Chapter 29 Maeve
MAEVE
I was scrolling the online argument between Ethan Todd and NYNancy, the username of the woman who was baiting Todd into a debate at Apex, when Bram entered the living room.
“Let’s go.”
I looked up and blinked. My eyes felt glazed over from staring at my phone for so long. My brain too.
Aloha had set up the bot farm and the social media posts directed at Ethan Todd had started rolling in. It was subtle so far, hard to tell which posts were real and which ones were part of the campaign we’d launched to draw him out.
But it had started, and I could hardly look away.
“Where are we going?”
“I have an errand and you’re coming with me.”
Remy and Poe were working. I’d stopped asking what that meant — I didn’t care, it didn’t matter — but they’d taken their Hunt masks so I was guessing it was the kind of work that involved hurting people.
It probably should have bothered me more, but I trusted the Butchers, knew they weren’t out there hurting innocent people who were just trying to live their lives. They were trying to keep the darkness that was part of us — all of us — from reaching the people who lived outside of it.
I stood and looked down at the jeans and sweater I’d thrown on that morning in an attempt to wear something other than leggings or tracksuits. “Do I need to change?”
Without my job at Lushberry, I didn’t have any reason to dress up. My face was almost entirely healed but I’d become reclusive in the two weeks since the Butchers had brought me back from Romania.
And to be fair, there weren’t a lot of reasons to leave the loft. It was cozy and comfortable, easy to fall into a soothing rhythm of cooking and baking, watching movies with the Butchers, fucking.
Lots of fucking.
“No,” Bram said, pulling me into his arms. “You look perfect, as always.”
I looked up at him, touched his face. “So do you.”
And he did. He wore a simple T-shirt and his leather jacket, but he didn’t need anything else to showcase his muscled chest and arms, his thighs that seemed barely contained by his jeans.
My cunt pulsed at the sight of him. I knew now what it felt like to have all his power driving into me, all his rage focused instead on my pleasure, and I couldn’t get enough.
Bram opened a drawer in the kitchen and grabbed a Snickers, but I took it out of his hand before he could stop me.
He scowled. “Hey!”
I threw the Snickers in the trash and handed him one of the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, still cooling on the counter, that I’d baked that morning. “It’s trash. At least you know what’s in the cookie.”
“Fine.” He ate half the cookie in one bite.
We headed downstairs and I put on my coat before stepping outside where the gray-and-white cat was waiting. He hissed and Bram took a step back.
I had to suppress my laughter. Bram was a thousand times bigger than the cat, a thousand times more deadly, but he seemed legitimately scared of the feline.
“That thing’s a fucking demon,” he said.
I picked up the fuzzball and he immediately started nuzzling my face and purring. “He’s a sweetheart. Look at him!”
I was starting to understand why June had been so obsessed with animals.
“He hates me,” Bram said.
The cat hissed at Bram as if to prove his point.
“He just needs to get to know you.” It was a feeble attempt at smoothing over their tumultuous relationship but it was the best I could do.
I was relieved when Bram didn’t point out that the cat seemed fine with Poe and Remy.
“Be nice,” I whispered in the cat’s ear before putting him down. “You still have food in your bowl.”
We got in the Hummer and pulled out of the fenced lot and onto Main Street. There were cameras at the gate now and barbed wire at the top of the chain-link fence, the hole Ethan Todd had cut into it repaired.
There was also a guy in a leather jacket with the Blades emblem pacing the street in front of the loft, one of many locals who lurked outside now.
I’d been freaked at first, had wondered if maybe Ethan Todd had enlisted them to stalk me, but Bram had confessed that they were there because he’d asked them to be there.
It wasn’t the Butchers’ style to hire a high-priced security firm to protect the loft even though they probably could have afforded it. They handled their problems their own way, kept it all in the family of Blackwell Falls.
It had taken some getting used to, but I had to admit I felt better knowing the locals were keeping an eye out for anyone who didn’t belong.
Bram nodded at him as we passed, then continued down Main Street.
I didn’t ask questions about where we were going.
Running errands with the Butchers might mean waiting in the car while they went into a local store or an abandoned barn outside of town, but it could just as easily mean they were stopping to pick something up for the loft or taking one of the cars in for service.
After a year and a half of plotting to take down Ethan Todd, it was a relief to be a passenger — and a passenger princess — in someone else’s daily life.
It was something I loved about being with the Butchers: I felt like I could relinquish control because I knew they had everything handled, their shit and mine too if I needed their help.
I was surprised when Bram pulled next to the curb outside Cassie’s Cuppa, less than two miles down the street from the loft.
I stayed put while he got out of the car, assuming he was running in to talk to Cassie. Instead he walked around to my side of the Hummer and opened my door.
“Let’s go.”
“You want me to come in?” I’d never admit it, but the way he’d ignored me in front of his sister still stung when I thought about it, which was why I tried not to think about it.
“That’s why we’re here.” I stepped onto the curb and he took my face in his hands. “I’ll never stop hating myself for the way I treated you, Maeve.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I just… I don’t want you to do this for me.”
I didn’t want him to introduce me to Cassie under duress.
“It’s not about that,” he said. “You’re my family now, and I want you to meet the rest of my family.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Butterflies took flight in my stomach as he took my hand and led me inside. I was almost glad he hadn’t warned me. I would have been sick with nervousness. I knew how much Cassie meant to him, knew how close they were.
I wanted her to like me.
It was lunchtime and the coffee shop was about half-full with customers looking for an afternoon caffeine hit.
Cassie was behind the counter, refilling big glass containers with coffee beans while the purple-haired barista served the line of customers and a lanky guy with dimples filled cups with steaming coffee.
