Chapter 24
HUNTER
Lincoln had been scarce the rest of the week.
We talked every day, and he’d sent me a handful of pictures, including some of him and his new fish, but I hadn’t actually seen him in person since Wednesday morning when I left for work.
Our conversation that afternoon about not getting off until we were back together hadn’t helped matters much, so to say I was on edge would have been an understatement.
When I rolled up to Cunningham’s for dinner with my brothers on Friday night, I was beyond irritable, but Marshall’s amused smile was almost enough to temper me back down to something passable as social.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all week,” he said, leaning back against the booth and sipping at his wine.
“Is that so?” Finn asked. He looked tired, and I realized it had been too long since I’d spent time with him one on one.
It was too easy to get swept up in the magic that was Lincoln, but I needed to be better about not forgetting the other people in my life.
I also had two missed calls from Andrew on my phone, and I swore to myself I’d call him back over the weekend.
Marshall answered with a noncommittal sound, and I didn’t know how…but without a doubt, he somehow heard about me making partner.
“How have things been?” I asked Finn, knocking my elbow into his.
“Peachy.” He popped his lips on the P and raised his brows mockingly, and I knew he was obviously anything but.
“Anything you want to talk about?” Marshall asked.
“No, but thanks, Dad.”
“Be nice,” I warned.
“I was too nice,” Finn snapped. He paused and cleared his throat. “Can you let me up. I’ve got to piss.”
Against my better judgment, I moved to let Finn out of the booth, and no sooner had my ass hit the leather seat did Marshall and Smith send me matching—and equally judgmental—looks.
“What?”
“Go after him,” Smith said.
“He’s just going to take a piss,” I said.
Marshall pursed his lips and shook his head at me, disappointment clear.
“Oh, my God.” I climbed out of the booth and gave them both the finger. “Fuck you and your meddling.”
I made it two steps away from the table before deciding to backtrack, picking up my and Finn’s drinks. “I made partner by the way,” I said to them both, turning on my heel and chasing after Finn.
He was easy to find. Hadn’t even bothered to go into the bathroom. Instead, I found him pacing the hallway, hands bracketed around his waist as he walked.
“Hey,” I said, holding out his drink.
For what it was worth, he didn’t even startle, taking the glass out of my hand and pressing his shoulders against the wall.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Is this about Neil and Annette?” I asked, aligning myself to his side so our shoulders touched. He tightened his grip on the glass and stared up at the roof.
“Sometimes I wish I’d never gotten involved with them.”
“Why?”
“Because none of it was worth this.” Finn poured the rest of his drink down his throat, then clinked his empty glass against mine. “I really do need to piss.”
And with that, he disappeared into the bathroom.
I knew better than to follow him, understanding his moods better than most. Finn would talk when he wanted to talk, and not a second before.
We were quite a bit alike in that way, and I tried to think about how I would feel after having Lincoln and losing him.
The thought of it alone was enough to have my chest tightening to a point where it was hard to breathe.
I rubbed at my sternum and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, scrolling through my messages until I got to Lincoln’s name.
Have fun tonight if you go out.
In response, he sent me a picture of him and Silas on Marshall’s couch, limbs tangled together and a remote control in Silas’ hand. It definitely looked like the two of them were gearing up for a wild night in.
Can I see you this weekend?
I hope so.
My dick is about to explode.
Mine twitched at the thought.
Do you want to go to Rapture tomorrow?
Can we talk about it later?
Definitely.
Enjoy your snuggle.
Enjoy your brothers.
I slid my phone back into my pocket, thinking about Lincoln’s invitation.
The only things I knew about Rapture were the things Lincoln had told me.
I’m sure Marshall could shed some light on the goings on, but I’d meant it when I said I didn’t want to know that much about how any of my brothers fucked.
It was a weird thing to think about putting my bedroom preferences on display in public, but it wasn’t like Lincoln’s bedroom activities were top secret. He had a healthy following on his video account and was clearly a lot more comfortable with being out about his special interests than I was.
Sighing, I scrubbed a hand down my face. I just wanted things to be as easy outside of the house as they were inside of it. It seemed unfair I couldn’t wrap me and Lincoln into a cocoon and stay there until I was ready to be somewhere new.
The bathroom door pushed open and Finn emerged, looking marginally better than when he’d gone in.
“You’re still here?”
“Of course I am.”
He swallowed hard and nodded. “I’m good, Hunt. I promise.”
“You’d tell me if you weren’t?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t sound believable, but I needed to take him at his word. “Dinner, then?”
“Another drink.” Finn hooked his arm through the crook of mine and walked me back out to the dining room with a pit stop at the bar so he could get another Manhattan.
When we arrived back at the table, Marshall had already done the honors, and Finn looked positively giddy at the promise of two fresh drinks waiting for him.
“Did you know Hunter made partner?” he said, raising one of the glasses for a toast. It was just like him to deflect, and since Smith and Marshall didn’t know about Finn’s couple, I decided not to call him out on it.
“He mentioned it,” Smith said, clinking his glass against mine.
“When did this happen?” Marshall asked.
“Earlier in the week. I was waiting to tell everyone tonight.”
“I found out earlier in the week,” Finn said, and I rolled my eyes at him. Every drink and every jab, he turned more into his usual self, but I couldn’t shake the feeling it was a mask and not reality.
“Congratulations, Hunter,” Marshall said, adding his glass to the mix. “I know you’ve worked really hard for this.”
I nodded, tucking my chin toward my chest.
He wasn’t wrong. I had worked very hard for a very long time to land this accomplishment.
Even though I’d known it was coming for a while, the reality of it was still a little hazy.
I was half-drunk on being in love with Lincoln and the change in rank at the firm was like a cherry on top.
