Page 11 of Love Thy Brother
The chapel door opened. My brother came out, Nash at his side, the chaplain behind them.
It was quite the fucking reception. “What did I do? Score a ten bag from the wrong hopper?”
Cam scowled. “You’re still banging that shit up your nose?”
“Still killing people for funsies?”
Nothing about my brother’s life was fun, except maybe his sexcapades. But if I hurt him, I didn’t see it. I’d already dragged my shitty attitude towards the pretty biker behind him.
Embry. My lip curled of its own accord. Dude was not my favourite brother. How could he be when he’d spent more nights with Rubi in his bed than I had?
They aren’t fucking.
I’d never asked; I just knew it. But somehow the sight of Embry Carter made me want to light shit on fire and I’d never been able to hide it.
Not that I tried that hard.
I glowered at the good father, younger than me with his electric eyes.
He smiled back and walked on by, crossing the yard to a woman I didn’t recognise.
Cunt.
Like Cam heard my unreasonable thoughts, he expelled a grumpy breath. “Do you have to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Throw shade at people who’ve done fuck all wrong to you.”
“I didn’t throw anything. If he doesn’t want to make small talk with me, that’s on him.”
Cam had more to say, I could tell, but he was better at being a grown up than I was. He forced the frown from his face and pulled me into a bear hug. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
I let him squeeze the life out of me before I shoved him away. “Alexei didn’t give me much choice.”
Cam’s frown returned. “You weren’t picking up for the rest of us.”
“You could’ve come to me. You know I hate this place.”
“It’s safe here.”
“Since when? You got roofied and shot here. Your brothers got gassed. Even pretty boy took a knife to the gut.”
Cam paled, jaw ticking hard. Beside him, Nash sent me a subtle headshake, but it was lost on me. If living this life messed with Cam’s mental health, so be it. Seeing him bleed was an arrow to my heart, but pretending devils were fucking unicorns helped no one.
I waited for Cam to come back from wherever my vicious mouth had sent him, unsurprised that Saint emerged from the chapel, omniscient as ever. When he’d first come here and I’d realised he knew every man better than they knew themselves, I’d asked him if knowingall the thingswas tiring. It took him three days to respond. By then, I’d forgotten I asked, but his answer stayed with me.
“It’s not the knowing that’s tiring. It’s the noise.”
My head was noisy too, but for less clever reasons. Less telepathy, more pointless chaos. Though, sometimes it was a blessing. Like now. Anyone else put that look on Cam’s face, they’d eat dirt before they took their next breath. Not me. For whatever reason, Saint gave me more rope than I deserved.
Cam inhaled. Reached out and gripped my wrist. “Come inside.”
He meant the chapel. A bitter refusal burned my throat, and the urge to jam my helmet back on and roar away was strong. But the pull in my chest, in my fuckingsoul, was stronger.
Rubi.
He was so close.
