Page 172 of Love Thy Brother
I faced River’s concern. Met it head on. “Yeah. I don’t know what that dude has in his hands, but I’m brand new, baby.”
River kissed the tip of my nose. “New enough to do something really special?”
“Like what?”
“Like stand for your brother while he marries the love of his life.”
“Say what?”
River smirked and pointed over my shoulder.
I spun around. Embry stood behind me, flanked by Cam and his cousin Joe. In his hand, he held something that glittered as much as the gold in River’s ears.
A copper ring. Shiny and strange, dressed with a stone as amber as Mateo’s eyes, Spanish words engraved on the inside.
The penny dropped, along with my dumb-as-fuck jaw. “Wait. What? Is this real? You’re getting married?Now?”
Embry grinned a mile wide. “Fucking right I am, and I need someone to stand for me. Will you do that, brother?”
I opened my mouth. Shut it again. It made no sense that he was asking me when Cam was right there. WhenJoewas there. His blood. His family. “But why, Em? Why me?”
The others faded away as Embry drew me into a tight embrace. “Because you made me feel safe, Rubes. Without you, I’d never have been able to love him.”
* * *
Mats and Em got married under an ancient tree, dappled by the orange glow of the sunset.
If they’d been different dudes, I’d have wondered if they’d planned it that way, but as it was, it felt like fate. They’d fought so hard and suffered so much that Mother Nature owed them this perfect moment.
Cousin Joe spoke Romani only the Carters in the crowd understood.
Saint said nothing at all.
Me? I waited till it was over, then I gave them the truth. “I didn’t get to keep the brother I was given, but I’ll thank whoever for as long as I’m alive that I have the brothers I chose, and I’d choose you two crazy cats every fucking time.”
People laughed.
People cried.
I did both and it was all good.
After, Joe and Harry opened the bar in their wedding barn. I found a hay bale and some pizza and took it all in, sweeping my brothers until I settled on Cam and River and the easy humour between them. It had been a few months since Cam had eased back from the club. He was still around, but he’d been true to his word about trusting us to make decisions for him. At some point, I needed to tell him I’d sold every strip joint the club owned. That Nash had made a deal with Gianni Sambini about the drug trade in Porth Luck. But it could wait. Everything could if it made Cam smile like he was now.
You’d be grinning too if River was that close.
More than grinning, I’d be all over him. I’d left my bad mood in Harry’s clinic, but the heat funnelling through my veins remained.
I wanted him.
I loved him.
And fuck me, love was in the air tonight.
“Shove up.” Nash forced his way onto my hay bale. “What you got? The mushroom one?”
“Pepperoni, bro. Get your own.” I held my plate out of his reach.
Orla sharked me and swiped it anyway, and I wasn’t sad about it. “They’re so cute together.”
