Chapter 3 #3
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Grady snarled, half pulling his gun from its holster.
Quinn stood in a heartbeat and put a hand on Grady’s, urging him to put it back.
“You’re the guest?” Riley said flatly.
Sebastian warily stepped further into the room. “You don’t go on calls anymore,” he said slowly. “What are you doing here?”
Riley pointed to himself. “Sinclair.” He pointed to Peyton. “Sinclair.”
Sebastian blanched. His eyes were a little wild when he glanced at Peyton. “We… didn’t exchange surnames.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Grady said, grimacing.
“Sink is taken,” Parker said. “Get a bucket.”
“No one is going to be sick,” Riley said roughly. “Seb… I—” He cut himself off and pursed his lips. “We’ll talk later,” was all he finished with. “Will, Parker, Peyton, pack a bag. None of you are staying here tonight.”
“What?” Parker protested. “Why not? In a couple of hours, you’ll have the body out. Then I will bleach everything to within an inch of its life, and everything will be fine.”
“Whoever left him here knows where you live,” Riley said calmly. “They’ve proven they can get inside without any of you knowing, activities being conducted aside—no, Peyton, close your mouth, I don’t want to hear it. You’re not staying here. I won’t repeat myself.”
They all paused when a weird sound filled the room.
Sebastian cursed and pulled a phone out of his pocket. He flicked it off and put it back in. “Am I being detained, or am I free to go?”
“Did you kill someone last night?” Riley asked, raising a brow.
Sebastian scowled. “No,” he eventually said tersely. “I got my brains fucked out, though. Does that make me a suspect?”
Riley looked unimpressed. Quinn tried not to swallow his tongue. He didn’t need that kind of statement to fuel the images his mind had already conjured.
“Quinn will call you to arrange a time for you to come down to the station; we’ll need to interview you,” Riley said.
“Yeah, I know the drill.”
“Not your first rodeo?” Grady drawled. “Colour me surprised that you’ve been a murder suspect before.”
“He’s not a suspect,” Quinn said, shooting Grady a warning look. “How did you get here?” he asked Sebastian.
“My car.” He wouldn’t look at Quinn, and his jaw was clenched so hard Quinn wouldn’t be surprised if he chipped a tooth.
Quinn wanted to take him into his arms. The cut on his temple was red and angry, emphasised more now that it was clean, and the bruise looked painful.
The slight bags under his eyes showed a lack of sleep—something Quinn was not going to think about—and he looked very much like he was at the end of his tether.
Just because Sebastian hadn't ever let him close again didn't mean Quinn had forgotten what it was like.
Didn't meant that Quinn had stopped wanting to take away anything that hurt him.
“Let me walk you out.”
Sebastian was silent until the elevator doors closed.
“I didn’t know you knew them.” Sebastian laughed, a dry, sarcastic sound. “Didn’t know you were in love with one of them.”
“I’m not.” This was not a conversation Quinn wanted to have. It wasn’t one he had ever expected to have.
“Right. Guess I wouldn’t know what that looks like on you, would I?”
Quinn closed his eyes and counted to five. “Peyton and I are complicated.”
“ That one sounds familiar.”
“Stop it,” Quinn said quietly. “Please.” He knew he deserved everything that Sebastian had ever thrown at him, but he wished they could call a ceasefire even if for only five minutes.
Sebastian fell silent, but it wasn’t comforting. If anything, it made Quinn feel worse. He followed Sebastian to his car, like a man walking to the gallows. He wished he knew the right words to make this better.
They didn’t see each other often enough for the wounds to be gaping wide, but this morning they felt sharp, poised to slice them both open.
”I need—” Quinn paused, clearing his throat.
Sebastian pulled his keys out of his pocket and held tightly to them. “You need what?”
“Your number. A number to call you on.” Once upon a time, he’d had his number memorised. Quinn wondered if it was the same one. “To organise—”
“I know why. Your phone?”
Quinn bit his lip as Sebastian programmed his number into Quinn’s phone. He opened his mouth to say something, didn’t know what to say, and closed it again.
Sebastian opened his car and stopped. “If you—”
Quinn waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
Sebastian let out a breath and shook his head. “Never mind. See you around, Quinn.”
Sebastian’s car disappeared around the corner, and eight years of regret crashed against Quinn like a freight train. What they could have had, what he’d so colossally fucked up.
He looked up to the fourth-floor window of Peyton and Will’s apartment.
His life was full of regrets, it seemed.
