Page 142 of Love Thy Brother
“Can we push it a day?” Nash asked. “So we’re around if there’s blowback from all this and the other shit?”
Cam shook his head. “We’ve pushed it once already. When Mateo’s rig broke down on the M1 last month. If we mess up this time, we’ll lose the contract, and we can’t afford that right now. Not with diesel prices going up.”
I knew that. Iknewit. But Mother of fuckingDragons. All I wanted was a hot meal, a nap, and a week in bed with River without the end of the world hanging over us. Why did life have to do me like this?
“Come on.” Nash knocked a light slug to my shoulder. The first friendly contact we’d had in weeks. “At least Riv’s where you need him to be.”
He wheeled off to his bike before I could answer.
We mounted up and rode out, hitting the road hard and fast, making the half-hour trip in twenty minutes. Along the way, we’d lost Alexei, but Cam didn’t seem surprised. “He’ll be back.”
I grunted and stomped away to find River.
He was in the bar, gazing at the old photographs on the wall. His parents. Mine.
Lark.
Some days I couldn’t look at my forever-eleven little brother, but I did now. Just for a moment, before River reeled me in.
He had soot on his face and a lollipop jammed in his mouth.
I rubbed the soot off with my thumb and kissed his cherry-scented lips. “How’re you doing?”
River’s half-smile was tired. “Better now you’re here. Locke helped me with loads of shit, though. I’m sorry I was a dick about him and Folk.”
“You haven’t been around to get to know them. Mats wanted to poison their food the first few months they were here.”
River slipped the lolly back into his mouth. “Sounds like him. I’d have probably passed him the ricin if I’d been here, but I’d have been wrong. Locke has a sweet soul. Like Nash.”
I could still feel Nash’s light punch to my arm. Not because he’d hit me hard, but because it was a slow-healing wound.You fucked up. He reacted. Let it go.“I know. I meant it when I said I’d talk to him.”
“When?”
A wave of ornery sulkiness washed over me. “Today. Tomorrow. Doesn’t matter. I’m gonna be stuck in a lorry cab with him for the next seventy-two hours.”
River’s weary eyes widened. “Huh? Why?”
“Haulage run. Deeks and Mats are on daddy duty, so I need to drive to the North Pole and back with my blond Father Christmas.”
Well. Newcastle. But as far as my aching heart was concerned, it may as well have been another fucking planet.
River yawned into a slow blink. “That sucks donkey balls. When are you leaving?”
“A couple of hours. I need to shower, eat, and catch a nap, when all I want to do is take you home and do every little thing we talked about earlier.”
“None of it was little, boo.” River turned away from the family archives and slid his arms around my waist. “I’m worried about you driving, though. We’ve been awake for hours.”
“I know.” I was worried about it too, but in my peripheral, I saw Nash already stretched out and snoring on a bar sofa, easing my concern. He’d drive first because he was the best friend a man could ever have.
I took River’s hand. “Come upstairs with me?”
He didn’t argue, and I towed him up the stairs to Mateo’s draughty old room, spying Embry crashed out in the one across the hall.
I’d left a packed bag under Mateo’s bed—nothing major, just pants and a toothbrush.
I dug it out. It rattled. Confused, I unzipped it to find the pill bottle River had given me weeks ago, courtesy of my favourite Russian. I didn’t have a migraine right now, but the sight of them made my head throb anyway.
Fuck them. I took the bottle to the bathroom down the hall, noting it was spotlessly clean for once, and tipped the pills down the sink, running the tap until every trace of them was gone.
