“Come on.” I tip my chin.

Grabbing his shit, he stands and follows me toward the house, throwing an awkward good night to the others overhis shoulder. Xavi gapes at me, and I wink at him, earning a glare from Nate.Therehe is—my angry, hotheaded, possessive bastard of a friend.

When we get up to Adam’s room, I walk inside with him, glancing at all his stuff on the floor. I didn’t really need to escort him to bed. I just wanted to see it for myself, to see that it’s real.

He’s really here.

“This is it?” I ask. “This is all your stuff?”

He shrugs. “It’s just my clothes and books, mostly. I couldn’t exactly steal all the furniture in the flat and take it on the plane…” He trails off, wincing a little at the mention of the flat I know nothing about. I don’t know where it is, what it looks like, what floor it’s on, what his view looked like…I don’t know anything about his life in London.

“You haven’t unpacked.”

“I know.” He rubs the back of his neck, struggling to meet my eyes. “I was waiting for you. I wanted to know for sure that you were okay with it. That you were okay with me…living here…with y?—”

“When did you get so nervous around me?” I ask, studying his face for his reaction. “Is it because I hit you? Are you afraid of me now?”

“What? No.” He shakes his head. “That’s not why. I deserved it.”

“Yeah,” I say. “You did.”

He drops his gaze, shame and guilt and regret written all over his face. “Easton?—”

“Get some sleep, Adam,” I cut him off again, heading for the door.

“Hey, sunshine,” he calls, then curses himself as if he didn’t mean to say it, as if the words were out before he even knew they were coming. He recovers quickly though. Glancing around, he waves a hand at the TV. “Want to watch a movie with me?”

I pause a foot away from the door. He looks as if he’s bracing himself for rejection, but there’s hope too. Hope that what we had before isn’t lost forever. He wants to fix us, to mold our broken pieces back together until they resemble the old us, but I’m not about to make it easy for him. He’s going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than this.

I should walk out of here without a backward glance, but…Fuck. I don’t want to.

Grabbing the remote, I flop on his bed and make myself comfortable. He smiles, dipping his head to hide it as he crouches to dig out a pair of sweats from one of his bags. Facing away from me, he peels his shirt off, then hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his swim shorts, revealing the tight, round globes of his ass as he pulls them down, the brave little fucker. Though he’s not solittleanymore. His body looks different. Tighter. Harder than it was when we were eighteen. He’s leaner than me, but he could still take me if he wanted to. The thought of him doing so makes my dick perk up.

When he turns around, dressed in a pair of black sweats and nothing else, I don’t look away, shamelessly dragging my eyes up his body from his bare feet to full, pink lips. I don’t care that he catches me watching him. He already knew I was.

Unable to help myself, I reach out, tuck my fingers into his waistband, and yank him onto the bed on his knees. His hands shoot out, landing on my chest to steady himself, his dark hair falling over his eyes, heavy with exhaustion. Sitting up, I keep my hand where it is, my knuckles grazing the soft skin above his dick as I put my mouth near his ear. “You sure you know what you’re doing, little brother?”

He sucks in a breath, exhaling near my cheek.

Rather than waiting for a response, I shove him down on the bed beside me and lean back into the pillows, my legs crossed at the ankle as I find a movie for us to watch. He stares at theside of my face, saying nothing. He’s not an idiot. I’m sure he’s fully aware that every encounter we’ve had since I punched him in that bathroom the other night has been far fromfriendly. Far frombrotherly. This is never going to work out the way he hopes it will. We’re too far gone for that. But if he wants to play pretend, I’ll let him play. For now.

Hitting play on the movie, I set the remote on my lap and link my fingers on my stomach. Adam grabs one of the several throw pillows behind us, turns on his side to face me, and cuddles it to his chest. Despite his best efforts to stay awake, his eyes begin to drift shut, and he falls asleep in under ten minutes, just like I knew he would.

CHAPTER 10

ADAM

This motherfucker.

Opening the door to my new walk-in wardrobe, I huff and put my hands on my hips. I knew it.

There’s a certain way I like my clothes to be lined up. Trousers on the left, shirts in the middle, hoodies and jackets on the right—the order I get dressed in. It’s just common sense. And it looks nice. Neat. Organized.

Easton, the bastard, knew exactly what he was doing when he put my things away for me while I was sleeping last night. My clothes have been hung up with no thought or system to it at all, and my shoes have just been thrown in together at the bottom.

Shaking my head, I crouch and organize them properly before working on my clothes. He even turned a few of my hoodies inside out.

“Very fucking funny, asshole,” I grumble.