Chapter 24
The drive home is sombre.
Rain pours from the dark sky, hammering against the roof, the window wipers giving a low squeak as they glide quickly across the glass to clear it. The music in the car is merely background noise for our combined breaths, my heartbeat a loud thumping in my ears as they strain, hoping to hear his quiet voice.
Nix’s untouched milkshake sits in the centre console melting, bleeding condensation into the bottom of the cup holder. He didn’t touch his burger, and he ripped apart his chips like he was plucking limbs off a corpse.
“You wanna stop for snacks, Cherub?” I ask him again, my ears ringing, buzzing, because I hate when he’s like this.
Silent.
Lost inside his own mind.
He shakes his head, just once, his forehead to the window, the cool glass still rolled down, just enough to give him some air, despite the pelting rain. Neither one of us cares about the car getting wet.
My insides seem to tumble around, the closer I get us to home, nerves firing off in all directions. I was prepared for him to come home a little quiet. Whenever he visits his nan, he’s always a little off after. It’s why he doesn’t like to go very often.
In fact, I can hardly remember the last time we visited the old hag. She might hate me for taking her precious son away, but I also know she’s grateful for it.
He would have died in that house.
Parking the car in the underground garage, I switch off the engine, removing the keys, I twirl the keyring around my finger, the keys making a whooshing sound as it does, a little jangle as it clinks against my house key.
Unsure how to break the silence, what to do, what to say, how to behave, it’s in the busyness of my brain, the low buzzing in my ears that I almost miss his very quiet words.
“We’re not going back there again,” he whispers, his eyes still staring unseeingly out of the window, his temple still resting against it, his breath fogging the glass with his words.
“Okay. Can I-” I stop myself; I always talk too goddamn much.
I’m so used to being his protector. His saviour. That I forget sometimes how to just be with him. Give him comfort without words.
I don’t know how to help right now.
But Cole does. Will. Cole always knows what to do to help when Phoenix gets low like this. And Blaze knows how to help me when he does.
“I want to go in now,” Phoenix voices quietly, unlatching his buckle and opening his door.
He’s out and moving towards the lift before I’ve even made it around the front of the car. I jog across the car park full of our various vehicles, some toys, most sensible, well, on everyone else”s side. Mine’s the one with the most ridiculously flash things.
The lift takes us up, shuddering and clunking as it rushes us higher and higher, the metal doors clanging before they peel open with a thud that makes the entire floor wobble.
Nix is out, briskly striding across the hall before I can even manage to get my feet to move, the doors almost shutting on me when I finally get myself going. He’s already disappearing down the darkened hallway towards our bedroom before I’ve fully closed the door at my back. I lean against it, breathing out a heavy sigh, and let my eyes drift close.
I’m his safety. His muscle. His comfort. His love.
I’m the one he runs to when he needs help. When he’s down. When he can’t quite make it through the day without me near.
Except for when he visits the place he grew up.
This could go on for days.
Endless days that torment me as much as he tortures himself.
“That bad?” Blaze asks from the sofa in the living room, my head lifting from the door to peer at my older brother across the space, the TV projecting light over the dark space, subtitles flickering across the bottom of the screen.
“They turned up.”
“Fuck.” Blaze looks away from me, gritting his teeth, and I know he’s thinking about them.
The Butcher Boys.
A trio of men with no loyalties to anyone but their own family. You pay them to do a job, they’ll do it, and by do it, I mean they really will do anything. Kidnap, arson, theft, murder. You name it, they won’t say no. No job too big or too small. Everything goes to the pigs. But they’re also just as likely to take your money alongside your enemy’s and carry out only one of the jobs, always for the highest bidder. You’ll never know if that’s you or not until the job does or doesn’t get done.
There are plenty of messes they’ve made that way throughout the years.
They thrive in chaos.
It’s why we would never use them.
Even if it wasn’t for Nix.
“Yeah,” I sigh, shoving a hand through my hair as I bite down on my tongue bar.
“He’ll be okay,” he reassures me as I slump down onto the sofa beside him, peering down into the cardboard box at the little snoring bundle of ginger hair. “Ember wore her out,” Blaze says loosely, lounging back against the couch. “Named her too,” I sense the frown as he says it, making me smile, swinging my gaze onto him.
“And?”
“Mars,” he says seemingly unamused, a pucker to his lips as he peers down into the blanket filled box.
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing, tell me what huh means.”
It’s fascinating to see him always trying to pry apart the things Ember says and does, becoming increasingly more irritated when he can’t. I’m pretty sure, mostly, there aren’t double or hidden meanings to anything she says. He could even just fucking ask her.
