Chapter 10
HUNTER
Idon’t know what the fuck I’d been thinking leaving that comment on Lincoln’s most recent video, but watching him jerk off for the camera had made me so hard I’d almost come in my pants.
I was late to a meeting with one of the partners because I had to stop in the bathroom on my way to his office to rub one out, but I figured the only thing worse than being late would have been showing up on time with a raging erection.
After our brief exchange, Lincoln went back to ignoring me, and I went back to work with the implications that I was one handshake away from making partner myself.
My mind raced at the possibility and the opportunity.
Something I’d spent years working for was almost in reach, and the only thing I could think about was Lincoln and the way he cried on his knees and the way he moaned when he came all over my fingers.
How had one man thrown my life into a tailspin in barely more than an hour?
Maybe it was selfish, and maybe it was wrong.
He hadn’t indicated any intention to talk to me ever again, let alone try to see me again.
But I hated only having access to him in that stupid hookup app, so before I logged out at the end of the day, I texted him my phone number.
Just like the rest of my messages, he read it and didn’t reply.
At least, not until Friday, seconds after I pulled into the parking lot at Cunningham’s to meet my brothers for dinner. I caught my phone as the messages started to pour in, the final one coming in as soon as I reached the door.
Unknown
I know you’re busy.
Probably texting you right now on purpose because I know you won’t reply.
I’m so jealous of your brother and Silas.
I’ve been ignoring you because it’s like Marshall swooped in and stole my best friend and then set the bar so fucking high.
And the last thing I want right now is a pity fuck.
The last thing I need is a guy I paid for an hour of sex to chase me around trying to get me to talk to him about shit he doesn’t really care about. Alright?
We’re gonna be stuck together because I don’t think they’re ever going to break up, and I’m never going to leave Silas, and I don’t want to have to look at you every time I see you and think about THIS when I could think about last Friday instead.
Not that I’m thinking about last Friday. You clearly are, coming into my JOB BASICALLY and trying to ask for more than what I paid you for. What is your angle, Hunter?
I’m so confused, and my fish died so just ignore me.
He was crazy if he thought I would really not respond to any of that, but before I could get a message from my brain to my fingers, Smith was at my left with an arm around my shoulder.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said.
I scoffed and pulled open the door. “You’re in a better mood.”
“Than when?”
“I don’t know. The past few weeks,” I said. “Since Andrew.”
“Well, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t wish him away.”
He laughed like he was teasing, but I wasn’t sure he was.
We moved into a single file line to get from the front of the restaurant to our booth in the back.
Marshall and Finn were already there, deep in conversation about something.
They both looked up when we took our seats beside them, Marshall raising his hand to flag down a waiter.
“You look distracted,” Finn said on sight.
I bit the inside of my cheek and weighed my options, cell phone still clutched in hand.
“Winters wants to make me a partner,” I said, setting my phone on the table facedown.
The waiter arrived with drinks for me and Smith, and I took a sip of mine, avoiding the penetrating stare of my oldest brother.
“You sound like you hate that,” he said.
“It’s just…I’ve waited a long time for it. And now that it’s here…”
“You’ll say yes,” Finn said to my left, nudging me in the ribs.
“Of course I’ll say yes—”
My brothers interrupted the rest of my statement, raising their glasses and cheering. With a groan, I clinked the edge of mine against theirs and took another drink, waiting for them to settle down so I could finish my thought. “Of course I’ll say yes, but it feels anticlimactic is all.”
Marshall cocked his head to the side. “Why?”
“Because if I get it—”
“When,” Finn interrupted, and I looked at him, my mouth pulled into a tight line.
My half-brother, my twin, my biggest advocate in all things for as long as we’d been in each other’s lives.
He’d never given up on me, never stopped fighting for me.
Even on the days I felt like I didn’t deserve it, Finn had fought.
“When I get it,” I corrected myself, and his mouth twitched into a smile. “It’s just like...what’s next?”
“You don’t enjoy the victory,” Smith said.
I shook my head.
“Maybe you’re due for a vacation,” Marshall suggested, and I shot him a scathing look across the table.
“When have I ever taken a vacation?”
“Exactly.”
“You take a vacation,” I shot back.
He rolled his eyes at me like I was a teenager again. “Stop trying to act like Finn.”
“Fuck off, Marsh,” Finn said, giving his drink a shake to jostle the ice before having a swallow.
“A vacation sounds nice,” Smith said, the hint of longing clear in his voice.
I didn’t want to take a vacation, but I loved that all my brothers thought I was high-strung enough to need one.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, sliding out of the booth and pocketing my phone. “I’ve got to piss, but we are also due for a trip to San Diego.”
“Family matters don’t a vacation make,” Finn sing-songed, stare flickering from my phone to my face and back again.
“Don’t come after me or I’ll piss on your shoes.”
“Joke’s on you,” Finn muttered, finishing off his drink. “I’m into that shit.”
I made my way to the bathroom, taking the time to make sure my brother didn’t follow me before locking myself in a stall and reading back through the messages Lincoln had sent me.
Instead of texting him, I called. He answered on what had to be the last ring.
“Yeah?” Lincoln sounded so tired, so weary.
“What was your fish’s name?” I asked.
A pause.
“Cassandra.”
“Was she pretty?”
“They were,” he said.
“They.” I cleared my throat. “Did you have them long?”
“No.”
“Is that why I donated fifty-three dollars to a fish rescue?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” I said. “Good.”
A pause.
