Chapter 20
HUNTER
Ihadn’t heard a peep from Lincoln since he’d sent me that video before lunch.
I didn’t know if he realized he’d sent me the hottest jerk-off video on the planet with an accidental love confession at the end or not, and I also hadn’t decided if I was meant to ignore it until he told me in person, or if I should say something about it the next time we talked.
The video was enough to throw me off-balance for the rest of the day, the partnership offer was going to have me off-kilter for the rest of the week.
Getting out of work, my phone was still quiet.
Getting home, still quiet.
Just before six, Smith texted me a photo of a red and orange betta fish, so I took that to mean he was with Lincoln, and I didn’t know how that made me feel.
Instead of trying to figure it out, I called Finn.
It went to voicemail, but I was in the middle of leaving one when he called me back, and I answered that call on the first ring.
“Busy?” I asked.
“A bit, but…” He let that go unfinished. “What’s up?”
“Needed to talk to someone is all,” I said.
“Are you looking for advice because I’m the last person—”
“I’d call Marshall if I wanted advice,” I interrupted, which earned me a sharp laugh.
“I should be offended, I think,” Finn muttered. Somewhere behind him, a door slammed closed. “But I don’t have grounds for it today.”
“Everything good with you?”
“Peachy,” he answered, sarcasm dripping off every syllable. “Do you want me to come over?”
“Already too tired of your pretty pink office to have me over?” I teased.
“I’ll see you eventually.”
The eyeroll was loud enough for me to hear, even over the beep of the call being disconnected.
Scrubbing a hand down my face, I dropped my head back to stare up at the ceiling.
I still held my phone, and it would have been so easy to call Lincoln, to ask what he and Smith were up to, to ask the name of his new fish, to make him tell me again that he loved me.
Love was such a foreign concept for me, at least romantically.
It had been years since I’d even entertained the idea, and not for lack of wanting, just lack of trying.
All of my brothers had been single for so long, wrapped up with careers and legacies, there hadn’t been much time for anything serious to develop.
I’d been perfectly content taking orgasms from the random men who paid for them, but now that I had Lincoln, everything I’d enjoyed before him felt lacking to me.
I imagined it had been the same way with Marshall and Silas at first. What an odd experience to not even realize how empty your life was until someone came along and filled a hole you’d never even been aware of.
That was how I felt about Lincoln, and maybe it was fast, maybe it was wrong…
He was so confused about who he was separate of Silas and who he was apart from being dominant.
I worried he was using me—even unintentionally—to work through the mess in his own brain, and that once he figured out which way was up, he wouldn’t want me anymore.
He said he was in love with you, my brain helpfully reminded me, but my heart still fought against it, terrified somehow of the notion.
Any other man would have been scared of the comfort I found from being on my knees in front of Silas, but that was truly where I felt the most at home.
I had no problem having him kneel for me when it suited him either, even though I was starting to think he really only craved it because he was chasing after the feeling of being cared for, which I could do even if we were standing eye to eye.
I would prove it to him.
To myself.
A loud and annoying knock on my door announced Finn’s arrival, and when I opened it to let him in, my brother stood on my front mat, looking less put together than I could remember ever seeing him.
His normally styled hair was loose around his face like it had started coiffed and come apart after having too many hands run through it.
There were bags under his eyes and scruff on his jaw that looked like it had been there longer than the day.
He was still dressed for work, slacks and a button-up, but he’d managed to get the cuffs undone, though not rolled.
“You look horrible,” I greeted, and he narrowed his eyes at me, pushing past me into my apartment.
He was quick to make himself at home on my couch, kicking off his Oxfords before propping his feet up on the edge of my table and letting his head fall against the back of the couch.
“I look like I need a drink,” he said.
“I guess you’re in the right place or something,” I cracked, even though I could tell he wasn’t up for it.
I closed and locked the door, then headed into the kitchen to get him some whiskey. I poured myself a vodka and soda, then joined him on the couch, mirroring his pose.
“Are you sure you’re not the one who should have called Marshall?” I knocked my elbow into the outside of his arm, and he took it as a signal to lift his glass and take a drink.
“Marshall would not be impressed with my most recent life choices.” Finn sucked his tongue across the front of his teeth…just like Marshall.
“I’m sure it can’t be as bad as masquerading as an escort on a hookup app and accidentally getting into a relationship with a client.”
My brother made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “That would be a story.”
“I know,” I agreed.
“But no, it’s worse.”
I stared down the length of our legs, straight down to our sock-covered toes.
Finn and I were so much alike and so different at the same time.
And still, nobody knew me better than him.
Tension knotted together in my shoulders, guilt over letting him think all my jokes about hooking up with men for money were just that…
jokes. I’d convinced myself it was okay to have secrets sometimes, especially if they weren’t hurting anybody, but when it came to Finn, I felt the worst about it.
“How is it worse?” I asked instead of coming clean.
“You’re going to laugh.”
“Probably.”
Finn took a healthy drink of his whiskey and sighed.
This was so often the way of things with us, one of us needing something and the other needing something different at the same time.
I’d called Finn because I didn’t want to be alone with my brain about Lincoln and his admission, but Finn had clearly needed me to work through something with him as well. It was a give and take, a balance…
A brotherhood.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” he finally admitted. “A couple someones.”