These two will probably be the death of us all.
“Just think it’s interesting that she chose a fire related name,” I shrug casually before throwing my hands up, lacing my fingers behind my head.
“Oh,” his brow creases and I can see his mind working overtime, trying to work out why he didn’t get the reference to the red planet right away.
I find that even more amusing.
Like he’s trying to crack a code. Uncover some big secret.
“You’re back,” the woman that’s captured my big brother’s heart, mind and soul, says from the mouth of the hall, Cole appearing at her back, close, much closer than normal.
Interesting.
“You miss me?” I smirk, still lounging back on the sofa, legs spread wide, hands behind my head, I lick my lips, offering her a cocky smirk.
I love to tease this girl.
She gets this delicious little blush that sits high in her cheeks, runs like finger scratches down her neck, her eyes always seem impossibly wide and every word she’s ever learnt dies on her tongue.
She’s so easy to wind up.
But then, holding my gaze, she casually replies, “Yes,” and the cockiness in my expression falls until my lips are nothing more than parted in a little O shape.
Quickly recovering, I smile again, “Well, of course you did, Sugar,” watching her move slowly towards me. “Why don’t you come sit on my lap and show me how much?”
And shocking the shit out of me, she does just that. Stepping between my spread knees, one of her tiny hands coming to my chest to steady herself. My hands reach out, ready to drag her against me but Blaze and Cole’s snapped word ‘Easy’ makes me keep my hands to myself.
Looking between them, and then watching the way Ember very fucking slowly lowers herself down onto one of my long thighs, has me frowning hard.
“What the hell happened?” I snap instantly, knowing she’s hurt, wanting to drag her into my chest, protect her from these fucking arseholes, carry her away to keep her safe, but stopping myself.
It goes against every one of my instincts.
“I did it to myself,” Ember says before either of said arseholes can comment.
I’m already aware of what she means, even if Blaze hadn’t told us about it last night, I know what she did to herself in that bathroom at the farmhouse.
“Okay, Sugar,” I rumble lowly, looking up into her bright blue eyes, like the depths of the ocean ringed in a sapphire so dark it’s almost charcoal.
When she lays her against my shoulder, her eyes closing, warm fingers curling beneath the neckline of my t-shirt, holding onto me, my heart hums this deep heavy pulse inside my chest.
Shecame to me for comfort.
Chin resting atop her head of tight curls, my arm gently supporting her back, I look at my brother, expecting to see his anger, the tightness of his jaw, at her choosing me over him to sit with. But his dark eyes are on her, and there’s nothing in them but love.
Fuck me.
“Where’s Phoenix?” her breath feathers across my throat, making my Adam’s apple bob tightly, thinking of this, now, how Nix could be sat just like this on my opposite thigh, and I could hold them both.
“He’s not feeling great, Sugar,” I tell her, peering over at Cole as I say it, who, for once, hasn’t run off because Ember’s in the room.
What the hell happened here today?
Cole nods, his hands going to the arms of his chair, readying to lift himself out of it, go and find his friend, his brother. But he doesn’t even get his arse out of the seat before Ember’s head is lifting from my shoulder, her face tilting up to mine, eyes sleepy.
“Should we check on him?” she whispers the question, but it’s loud enough for us all to hear, I know why she speaks lowly, it’s so that Phoenix won’t hear.
There’s a crease between her light brows that I don’t like, my thumb coming up to smooth it away, but even then, dropping my hand, it remains in place.
“Sure,” I sigh, gently circling her waist, I look into her eyes, “here’s okay to touch?” With her nod, I lift her to stand, and as I get to my own feet, skirting around the puppy box, her hand is anxiously reaching for mine.
Blinking, I stare at it for so long that she goes to drop it just as I snag hold of it, lacing our fingers quickly, her cheeks redden, her feet shifting her weight from one leg to the other. She thought I didn’t want to.
“Come on, let’s go find him, but he might not want us there, okay?” I tuck a curl behind her ear, a small gold ball-shaped stud in her lobe.
“Okay,” she nods, and whatever confidence she just had seems to be quickly evaporating.
“It’s not you,” I tell her, sliding a finger beneath her chin, tilting her head back, forcing her to look at me. “He just gets depressed sometimes and isn’t very responsive, that’s all.”
With that she seems to perk up a little, her shoulders going back, “Okay.”
The bedroom is in darkness when we step inside together, Ember’s grip tightening on my fingers as I close the door at my back because she doesn’t like the dark. I squeeze her fingers back reassuringly.
