Chapter 29
SMITH
Itook off early from work on Friday so I would have time to grab a drink with Lincoln at Cunningham’s before getting dinner with my brothers. Things hadn’t gone poorly with them the previous week, but I wasn’t looking forward to seeing them as much as I had before.
I’d gotten to the little cafe earlier than Lincoln—he had a video to finish filming—so I ordered a glass of wine and sent a text to Asha.
Have I been a horrible friend?
Asha
Never.
But if you feel like you have, you can make it up to me by going out with me this weekend.
When?
Lunch tomorrow?
Brunch?
Making plans with her would have been a lot easier if I had any idea what my weekend with Riggs was going to look like.
I hadn’t seen him since the morning after I admitted I was in love with him.
That had been a week ago. Confessing my premature feelings for him hadn’t been part of my plan for our night together, but the words had sort of tumbled out.
I’d never expected him to return them, so when it happened…
I’d been on cloud nine ever since, but the truth of my feelings for him…
our feelings for each other… meant things were real and they were serious.
Real and serious meant he would want to meet Lincoln, it meant he would want to meet my other brothers, though I doubted anyone in his position would really want to meet them, especially Marshall.
Soon, I promise.
I’d make sure of it.
Lincoln arrived ten minutes late with wet hair, flushed cheeks, and a flurry of apologies and kisses on the cheek.
“You’re fine,” I promised him, kicking out the other chair so it was easier for him to sit down.
He collapsed into the seat and shoved his overgrown hair out of his face and smiled at me.
“I’ve been the worst friend,” he said.
I laughed at him and took a drink of my wine. “I was just having the same conversation with my friend Asha.”
“What did she have to say?”
“She said I was fine.”
Lincoln rolled his eyes “You better not tell me the same.”
“But you are fine,” I said, laughing again when he reached across the table to smack me on the arm. “You’re my brother happy. That counts for a lot.”
Lincoln grumbled, but he didn’t argue with me about it. Instead he flagged down a waiter, ordered himself a drink, and then said to me, “Tell me about your tattooer.”
I hoped my cheeks didn’t turn red, but the heat burned there beneath the skin just the same.
“Oh, that’s good. Tell me everything.”
“He’s great,” I admitted, scrubbing a hand down my face and angling my stare toward the ceiling.
Lincoln’s observant gaze was penetrating, and I quickly realized he wasn’t going to give up on the conversation without getting what he wanted out of me.
“It’s easier if you ask, then I can just answer. ”
“Is he hung?”
I scoffed. “Why do you care?”
“I want to make sure my friend is getting the dick he deserves.”
Scratching the back of my neck, I tried to figure out the best way to answer the question without spilling a lot of secrets that weren’t necessarily meant to be for other people.
Not that I thought Riggs would really care if I told people about his…
no, actually, I decided he would care. For one, that wasn’t something for me to tell people.
I’d seen firsthand how nervous he’d been to tell me; I certainly wasn’t going to go and spread his business around to people he hadn’t met yet.
“I’m plenty taken care of,” I told Lincoln. It was a statement that was very true, even if it wasn’t a direct answer to his question.
Riggs was yet to leave me unsatisfied, but he had stopped short of going as far as I wanted. Maybe something rougher, which felt like a wild ask considering I still bore his bruises on the backs of my thighs.
It was all right, though, I reasoned. We hadn’t been together long at all. There would be plenty of time.
“I love that for you.”
The waiter returned with Lincoln’s drink and we toasted and drank together. “But it’s more than that, right?”
With the taste of wine still fresh on my tongue, and I nodded.
“A lot more?” he asked.
“It’s new.”
“The two things are not mutually exclusive.”
He was right. And why was I worried about telling him the truth anyway? That was the reason I’d wanted to see him in the first place. I wanted to talk about Riggs, and Lincoln was probably one of the only people in my life I could do that with.
“A lot more,” I said. “I told him I loved him.”
Lincoln’s mouth quirked up into a smile, and one brow lifted toward his hairline. “How did that go?”
“He said it back.”
“You’re telling me the youngest Covington is in love?” He made a little heart shape with his hands, then clinked the rim of his cocktail glass against mine for a second time. “You deserve it”
“That’s probably debatable,” I muttered. “I haven’t even done anything.”
“You don’t have to do anything to deserve love,” he said, frowning at me. “I learned that from your brother.”
I sucked in a breath that shook a little bit more than I would have liked, but I nodded my agreement.
“You know I want to meet him.”
“He wants to meet you.”
That seemed to surprise Lincoln. “Does he know about us?”
“Yeah.”
“You told him?”
I scrunched up my nose. “Of course I told him.”
Lincoln worried his lower lip with the tip of his tongue, thinking about his reply, I imagined.
“So it’s serious.”
“I told you I love him.”
“The two aren’t mutually inclusive,” he said again, flinging his earlier comment back at me for a second time.
“But yes. I think it’s probably best he meets you.”
Lincoln leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs, kicking me. “Do you want me to bring Silas?”
“Why would you bring Silas?”
“So he can sing your boy’s praises to Marshall before it’s time to meet the brothers.”