Peyton couldn’t keep his eyes off the front door, only half concentrating on what Riley was saying to him.
Quinn and Seb knew each other. More than that, Peyton was sure that whatever history they had was intimate.
Two men didn’t look at each other like that, didn’t touch each other like that, without a prior intimacy.
Or longing, he guessed, like his situation.
He wanted to know which one it was.
Maybe it should have bothered him, given the torch he held for the detective, but Peyton was just intrigued. And maybe feeling a little hot under the collar.
He wasn’t even wearing a collar.
“Talk about six degrees of separation,” Will muttered, pressing his shoulder against Peyton’s and rubbing his lower back.
Peyton shared a look with him. “Tell me about it.”
“Are you two listening to me?” Riley asked tersely.
“Yes,” they both replied. A clear lie. Peyton had learned to tune him out since he was a teenager.
Riley had been adopted into the family before Peyton had even been born; he’d never known a life without him as a brother.
So naturally, he’d learned to ignore him early on, just like he ignored Danny and Kellan.
Lucas never tried to lecture him, and Parker normally didn’t have to because he was always right beside him when they got into trouble.
Having five brothers was not as exciting as it sounded.
Or maybe it was, depending on what kind of excitement someone was looking for.
“I’m serious. Neither of you are staying here tonight.”
“The apartment will be released before then,” Peyton tried to reason. It’s not like they would keep the apartment contained the entire day. There wasn’t any blood anywhere. Nothing was broken. Why did they have to go somewhere else? They could look after themselves.
“I don’t care.”
Peyton knew that voice. He’d daydreamed about throwing darts at that voice.
“Where? Your apartment isn’t fit for guests,”—it was gorgeous and well-stocked, but it was a studio apartment, and his couch was not the comfortable sleeping kind—“Kellan’s house is a construction site, and I’m not going to Mum and Dad’s.
” He loved his parents more than life itself, but he’d worked hard to establish himself, which wasn’t easy considering how successful all his older brothers were.
He had succeeded in the field he’d chosen, and it had been very much a “be careful what you wish for” situation.
He’d quit his job in the military just last year, and the last thing he wanted to do was complete the one-eighty and be back with his parents.
He knew it would only be temporary, and it was ridiculous for that to mean anything, but everything in him screamed that it would be the final nail in his coffin, and he didn’t need help with his nightmares.
“We could stay at a hotel?” Will suggested.
“No,” Riley said. “They aren’t secure enough.”
“What are you expecting? That one of us is next? That’s horror-movie-level paranoia,” Peyton said. “Besides, we’re not exactly helpless. I was special forces, and I know that doesn’t mean much to you, but it means I know how to look after myself.”
“Speak for yourself,” Parker grumbled. “I don’t have combat experience! I’m a primary school teacher!”
”And Will is a cop,” Peyton continued, ignoring his twin, “just like you. Are you saying you can’t handle yourself?”
“There’s a dead body in your lounge, Peyton,” Riley said flatly. “Don’t try to argue semantics with me right now.”
“Oh my god, I’m gonna be sick again,” Parker said mournfully. He turned and dry heaved into the sink.
Quinn came back inside by himself, and Peyton’s eyes locked onto his. Peyton’s lips parted as he searched for some sign of… something. He had no idea what he was looking for. Something in Quinn had changed around Sebastian, in a way that Peyton had never seen before.
“Danny has a big enough house, and it’s basically Fort Knox,” Riley said, pulling Peyton from his thoughts. “You can stay there.”
“I think you have to ask him before you just invite people to stay there,” Parker muttered.
“It doesn’t count when it’s family.”
“I can stay with my brother,” Will said, gracefully bowing out of their argument.
“Nice try, but Aubrey works nights, and Harry isn’t in the country.”
“The way you keep tabs on people is creepy,” Will told Riley, sounding put out. “And who cares when Aubrey works?”
“Don’t be obtuse, William,” Riley said. “This was clearly targeted.”
“At who? Three people live here, and we had a guest.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” Riley’s voice was dry and disapproving.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t vet every person that I sleep with,” Peyton said, resisting the urge to flip his brother off.
The number of people he’d slept with was exactly two now, but Riley didn’t know that, and Peyton wasn’t interested in having a deep and meaningful conversation about it.
“Was I supposed to have asked if he was familiar with our ridiculously large family? Should I have asked for a chart?” He clicked his fingers.
“Maybe I should carry the family tree in my pocket just in case?”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
“What do you want from me?”