Page 5 of Love Thy Brother
An unwelcome crescendo crashed into me. I screwed an eye shut, rubbing my temple. A split-second reaction to a lifetime of fucking pain. At least, it felt that way. This bastard had been ruining my beauty sleep since the witching hour.
“Oi. You okay?”
I spared Nash a glance. He was staring up at me, apparently wide awake and giving me his patented Mother Nash vibes. “All good here, bro.”
“Yeah? Why you sitting in the dark then?”
“It was night-time when I came down here.”
“From where?”
“Your room. Been brushing my hair in your bed all night.”
Nash scowled. He was as chill as we had time to be in this mad house, but he hated it when I left my long blond hair in his bed. Said it made his rickety old divan look like an Afghan hound had slept there.
He also hated it when I bullshitted him. Made him scrunch his face up all cute and rodenty.
My precious BFF.
He sat up, joining me on the opposite arm of the old chesterfield, facing the window. “You need anything? A zoot or one of Alexei’s evil pills?”
An involuntary shudder ran through me. “Fuck Alexei’s pills. Last time I took one of those I put my left foot in my right boot for two weeks straight.”
“A joint then? Mateo topped the stash up last night.”
“That was yesterday?” I blinked hard, resisting the compulsion to rub my aching head again. It didn’t help. Never had. There was only one soul on this earth that carried that kind of magic in his fingertips, and it wasn’t fucking me.
Nash hopped off the couch and disappeared.
I returned my attention to the window and the scene I’d been peeping on in an effort to distract myself from Thor thwacking his hammer against my skull. Embry and Mateo were in the HGV yard, loading the wagons for the haulage run Decoy was leading out in a few hours. At least, that’s what they were supposed to be doing, but Mats couldn’t pass the good father without kissing him and it was cute as hell.
And Embry’s answering smile every damn time?
Yeah. I needed that shit in my life almost as much as they did.
“What are you staring at?” Nash reappeared beside me, brandishing a zoot, a tea mug, and a box of ibuprofen.
I took the weed and the cuppa and waved the shit drugs away. “If I swallow anymore of those, I’ll get a fucking ulcer.”
“Suit yourself.” Nash held a lighter to the joint. “The question still stands. What are you mooning over?”
“I’m not mooning. Fully dressed over here, mate.”
“The other definition of mooning, dickhead.”
“You don’t say.” I rolled my eyes. Regretted it as the throb in my head buzzed a new rhythm.Fuck me and fuck this fucking migraine.
“I’m watching the young’uns,” I admitted, to avoid Nash’s concern amping up my foul mood, pointing to the parked lorries. Mateo had given up any pretence of loading crates. He caught Embry around the waist and tugged him close, grinning down at him with more warmth than I’d ever known he was capable of. They didn’t kiss this time, but their connection was powerful enough that Nash sighed and slung an arm around me.
“That’s some next-level romance right there.”
“Word.” I took a deep drag on the joint, wondering why I hadn’t pulled myself together enough to fetch one for myself when I’d abandoned Mateo’s bed—myold bed—in the first place.No one ever sleeps in that bed. It’s fucking weird.Maybe we should burn it. It was clearly cursed.
That train of thought had me relaxing against Nash, his bulk warm and familiar. Fraternal. We had so much fucking history. Me, Nash, and Cam. Our parents before us.
Orla.
River.
