You’re not supposed to know,” Walt told her, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “That’s why they call it a surprise.”
    Georgie’s face brightened. “Aha! So they are throwing me a shower! I knew it! You better tell them to get a move on, then. They don’t have much time—my pregnant intuition is telling me that this baby is coming early, and I need all my stuff before that happens.”
    Brad rolled his eyes. “Well done, detective. Now can I come in?”
    Walt chuckled, gently prying Georgie away from the door. “Sure, man,” he said, sticking out his hand to greet him. “Glad for the company. I shouldn’t be the only one who has to sit through one of Georgie’s home-cooked dinners.”
    Georgie swatted her husband in the arm. “Hey, I’m still learning.”
    Brad frequently came to their house for dinner on Sunday nights even though his sister wasn’t much of a cook. Since her pregnancy, she’d gotten interested in learning how to make meals for her growing family, and since Brad rarely cooked, he was the perfect guinea pig for her.
    “And if you don’t want our child to starve to death, you’ll try to be a little more encouraging,” Georgie told her husband.
    “Our child won’t starve,” Walt said with a wry smile. “I’m actually a very good cook, if you remember.”
    “But what if something happens to you?” she said, her green eyes widening. “What if you’re working or sick or