I frowned, not understanding what he meant until I looked around and realized how they’d positioned themselves—Jaxson and Xander on either side of me, Colt directly across, all of them angled slightly toward me like some kind of human shield against the rest of the food court.
“We’re not being protective,” Colt denied, though the way his eyes tracked a group of college guys who were clearly checkingout our table suggested otherwise. “We’re being efficient with limited seating.”
“Mm-hmm,” Wei hummed, clearly unconvinced. “And I’m sure the death glares you’re sending to every male under thirty who looks this way are just your resting face.”
“That actually is his resting face,” Nico chimed in helpfully. “It’s the ‘I will organize your entire life and judge you for your sock choices’ look. Very effective for crowd control.”
Colt’s expression somehow managed to become even more judgmental. “At least I don’t look like I’ve been electrocuted,” he shot back, eyeing Nico’s perpetually disheveled hair. “Did you even brush that mess this morning?”
“It’s called style,” Nico defended, running a hand through his hair and somehow making it stand up even more. “Some of us don’t iron our t-shirts.”
“Some of us don’t want to look like we slept in a wind tunnel,” Colt countered.
“Children, please,” Jaxson intervened, though his lips were curved in amusement. “We’re in public.”
“Like that’s ever stopped them,” I muttered, earning a gentle squeeze on my shoulder from Jaxson that sent my pulse racing embarrassingly fast. That warm connection between us flared again, comforting and exciting all at once. Seriously, at this rate I was going to need cardiac medication before I hit twenty-five.
I was mid-laugh when I spotted them—the library stalkers. My personal trio of persistent admirers who always seemed to materialize whenever Bree and I were studying, finding excuses to sit at nearby tables and steal glances that they probably thought were subtle but had all the stealth of a fireworks display in a library.
“Oh God,” I muttered, instinctively shrinking in my seat. “Don’t look now, but my campus fan club just walked in.”
Of course, telling four overprotective brothers not to look was like telling a cat not to push things off tables. All heads swiveled in perfect unison toward the entrance where Ryan and his two sidekicks were scanning the food court.
“The guys by the pretzel stand?” Nico asked, actually putting down his game for once. “The ones who keep ‘accidentally’ dropping books near your table? Bro, they’re like your own personal stalker squad.”
“They’re not stalkers,” I hissed, though the pile of “accidentally” misplaced notes in my textbooks suggested otherwise. “Just… persistent. And annoying. And—crap, they’ve spotted me.”
Ryan’s face lit up with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for finding money on the sidewalk. He nudged his friends and started heading our way, his trajectory locked on me like a heat-seeking missile. Then his eyes shifted to Xander, and his steps faltered in confusion.
“Is that… Xander?” I heard him say to his friends, loud enough to carry to our table.
Xander’s head snapped up, his easygoing expression hardening as he recognized Ryan. “Great,” he muttered. “Just what we needed.”
“You know them?” Jaxson asked, his arm shifting behind me in a way that felt distinctly territorial. The air around us seemed to thicken, that strange warmth building between us as his protectiveness flared.
“Classmates,” Xander replied tersely. “Ryan’s in my Marketing Ethics seminar.”
Before anyone could say more, Ryan was at our table, his surprise at seeing Xander quickly masked by that confident smile that probably worked wonders on less discerning people than me.
“Lan! What are the odds?” he greeted me first, pointedly ignoring everyone else before giving Xander a casual nod. “Hey, Xander. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
The way he said it—like Xander was the interloper in this scenario—made something protective flare in my chest despite my irritation with my brothers’ earlier behavior.
“Ryan,” Xander acknowledged, his usually friendly tone distinctly cooler. “Small world.”
Ryan’s eyes darted between us, clearly trying to figure out the connection. “You two know each other?”
The confusion on his face would have been comical if it wasn’t so annoying. What, did he think he had some kind of exclusive rights to talk to me?
“Xander’s my brother,” I said before anyone else could answer, some perverse part of me enjoying the shock that spread across Ryan’s face.
“Your… brother?” Ryan’s eyes widened comically. “But you’re—” He gestured vaguely at my face, then at Xander’s, apparently trying to reconcile our different appearances.
“Stepbrother,” Wei clarified helpfully, his amused gaze flicking between Ryan’s stunned expression and the increasingly tense postures of my other brothers. “One of four, actually. The Spirit Magnet here collects them.”
I shot Wei a death glare that he completely ignored, his smile widening as if my discomfort was the highlight of his day. I’d have to remember to put something unpleasant in his coffee later.
Ryan’s friends had caught up now, flanking him like henchmen in a bad movie. The taller one—Jake or Jack or some equally forgettable name—leaned forward with renewed interest.