“I’ll be all up in your faces, so get over it. Listen to me. I’ll direct you. There will be a lot of stopping and going and holding. You hear me?”

“Yes,” we said in unison.

“Well, let’s go. On the bed.”

I moved, shedding my robe as I went. Jay was there to take it, and he winked, leaning in close as he surveyed my exposed skin. My underwear were tight red briefs today, and Jay lingered on the bulge in the front.

“Such a tease,” he breathed by my ear. “I’d kill to be the one to have my hands on you.”

I didn’t respond.

Peeling back the sheets, I kneeled in the middle of the bed. It was then when I realized, Asher hadn’t moved.

Rigid, his haunted expression flipped from my near nakedness to the bed to Jay, who was the recipient of a curled-lip sneer.

“Get moving, lover boy.” Lewis waved a hand for Asher to join me.

He still didn’t respond.

Jay flipped his attention from me to Asher and back before raising a brow in a “What’s up?” questioning glance.

“Ash, come on.” I pleaded with my eyes.

Yeah, we’d made it weird and uncomfortable, but he couldn’t abandon me now.

His feet moved, but his expression didn’t change.

Jay bumped his shoulder, encouraging him to shed the robe. Asher handed it to him and joined me on the bed—far enough away, we might as well have been on different continents.

“Lovely. I’ve got pissy and irritable when I asked for sexy and fun.” Lewis shook his head and grabbed his camera like this was exactly what he’d been expecting since day one.

And I hated that we’d fallen into that trap.

“Dude, do not let him be right about us,” I hissed at Asher, ensuring no one else heard me.

He closed his eyes and cracked his neck side to side.

“Jay. Blankets,” Lewis said.

Jay picked up the mess of covers puddled at our knees and hung them around our lower halves. “Hold this over your shoulder.” He handed me a corner of the white sheet, twisting it around my body.

By the time he was finished, we looked well tangled.

“Okay. Give me something. Brotherly playfulness. Roughhousing. Anything.” Lewis had the camera at the ready.

I poked Asher, trying to entice him to goof around. He gave a half-hearted attempt, tickling my side and tugging me closer, but his expression failed to improve. His face was stuck in a perpetual state of indecision and guilt. It radiated out of his pores and filled the room. Everyone noticed.

I stepped up my game, wrestling with him like we did when we were kids, hooking an arm around his middle and taunting him. But no matter how much he play-fought back, he was stiff and unyielding.