Page 128 of Making Choices

“Okay, Cherub,” Toker scoffs. “You have dribble on your face.”

“Thank you, Bendy-dick,” I retort. After rubbing at my mouth, I angle my face for his inspection. “Did I get it all?”

“Yeah.” My cousin slings his arm over my shoulder and pulls me into his side. “Since when have you been a dribbler, anyhow?”

“Since Alex broke my nose again.” We step out into the morning sun together. Groaning in unison, we duck our heads. My lack of caffeine and the previous night’s partying hits me hard, but I try my best to rally. “Usually sleep with a mouth guard in to keep my airways open, but I forgot it last night.”

“Greened out, did ya?”

For some reason, my mind rebels at the idea of telling Toker that I slept in Slash’s bed, even though I’ve done it a dozen times before, so I settle on a lie of omission. “Yeah… got too stoned by far.”

“Hmmm, makes sense,” he murmurs in a tone that makes my hackles rise. “That must be why Slash has dried dribble on his shoulder and you’re walking around in the t-shirt he was wearing last night.”

I duck my nose inside the neckline of the t-shirt and inhale.

Spicy amber and labdanum.

The t-shirt I’m wearing is definitely Slash’s.

Unsure how to respond, I pretend that Toker’s comment doesn’t need an answer and head over to Hunter. He’s already laid out my things and loosened his hair from its customary man-bun. The sharp cheekbones and square jaw that I rake my eyes over are achingly familiar. Always enamoured with his big brother, the similarities between the Hudson siblings are becoming more pronounced as Hunter matures.

The main difference nowadays is their tattoos.

While Slash is sparsely tattooed, especially for a Shamrock, Hunter is covered. He got his first tattoo for his sixteenth birthday, and as Zeke put it at the time, he took the adage ‘go hard or go home’ to the extreme. The ink work he chose was audacious. A butterfly on his throat. Big, bold, and impossible to miss. While Crystal admonished Angelis for allowing it, I asked Hunter why he’d chosen that spot to start his body art.

At the time, his comment had made me want to weep.

Still does.

“This is the end of my chrysalis,” he told me. “Now that I’m done with school, I’m no longer hidin’ my difference… I’m gonna wear it, loud and proud. Fuck anyone who judges me.”

Knowing how much shit he’d copped all through high school for his Asperger’s made me want to go on a killing spree. Still, he’d sworn me to secrecy, determined as ever to manage his own life without his brother’s protection. As much as I’d hated it, I’d honoured his request.

Three years later, Christian Hudson is a living ink canvas.

Second only to Zeke, he’s now more tatted up than Cub.

As soon as I think about my adopted brother, he bursts out onto the back patio. Arms full of provisions, with Isaiah and Sander hot on his heels, he drops his haul onto the outdoor table, and then, after veering past me to brush a kiss over my cheek, he opens the barbeque lid and stoops low to turn on the gas bottle.

Smiling when he sees me watching him, I grin back at him.

A roar of excitement goes up, and I spin around to see what’s caused the commotion.

Nadia pushes a wheelchair bound Fret over the threshold.

My middle brother blinks in the bright sunlight.

I wave at him and he blows me a kiss.

As happy as I am to see him, I have a dozen questions about his decision to check himself out of the rehabilitation clinic again. His protests that it’s worthless don’t sit right with me, yet I know that pushing Fret is a losing tactic. Letting him ruminate after talking sense to him is the only way to get him to change his stubborn mind. It’s usually a slow process—one that I hope won’t set his recovery back too far.

Wyatt and Nate emerge out of the house with Delia’s three daughters in tow.

Delia and Crystal follow them.

Angelis, Gabriel, Hades, Uncle Duke, and Uncle Cass join us moments later.

The rest of our faction follows them.

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