Page 76 of The Broken Note

“It’s not a brain injury. It’s the honest freaking truth.”

“Did you propose that night?” Finn’s eyes glint in the sunlight. “The night you went over to her place?”

I nod.

“Huh.” He seems amused.

“How are you so calm about this?” Zane shrieks. “This idiot is talking aboutmarriage.Marriage! We’re barely eighteen.”

“It’s legal.”

“And she’s not.” Zane’s eyes narrow at me. “Have you thought of that? She’s seventeen.”

“In December—”

“It’s not December yet,” Zane huffs.

I don’t mind him cutting me off. His reaction is expected.

Finn studies me. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

“More? What more?” Zane squeezes his fingers over his temple and flops facedown in the couch. “I can’t take more.”

“Sit up. I need you paying attention for this.” I nudge him.

He snaps up, eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you check with me? I could have hooked you up.”

“Hooked me up with what?”

“You wanted a challenge? You wanted inexperienced and wide-eyed? Easy. I could have had a line of virgins banging your door down. No marriage proposal needed.”

“If the virgins are banging his door down, then it isn’t necessarily a challenge,” Finn points out.

“Are you cracking jokes? Right now? Seriously?”

“Not a joke. Merely an observation.”

“When one of us does something stupid, we call each other out. That’s what you did for me. Why the hell does he get a pass?”

“He said there’s more,” Finn says simply.

Zane sucks in a deep breath, closes his eyes, and sits back down. “This better be good, Dutch.”

I sit rigidly and run the words through my mind, wondering how I’ll deliver them. There’s no way to pretty this up.

Might as well tear off the band-aid.

“Gran left her fortune to one of us,” I admit.

“Did I hear that right? Did you say ‘one’?” Zane arches a brow.

“Just one.”

“Biological?” Finn asks quietly.

I glance over. There’s a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. The first crack in his armor I’ve seen.

“Don’t think so. The requirements are that the grandson is married and has a kid before a year is up. That’s it.”

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