Delicious, but somehow absolutely unimportant when the rest of the dessert was considered.
And to me, Lincoln was the rest of the dessert.
“Partner at the office and a boyfriend at home,” Finn said, cocking his head to the side. “I’m glad to see you finally coming into your own a little.”
Across the table, Smith made a sound I couldn’t quite make sense of, and Marshall threw him a worried look.
“It’s definitely all very surreal,” I conceded with a shrug. Finn was the one who enjoyed being the center of attention, not me. “But I’m fortunate. And I’m glad I get to share it with the three of you.”
“We should have a proper celebration,” Marshall suggested. “Invite Andrew up maybe, Lincoln and Silas.”
“I never imagined you’d willingly invite Andrew anywhere,” Finn teased.
Smith let out an unimpressed breath, taking a drink of his wine and swishing it around his mouth before he swallowed. It was as much of a reply as Finn was going to get.
“We’re going to have something next weekend,” I told all three of them. “Work sponsored.”
“Free drinks,” Finn said.
“It’s Saturday, I think. I’ll let you know.”
I saw the email come in earlier in the afternoon, but I’d been too distracted by my never-ending interest in Lincoln to pay too much attention to it. Was it really too soon to ask him to move in?
“Silas has been settling in with Cory,” Marshall offered, launching into a conversation about some innovative design techniques Silas was trying to get into a proposal he was working on with his new boss.
A lot of the terms were lost on me, as always, but Smith nodded along, and Finn pretended to care.
We made it through dinner relatively unscathed, and Marshall was the first to call it a night. The four of us said our goodbyes in the parking lot, and I tried to not be jealous Marshall was going home to my boyfriend, and I was going home alone.
“Why don’t the two of you come over?” I asked, though it was less of a question and more of a statement.
With one brother on either side of me, they both nodded their agreement.
We didn’t bother saying goodbye because we were reunited twenty minutes later.
Finn kicked off his shoes in my entryway and Smith followed suit, the two of them collapsing into the middle of my couch and making themselves at home.
I went into the bedroom to change into something more comfortable than wool slacks, then detoured to the kitchen for drinks before joining them in the living room.
With a jokingly violent shake of my hips, I made room on the couch between the two of them, shoving a bottle of wine into Finn’s hands and two glasses into Smith’s.
I had the third in mine, and Finn didn’t need any instruction to know what to do.
He poured all three of us a healthy dose of wine, reaching behind him to set the bottle down on the sideboard.
“What do you want to watch?” I asked, giving him his wine and taking mine from Smith.
“I honestly don’t care,” Finn said. “I would be perfectly happy to sit here and listen to you talk about Lincoln for the rest of the night. Remind me that love isn’t miserable.”
“Are you in love, Finn?” Smith asked, dropping his head against my shoulder.
“No.”
He said it so quickly, I did wonder if it was a lie.
“Are you?” Smith asked softer, the question directed at me.
“Yes.”
“That’s good. He needs that.”
“How do…” Finn sat up, angling his body to size me and Smith up. With narrowed eyes, he took a drink of his wine, brow knit together like he was solving a crime. “I’ve had a few drinks before this one, but this feels very incestuous.”
“I assure you it’s not.”
Finn scratched the back of his neck and slowly sank into his spot on the couch, taking a drink of wine and smacking his lips together.
“If you say so.”
“I do,” I told him at the same time as Smith said, “We do!”
“They’re friends,” I said.
“Same as Lincoln and Silas?”
“Exactly,” I said.
Beside me, Smith muttered, “Not quite.”
“Not you too. Don’t downplay how fond he is of you.”
“I know he is,” Smith said. “He’s a good man. You’re both good men.”
“So are you,” Finn and I said at the same time.
Smith frowned but shrugged his shoulders. “For a really long time I was jealous of the two of you. You’ve always been so close.”
At the observation, Finn moved closer to me, but not in any way that Smith would notice. Just a subtle shift of his weight, a gesture we’d perfected over the years.
“Are you still hung up on being a Covington?” Finn asked, reaching over me to clink his glass into Smith’s.
“Hung up on a lot of things, I think,” he admitted.
“Do you still want to quit your job?”
“Sometimes.”
Finn snorted. “I think we all want to quit our jobs sometimes. As long as you don’t want to quit life.”
“I don’t,” Smith said quickly.
We both looked at Finn, and I asked him, “Do you?”
He licked his lips and smiled down into his wine. “No,” he said quietly. “Not that.”
We sat together in silence for a few more minutes, and then Finn grabbed the remote from the arm of the couch and turned on the TV, scrolling through my streaming apps until he found one he liked. After he had it cued up, he tossed the remote into Smith’s lap.
“Would you find something to watch?” he asked, taking my wine out of my hand. Finn leaned forward and set both our glasses on the coffee table and pulled me to my feet. “And would you let me borrow some fucking clothes? These slacks are driving me up the wall.”
“Hey,” Smith whined, clicking through the true crime documentaries and not really paying attention to either of us. “I don’t want to wear work clothes all night.”
“Your work clothes are jeans,” Finn accused. “You can wait your turn.”
Laughing, I shoved Finn toward the bedroom, promising Smith after he found us something to watch he could change into a pair of sweats.
I followed Finn down the hallway, not caring in the slightest when he made himself at home on my bed while I dug a pair of sweats and a shirt out from the dresser for him.
“Can I spend the night?” he asked softly, taking the clothes out of my hand but not getting up from the bed.
The uncertainty in his voice stopped me in my tracks, and I ruffled my hand through his hair, smoothing it back before kissing the top of his head.
“Of course you can,” I promised him. “You never even have to ask.”