Page 77 of Love Thy Brother
I loved and missed him so much I couldn’t look at him. So I didn’t. I focused on Embry’s slow breath beside me, then the scrape of his chair as he shoved it back and exited the room faster than Saint.
The door banged shut a second time.
Cam winced and turned to Mateo. “Is he okay?”
Mateo shrugged and snagged the joint from my greedy fingers. “He’s tired. There’s a lot going on.”
“With the house?”
“And the rest. We’re about to have another kid to worry about when a year ago we couldn’t get our shit together enough to just fucking love each other.”
Empathy warmed Cam’s gaze. “If you need help, just ask. Can’t say anyone but Decoy will be much help with a new baby, but we’ll try.”
“Speak for yourself.” I rapped my knuckles on the table. “I’m a fucking baby whisperer.”
Cam scoffed. “Nah, you’ve just got arms like pillows. Anyone would be comfortable laying on you.”
“Come take a nap then.” I spread my arms, beckoning Cam over. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
He gave me the finger, then sobered again. “All right. Seems to me we have two problems to deal with that ain’t related, so we need a fucking plan.”
“That’s my cue.” Decoy gathered his shit and rose. He never stayed for the nitty-gritty of the dodgy bits.
He hesitated at the door, though, and Alexei noticed.
“You have something to say?”
Decoy pursed his lips, conflict raging in his stoic eyes. “Not sure it’s my place.”
“You have a seat at the table,” I said. “That means you have a voice.”
Decoy clasped his hands in front of him, stance strict, every inch the soldier he’d once been. “This is more personal.”
“For me?”
“Maybe.” His gaze flickered to Cam. “What does River want to do? Last I heard he wasn’t supportive of the club interfering in his life. Even if that’s changed, making plans without him feels backwards.”
“Valid point,” Cam conceded. “But he’d rather fuck a cactus than take a seat at this table.”
Decoy nodded and exited the chapel, but he left behind a can of worms none of us had thought to open.
Alexei lit a cigarette and passed it to Cam, then he rose and ghosted closer to me, peering into my face as he perched on the edge of the table. “River came here with you, yes?”
“Yup.” Alexei hadn’t been in the room when I’d told Cam, but this dude missed nothing. “We had a discussion before we left about employing more technical tactics with the yuppies. He seemed into it, but I’m pretty sure he only came back here to make sure I ditched Cam’s pimp wagon.”
“Not to ditch you?”
“I don’t think so. He ain’t one for elaborate schemes.”
Alexei held my gaze a beat longer, then returned to a different chair to the one he’d left. There were still a lot of empty seats in the room, though. Plenty for Riv to choose from if pigs took up paragliding and he wanted to join us.
I fished out my phone to message him. Then remembered his handset was waterlogged and useless. “All right. I’ll go get him.”
By the window, Mateo waved his phone at me. “Em’s coming back. He can do it on the way.”
Nash whistled. “Sure about that? He didn’t seem in the mood for River’s bullshit today.”
“It’s not bullshit,” I snapped.