“Dating, then?”
“Yes, but also…” My brother grimaced, downing the rest of his drink before smacking his lips together. “I was dating a married couple.”
Another unanticipated confession.
“Okay,” I said, because there wasn’t anything else. “Are you not now?”
“No.”
“Is this recent?”
He shook the ice around his glass and frowned. “Very.”
“For how long?” I asked.
“A few months.”
“When did it end?”
Sighing, Finn pushed himself up off the couch. He stretched and walked into my kitchen to mix himself another drink, then returned to the space beside me. He set his glass on the arm of the couch and finally finished rolling up his sleeves, then took a normal person-sized sip of whiskey.
“Today.” He sniffed a little, rubbed his nose with the knuckle on his thumb.
“Did you want to talk about it? Do you want to tell me their names?”
“Not really,” he mumbled. “Neil and Annette.”
“How did you meet them?” I asked.
Finn exhaled dramatically and angled his face toward mine. “Why did you call me? What did you want?”
There was no accusation in the tone, only the simple recognition that I’d needed something from my closest brother when I’d made the decision to dial his number and not Smith’s or Marshall’s.
It was also a clear deflection that when he said he didn’t want to talk about Neil and Annette, he’d meant it.
“I’ve gotten involved with Silas’ best friend.”
Finn snorted and rolled his eyes at me. “Involved.”
“We’re seeing each other,” I corrected.
“I always expected Marshall to go for someone younger, but never pinned that taste onto you.”
I took a drink of vodka and then kicked Finn in the ankle.
Hard.
He grimaced and used his other foot to rub away the ache.
“He’s not even ten years younger than me, and I don’t even notice the difference most of the time.”
“Most of the time.”
“Ever.”
Finn puffed out his cheeks. “Go on.”
“I’m not asking for advice,” I reminded him, and it was doubly true now considering Finn was obviously working through some messy and complicated sort of heartbreak. “He said he was in love with me, but I wasn’t supposed to hear it. It was on the back end of a video he sent me earlier today.”
“A video,” Finn mused.
“Oh.” I lifted my glass, ignoring the amusement in his voice. “I also made partner today.”
“Nice try to change the subject.”
“No, really.” I leaned forward and set my drink down on the coffee table, pressing my knees into the outside of Finn’s thigh. “I made partner.”
His expression went from weary to elated in less than two seconds, and then I was in my brother’s arms, his face buried into the crook of my neck.
“I’m so fucking excited for you,” he said into my skin.
I clapped him on the back, and he tightened his arms around me, which felt so fucking good.
Finn held me for longer than he had in years, but by the time the hug ended, the pressure of it had shifted.
He was the one holding on to me, and my hand against the back of his head kept him steady and still against my chest. He breathed heavy and hard, and I knew him well enough to know he was fighting back tears.
I also knew they had nothing to do with my new partnership.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, trying to pull away even though I stopped him. “You’ve worked so hard for this.”
I nodded, smoothing my hand down the back of his neck.
We stayed in that embrace for another few minutes, finally untangling our arms from the other at the same time. Finn’s eyes were red, but mostly dry, and he ran his hand over the front of his shirt and smiled at me.
“You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“You’ll bloat my ego, Hunt, be careful.” He smoothed his hair back, but there was no keeping the stray strands in place. “Is this news for dinner on Friday then?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Is Silas’ little bestie also news for Friday?”
Jesus, Finn was a master at keeping the conversation right where he wanted it to be and not a smidge offtrack.
“Marshall already knows and so does Smith.”
Finn frowned. “That counters all the work you just did on my ego.”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “Smith and Lincoln have become friends, and I wanted to make sure he was okay with the idea of us dating. And Marshall obviously knows because of Silas.”
“Sounds like excuses.”
I shrugged and held my hands up helplessly.
“And he’s in love with you?” Finn asked.
I nodded.
“Why is that so bad?” he rasped, voice cracking.
I cocked my head to the side and arched a brow at his break.
Finn cleared his throat and shook his head, and I loved him enough to not press the issue further.
“I…” I didn’t have a good answer. “It’s just new.”
“That’s not a real reason.”
“I know,” I whispered.
He pulled his lips together between his teeth, working them until they were both dark pink and indented from the pressure.
“Do you think there’s like…some metric about this? That you’re not allowed to have feelings until x amount of time has passed?”
“It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that.”
“It sounds ridiculous when you say it your way,” he countered.
I sagged against the couch, against my brother, my closest confidant for all of the life that I could remember.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Neil and Annette,” I told him gently.
His arm tensed, but he lifted it and took a drink of his whiskey.
“I’m not,” he said.
“Finn.”
“Are you in love with…I don’t even…what did you say his name was? Lincoln?”
“Lincoln,” I confirmed.
“Are you in love with Lincoln too?”
This was the real reason I’d called Finn.
I needed someone else to ask the question, to put me on the spot and force me to sit down and really think about it until I was able to get to an answer.
If I shoved away all the ideas of what society felt an appropriate time for those feelings to develop, if I ignored the—very small—age gap between us, if I only paid attention to the two things that mattered the most… me and him…
“Yes,” I confessed to my brother. “I am.”