A smile broke out on Cassie’s face when she spotted us, and she held up one finger to let us know she needed a minute.
“This way,” Bram said.
I felt a thrill at the subtle pressure of his hand on my lower back as he guided me through the coffee shop.
We’d explored every inch of each other’s body, but there was something even more intimate in his touch now.
We were in public, where everyone could see, and he was making no secret about the fact that I was his.
He led me to a table by the window, a table I recognized as the one where he’d been sitting with Cassie both times I’d seen him in the coffee shop.
He helped me off with my coat and pulled out my chair like we were in a five-star restaurant.
“I’m going to give Cassie your order,” he said.
I liked that I didn’t have to tell him what I wanted. He knew my coffee shop drink was a latte with a splash of vanilla syrup, and I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans as he talked to Cassie.
Oh M, you’re in love.
June sounded surprised. She sounded happy for me.
I know.
I’d told Poe and Remy in bed, and while it might have been implicit that Bram was included, implicit wasn’t enough for the way I felt about Bram. He deserved to know the depth of my feelings, deserved to know I had some reserved just for him.
Did he love me too? He hadn’t said it, but it hardly mattered. My feelings didn’t depend on whether they were reciprocated.
But deep down, I hoped they were.
Bram was holding a steaming mug in each hand when Cassie took off her apron and stepped away from the counter. I stood as they approached and tried to calm my nerves.
“Maeve, this is my sister, Cassie,” Bram said when they reached the table. “Cass, this is Maeve.”
I wondered if it was my imagination that his voice softened around my name.
“Finally! Maeve, hi!” I almost jumped in surprise when Cassie threw her arms around me in a hug. “I’ve heard so much about you!”
“You… you have?”
She pulled away with a laugh. “Tons. You’re all he can talk about.”
“Cass…” Was Bram’s face red?
“Let’s sit. I think Kaylee has things under control.” I couldn’t be sure but I assumed Kaylee was the purple-haired girl at the register.
Cassie pulled out a chair and I took in her features, saw Bram’s smile — not that he used it very often — and the shape of his nose. She was so pretty, her copper-colored hair shining like a new penny, her eyes shifting from blue to green depending on the tilt of her head.
“It’s always busy in here,” I said. “You do a great job with it.”
She smiled. “Thanks. It took me a while to find my stride, but I really love it. People come in grumpy or tired or sad, and I can see how much a hot cup of coffee or tea lifts their spirits. I feel like a secret coffee fairy godmother.”
Oh my god, why was she so adorable?
“That must be such a nice way to spend your days,” I said.
“It is,” she said. “Bram tells me you’re an amazing cook. In fact, I think his words were ‘the most amazing cook in the world.’”
My cheeks got hot, and I wasn’t the only one. Big bad Bram looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole.
“I think he’s being pretty generous, but I do love making desserts.”
She grinned, “No wonder he fell so hard for you. Bram’s always had a crazy sweet tooth.”
Bram’s chair scraped on the floor as he stood up. “Um… I’m going to make a quick work call.”
He stalked from the coffee shop like his ass was on fire.
Cassie smirked. “I did that on purpose. Privileges of being a little sister.”
“I’d call you mean but I’m… I was…” I stumbled over my words. It never got easier trying to figure out how to talk about June.
I was surprised when Cassie reached for my hand. “Bram told me about your sister. I’m so sorry, Maeve. I can’t imagine your pain.”
It was a nice thing to say, especially given what Cassie and Bram had been through with their parents.
“I think you can,” I said. “It just…”
“Blindsides you when you least expect it?”
I exhaled. “Yeah.”
“I know what you mean,” she said. “Like I’ll be going about my day, feeling like a normal person, and then a mother and daughter will come in after a day of shopping and I’ll remember, that’s what I lost.”
I nodded. “Exactly. And when people ask me if I have brothers and sisters, I never really know what to say.”
“I understand,” she said.
I knew from the pain in her eyes that she did. “Thank you. It’s nice to talk to someone who gets it.”
She flashed me a wry smile. “Not a club either of us wanted to be in, but at least we’re not alone.” She hesitated. “I’m so so glad Bram has you, Maeve.”
“I don’t know that I’m any help. He doesn’t talk much about what happened to your parents.”
She nodded. “Yeah, he’s never been great at the feelings stuff, but it was bad for him, being in the car when it happened, surviving when our parents didn’t.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“I think he just kind of… shut down, you know? And I thought that was the way he was now, the way he’d be forever. And then he met you.”
I stared at my lap. “I thought he hated me at first.”
I looked up when she laughed. “I’m not surprised. He hates anything that makes him human. And you, Maeve, you make him human. You make him want to be human.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “That might be the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.”
“It’s true.” She grinned. “I’m really glad my brother pulled his head out of his ass before it was too late.”
I returned her smile. “Me too.”
I felt Bram’s return before I saw him, felt the vacuum of his energy, like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
Except now it didn’t feel threatening.
Now it felt like a harbor from the storm, quiet and still.
“Give me one sec,” Cassie said, standing.
My body warmed from the inside out when Bram bent to kiss me in front of everyone. “You good?” he asked.
“I’m good.”
Cassie returned holding a picnic basket — complete with a red gingham liner peeking out of the top — that looked like it belonged in a storybook. “Here’s that stuff you wanted.”
Bram looked down at the picnic basket in her hands. “Seriously, Cass?”
“It’s all in there.” Her smile was mischievous, and I had a feeling this was a bit between them: Cassie pushing his buttons, Bram pretending to be annoyed.
I looked from one of them to the other. “What is even happening right now?”
Bram took the basket from Cassie and grabbed my hand. “Let’s get out of here, before Cassie finds more ways to get her kicks at my expense.”
She was still grinning when I turned to look at her.