I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. “It’s probably not the worst idea. But he has met Finn.”
“What?” Lincoln looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“On accident. I was meeting his best friend, and Finn just happened to be at the restaurant.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Lincoln slapped his hand down on the table and gave me a look feigning hurt, even though the furrow between his brows led me to believe there might be some real emotion behind the scenes. “You’ve already met his friends?”
“I met one of them.”
Did he have more? He had to.
“How did it go with Finn?”
“How did what go with Finn?” The brother in question asked, flinging his long and lanky body down into one of the empty chairs at our table.
I flipped over my phone to check the time. There was still about fifteen minutes before they were supposed to be here, and Finn was rarely the first one to arrive.
“Meeting the boyfriend,” Lincoln said, finishing off the rest of his cocktail. “I think the appearance of a second Covington is probably my cue to kick rocks. Let me know if you want to set a date with me and Silas.”
Before I could argue or ask him to stay a little longer, Lincoln hopped up and came around the table, dropping a loud kiss on the top of my head. He headed for Finn and hesitated, but when my brother angled his chin toward his chest to make his hair more reachable, Lincoln left him a kiss too.
“For good measure,” he said.
Finn lifted his head and gently patted the place Lincoln had kissed, then he dropped his hand into his lap. Once Lincoln left, Finn threw me a wary look.
“Serious with Riggs then?”
“I’m surprised you remember his name.”
Finn looked offended. “Why wouldn’t I remember his name?”
“You met him on accident,” I said. “In passing.”
“But you’re in love with him,” my brother said simply.
“What? I…no. I mean…I wasn’t then.”
He rolled his eyes at me and mussed up my hair before hauling me to my feet.
“Of course you were,” he said, gesturing toward my half-drank glass of wine. “Let’s go grab the booth.”
Unsurprisingly, by the time Finn and I paid my tab at the bar and headed to the dining side of the restaurant, Marshall and Hunter were there already. Hunter’s gaze dropped to my wine, darted to Finn, then to Marshall.
“Are we pre-gaming dinner now?”
“I met Lincoln,” I said, taking my usual seat beside Marshall. Since I’d left work early, my sleeves were rolled up, but none of them said anything about my tattoo. “Finn just showed up.”
“What’s your excuse?” Hunter asked Finn next.
He swallowed hard. “I was bored.”
It felt like a lie.
Finn had been lying a lot lately, but about what?
I didn’t know. He was very good at putting on and pretending everything was okay, but there were cracks in his veneer.
If Marshall and Hunter had noticed, they hadn’t called him out on it, at least not publicly.
I hoped he’d at least talked to Hunter. The two of them were close, but Hunter gave Finn a worried look that left me feeling unsure.
“So,” Marshall said, clearing his throat. “How is your boyfriend?”
“I’m sorry, are you talking to me?” I downed the last of my wine.
“Smithy,” Finn teased, “he’s trying.”
I glanced over at Marshall and found his expression earnest, if not pained.
He was trying, but it was one thing to sit at a table with men who shared your last name and play nice.
It was another thing entirely to come face to face with a man who looked nothing like the vision you had in mind for a person you cared about.
I’d gone through the same thing when he’d gotten involved with Silas.
I’d always pictured Marshall with someone like him—put together and meticulous.
Silas was those things, in some ways, or he would be when he was Marshall’s age at least. But the two of them were an undeniable complement to each other, regardless of how I had pictured Marshall’s partner looking.
The same with Hunter, though him ending up with a man like Lincoln wasn’t so off base.
“When you think about me being in a relationship, what kind of person do you picture me with?” I asked.
Marshall squared his shoulders, smoothed his hand over his already impeccable tie.
“Somebody successful,” he answered quickly.
“Riggs owns his own business.”
Marshall’s jaw ticked. “Somebody cautious.”
I thought about the way Riggs traced his fingers and his mouth over all the places his leather cuffs had kissed my skin. “He is.”
“Somebody who puts you first.”
I remembered humping Riggs’s leg to come, remembered his hand around my throat in the bathroom at Rapture the first night we met. Remembered him on his knees in the shower, soapy hands working their way up the inside of my thighs.
“He does,” I answered, voice a little raspier than I would have hoped considering the words were directed at my brother.
“I want to meet him,” Marshall said, all business. “If it’s serious.”
My heart slammed violently against my sternum, and I regretted finishing my wine because I could have used a good drink of it in that moment.
I loved my brothers and I was grateful for them and for their support, but there needed to be some kind of separation between my life and theirs.
With Marhsall and Hunter both in relationships now, boundaries had to be expected, and I was allowed to set my own.
I was allowed to have something only for me.
“It is serious,” I said, “but you’ll meet him when I want you to meet him.”
Across the table, Finn and Hunter banged their elbows into each other, mouths stretched into barely restrained smiles.
Marshall’s nostrils flared, but he very clearly didn’t know what to say to that.
I sucked in a breath and from the corner of my eye saw Finn giving me a thumbs up, almost below the table.
“Right.” Marshall cleared his throat and nodded, smiling at me in a way that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course, Smith. Whatever you want.”