Page 157 of Undisputed Chaos
"Get off!" he protested, trying to escape while laughing. "Adrian, help! Your girlfriend's gone feral!"
Instead of helping, Adrian just watched us with obvious amusement, his expression soft.
When Crew finally broke free and immediately retaliated by trying to push me off the couch, Adrian's quiet laughter filled the room.
“So this is being bonded by blood,” he observed fondly.
"She started it," Crew accused, pointing at me while trying to fix his demolished hair.
"I always start it," I agreed cheerfully, settling back against the cushions. "That's what big sisters are for."
When the food arrived, we spread out across the coffee table like the world's most dysfunctional family dinner.
Adrian apparently ordered an extra spicy dish and secretly served it to Crew, which had him reaching for water within seconds.
"How do you eat this without dying?" Crew gasped, his eyes watering.
"Practice," Adrian said with a grin. "Builds character."
"It builds heartburn," I corrected, but I was laughing too.
Adrian finally handed Crew his actual non-spicy dish.
As we ate, he regaled us with increasingly dramatic retellings of the day's events, complete with sound effects and gestures that made Adrian snort with laughter.
"And then Connor just," Crew made a swift cutting motion withhis hand, "boom. Down they went. I swear to God, it was like something out of a movie."
"Connor doesn't mess around," Adrian agreed. "None of us do when it comes to family."
The word 'family' was warm and significant. Crew caught it too, his expression growing serious for a moment.
"Speaking of family," he said quietly, "we're not telling Mom and Dad about any of this, right?"
I shook my head immediately. "God, no. They'd freak out."
“And lock you in your room until you're thirty," Crew added with a grimace.
"They still think the biggest danger in my life is staying up too late playing video games."
I laughed, “They're good people, but they live in a different world. A safer world.”
I loved my parents, but this really wasn’t something we could just… share.
"A boring world," Crew muttered, then looked up at Adrian with curiosity. "Do Connor and Jax's families know?"
"Connor doesn't have family outside of us," Adrian answered. "And Jax's dad… He knows everything.”
He ended the line with a wink.
"Good thing we're good at keeping secrets," Crew grinned conspiratorially, giving me a meaningful look.
As the evening wore on, we settled in to watch a movie, some mindless comedy that let us decompress without having to think too hard.
Crew claimed the entire sectional, sprawling across it like a starfish, while I curled up against Adrian's side.
"Thank you," I whispered to Adrian during a particularly loudscene. "For everything. For saving him. For bringing him here. For... all of it."
His arm tightened around me, lips pressing against my hair. "Thank you for trusting me, angel.”
