Page 64 of The Getaway Guy
Quinley paused at the door, held his gaze with all the stubbornness and fire she possessed. “I’ve never signed a noncompete, so…I absolutely can.”
ChapterTwenty
Cole entered the apartment’s living room before Elias came to his senses and had a chance to change the show.
“Hey, E, where’d you— Are you watchingGilmore Girls?”
Elias bit back a groan and turned his head to find Cole looking a little too knowing as he stood in the shadowed stairwell leading from the lower level.
The garage was located next to Brooks and Allie’s home, and upon their arrival, Brooks had quickly joined them. The three of them had been there for all of fifteen minutes when Alec arrived. And then Dawson. Then Finn. Hudson rolled in next, and Gage was the last, until all eight brothers filled the lower level where one side of the garage was used for work and the other for fun.
They’d kept their mouths shut about the media and Quinley—a miracle for them—and played a few rounds of pool, drank, roasted each other and surveyed the old Willy’s Jeep Brooks was currently rebuilding.
And then he noted the looks being shot his direction by fourteeneyes, and since it felt like the tide was about to turn, Elias pretended to head to the bathroom and bolted upstairs to the apartment Cole used while their Aunt Rose traveled. His brother had been fixing things up while there and hoped to finish before he and Ana married and he moved into her house.
Five minutes later, Cole found him.
“That’s one of Ana’s comfort shows,” Cole said, leaving the doorway. “She and Quinley used to watch it together, I guess.”
Cole settled into the recliner closest to him, and Elias felt his entire body tense up.
“Crazy as it seems, she’s got me watching it now. Said it was a requirement if I’m going to marry her.” Cole grinned, and his voice lowered. “We made a deal that benefits both of us.”
A grunt left Elias at the statement, well able to imagine what that deal might have involved.
“You know you can talk about it,” his brother continued. “Her. If you want to.”
“If I wanted to, I’d still be downstairs,” Elias said, taking a long pull from the bottle he held. “When’s dinner?”
Elias attempted to ignore Brooks’s big head and matching body thumping up the stairs and into the living area. He grabbed the second recliner just as Dawson appeared.
Okay then, apparently they were doing this. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said loudly so that the rest of his brothers filing up the stairs could hear. “Go back to what you were doing.”
One by one, they all sprawled out, Dawson by Elias on the couch, Finn on the floor, Alec took over the lone kitchen barstool, and goofball that he was, Hudson sat on the arm of Brooks’s recliner like he used to do as a kid when they’d share a chair and play video games. And Brooks let him.
And then they all stared at him. Elias turned off the television before he exhaled the lung-gushing breath. “Nothing happened between me and Quinley.”
“Not what we heard,” Brooks shot back, the words followed by a wide grin.
Elias glared at Cole, who tried not to look guilty.
“Nothing you say goes out of this room,” Dawson said next.
“Nothing happened,” Elias said again. Then, “She jumped into the limo, then couldn’t stay at her parents’ house in Asheville, so she stayed with me at the cabin. End of story.”
“It’s on the news,” Hud said, both hands laced behind his head to keep it propped up since Brooks had the footrest kicked out and the seat leaned back. “The video and pictures of the two of you at that gas station on your way back went viral. Everyone knows you were still together a week later.”
Elias grimaced. “People are going to gossip no matter what.”
“Thinking you helped out a runaway bride is one thing,” Dawson said in a low tone. “Knowing she ran away and was still with you a week later raises a lot ofotherquestions.”
“She had nowhere to go,” Elias growled. “No money, no ID. The cabin was safe.Shewas safe staying with me. Any one of you would’ve done the same thing.”
“No one’s arguing that,” Alec said.
“Yeah, we just want to know about the kissing part.”
Brooks’s words and grin made Elias want to slam his fist in his brother’s face. Fourteen eyes. Seven full-grown men staring at him. “I didn’t kiss her.”