“Did you really call to talk about my fish?” he asked.
“Not only your fish,” I admitted.
“I thought you were at dinner with your brothers.”
I rubbed absentmindedly at my throat, constricted even though I’d taken my tie off as soon as I got out of the office.
“I am. I’m in the bathroom.”
Lincoln made a noise that sounded a little like he was choking on his own spit.
“I’m meeting Silas for dinner in five minutes,” he said. “I’m sitting in my car in front of the restaurant.”
“I don’t want to keep you, I just—”
“Why did you call?” he interrupted.
“It’s not pity,” I told him, the words feeling strong and true as they formed against the roof of my mouth. “My questions or any of it. It’s not pity.”
“What is it, then?”
“Interest,” I said, because it felt like the truth.
“No wonder you were giving up escorting if you catch feelings for every John you fuck,” he said, laughing bitterly.
“I never caught feeling for any of them,” I said, hushed. “I started the work on accident, and I kept it up because I was lonely and bored.”
“And now?”
“You’re far from boring,” I told him.
Lincoln made a noise I couldn’t make sense of, then said, “I’ve got to go.”
“Can I see you later?”
“Why?” he rasped.
“Do you want the truth?”
“Always.”
I leaned against the closed door of the stall, pressing as much of my overheated neck against the cool metal as I could manage.
“Partly because I want to talk and partly because I do really want to see your face when you come.”
On the other end of the call, Lincoln sucked in a sharp breath.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that video since you posted it. Haven’t stopped thinking about you since last Friday.”
He groaned. “What do you do for work, Hunter?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“So, of course you know the right things to…fuck…” Lincoln stopped talking, and there was indistinct noise in the background of the call. “Just listening to a voicemail, Si. I haven’t forgot about you.”
And then the call disconnected.
“Fuck.”
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and unlocked the door.
Taking a look at myself in the mirror, there was no denying the flush in my cheeks and the dilation of my pupils.
I turned the cold water on and splashed some on my face, pressing my damp and cool hands against the back of my neck before drying them off.
When I felt like I could think again, I headed back to the booth.
“Long piss,” Finn said when I slid back into my seat beside him.
“You know how it goes.”
He hummed agreeably, scratching the side of his lip.
“So, when do we want to go to San Diego?” He looked pointedly at Smith. “Do we all even want to go?”
“Silas is worried about how his best friend is adjusting to life on his own,” Marshall said, “so I’d like to stay close for them both while they sort that out.”
“Both?” I asked.
“The two of them are close,” he said. “And if you must know, I’m rather fond of Lincoln.”
Finn smirked. “Trying to start a harem or something?”
“It’s platonic,” Marshall said.
I tried to fight my frown, thinking about how close Silas and Lincoln had been Saturday morning at Marshall’s house. How they’d come so close to kissing and right in front of us both.
“That’s just how he is,” Smith offered with a casual shrug.
“How would you know?”
“We’re friends,” he said. “Or becoming friends. I don’t know. It’s…he was at Marshall’s the night we found out about Andrew, and I went over there after dinner. We talked a bit.”
Marshall scrunched his nose, glancing down at our youngest brother. “Did you?”
“After you were asleep, we talked a bit, yeah. We talk. We hung out earlier this week.”
I worried the inside of my cheek, earlier bite mark still tender, as I waited for any indication from Smith that Lincoln had outed our hookup to him. But Smith looked as innocent and earnest as he always did, so if Lincoln had talked about me, Smith wasn’t going to say a word.
“He’s a little lost without Silas attached to his hip,” Smith said, “but I think he’ll be fine.”
“I’d still rather wait awhile,” Marshall said. “Maybe in a couple of months.”
It had been a bit since I’d spoken to Andrew, and he wasn’t against seeing us, but I wouldn’t have classified him as chomping at the bit either. A couple months between visits wasn’t going to be a hardship on any of our social or familial calendars.
“I’ll let him know next time I talk to him,” I said.
Shortly after that, the waiter arrived with food because Finn had apparently ordered me a steak while I was in the bathroom.
It wouldn’t have been my first choice considering how tangled my stomach was over the whole thing with Lincoln, but I managed to force down enough of the it so as to not raise suspicion.
The conversation over the rest of the meal was casual and normal.
Finn teasing Marshall about Silas’s age, Smith making heart eyes at Marshall like he hung the fucking moon, Marshall telling Finn he was an annoying human while also making worried eyes every time Smith got quiet for two long.
The three of them never ignored me but were happy to let me live on the outskirts of the conversation.
I appreciated it more tonight than normal since it let my thoughts wander back to Lincoln, back to last weekend and the conversation earlier.
I still wanted to see him, but he hadn’t given me an answer one way or another, which left my hands tied.
Seeing him was going to be like cracking open Pandora’s box, though, because Marshall knew him and Smith knew him, and there was no way to keep anything a secret for long with that many Covington men involved.
We all moved too fast, for better or worse.
We finally made it through dinner, Marshall begging off first so he could be home for Silas, and Finn following soon after. I walked Smith back to his car, told him goodnight, then tossed my keys into the air and headed for mine. I double-tapped the key fob and slipped into the driver’s seat.
It took a minute for my phone to connect to the Bluetooth, but then the computer-generated voice I’d downloaded for my nav that sounded a lot like Henry Cavill said, “Text message from unknown. If you were serious, I’ll come over after I’m done with Silas.
If you weren’t serious, just don’t open the door or whatever. See you soon. Or not.”