“Cherub,” I call into the shadowed space, twisting the little plastic pole hanging from the window, opening the blind slats to allow a little of the street lamp’s glow to creep inside. “Ember’s come to see you,” I tell the turned away figure on the made bed. Releasing Ember’s hand, I approach the bed, his shirt off, sweats on, feet bare, his back to me revealing his scars, “Nix?”
“I’m tired,” he replies in a whisper.
“You want us to lie with you?” I ask, perching my arse down on the edge of the mattress, twisting back to look down at him. I brush my fingers through his ringlets, sweeping my thumb gently over his temple, “Can we cuddle?”
Expecting silent rejection, I look to Ember, shaking my head, but she frowns, edging closer, and I don’t stop her as she eases herself down beside me.
“Sometimes, when I’m feeling sad,” she starts, her voice surprisingly strong for her usual shy tone, “I think about you both in here.” Ember glances around the room, taking stock of the space. “I wonder what it is you’re doing. If you’re laughing, if you’re talking,” she exhales slowly, a small smile on one corner of her mouth. “If you’re cuddling.”
She lifts a hand, her eyes coming to mine to see if it’s okay, waiting for the small inclination of my head, before she places it down gently on the side of Nix’s covered thigh. Smoothing her fingers up and down in very gentle strokes.
“I imagine that you are,” she whispers to him loud enough for me to hear, but the words are meant for Nix. Staring down at her fingers, “cuddling,” she confirms. “I think about what it would feel like to be with you. In the tangle of both of your arms, the twine of your legs. I think of Flint making a rude joke and you huffing a soft laugh into the side of my neck. And it…” she pauses, giving a soft chuckle that is entirely unhumorous, a little shyness revealing itself, “...makes me feel a little better.”
For a moment, there’s silence, because I’m not sure how to take that. Like, at all. The fact that she thinks of us and has thought about being in here too. All three of us together. And I want to know when she started imagining it.
“I’d like you both now, please,” Nix’s quiet voice comes out cracked, and my chest spasms wildly.
Relief and love knotting its way around my heart.
I stand, moving around to the other side of the bed, slipping off my clothes, my shoes, before dragging Phoenix into my front as Ember curls herself around his back, one of her arms banding over his waist, the back of her knuckles brushing against my clothed cock, but it doesn’t do anything. Any other time I’d have been rock hard and weeping at the tip in an instance, but not like this. Not when he’s hurting.
There’s silence in the darkness, orange tinted light breaking up the shadows just enough for our girl to find sleep. It’s no secret she doesn’t like the dark. I hear Ember’s breaths evening out, Nix’s staying the same steady tempo they are when he’s awake.
My hand cups the side of his head, fingers threading into his hair, holding him into the hollow of my throat, my chin to the top of his head. I kiss his hair, just holding him to me, and finally, finally, his arm comes up between us, elbow bent, fist curled between our chests.
There’s never been a moment to tell him before.
To be honest about how I feel about him because he’s always just known. It’s been an unspoken declaration for the entirety of our relationship. We have communicated it to each other in a thousand different ways every single day, never ever needing to use the actual phrase.
It always felt wrong somehow. Not fitting. We were never the typical couple, the pair that suits.
We’ve always just been us.
And then this girl came into our lives. Unwillingly. A captive. Prisoner. Soft and shy and frightened.
We wanted to steal her from my brother. Play with her. Ruin her. Strip her bare. Peel back her skin. Crack her skull. Find out all of her secrets. But then, slowly, playing guard duty with her, seeing that despite it all, she’s somehow just like us. Broken, battered, sad, but not down, despite the weight of the world on her shoulders. Just like us. Never down. We changed our minds.
I think of my brother, the way Blaze’s dark brown eyes track her every movement, every breath, every fucking blink, and I see it so easily. It’s more than obsession. He started out wanting to own her, brand her with nothing but him.
Now it’s just bare.
Raw.
Something that is so unlike him. An emotion other than empty, cold anger. It fills him up inside so bright, it reflects on his outsides now too.
Love.
If my coal-hearted brother can feel it, admit it, even if it is to everyone but her, then so can I.
Suddenly, it feels so strange that I’ve never told him. That I’ve never voiced it before, because the way the words roll off of my tongue with nothing but truth, it’s so fucking easy, I want to scream it from the rooftops.
“I love you, Phoenix.” It’s a soft murmur whispered into the tight, blonde locks of his hair, my breath feathering through his curls, apple and birch filling my nose. “I love you so fucking much.”
His breathing doesn’t change, and for a moment, I think I must be wrong, and he’s fallen asleep, but then his fist uncurls, his soft fingers covering my heart.
“I love you, too, Flint,” he breathes against my skin, “with my whole heart.”