Chapter 23
After an intense CrossFit circuit that Jed set up for us, I try not to show how hard I’m panting by standing with my back to my brothers and my face in the mirror. Chugging water, I watch the drips Plinko down my chest and abs, grinning at the definition I definitely haven”t lost.
Fuck yeah. I’ve still got it.
“You vain motherfucker.” Kade shoves me from behind with a laugh. His own tattooed torso is looking way more defined than mine, so fuck him for that. Either Laken keeps his ass in shape, or it really does pay to be close with Jed.
“You’re checking yourself out too, asshole.” I shove him back. He totally is. The youngest Dare might be the sexiest one of us, and I am not okay with that. I’ll have to fuck with him a bit to make sure he remembers his place.
Then Jed walks up, and I roll my pissed-off eyes. Okay, yeah. He outdoes us all. Lean but cut, tattooed but not covered, and cocky as shit about it. “Who you trying to impress?” he asks me.
Remy Rivers. Thanks.
“Just because you assholes have steady relationships doesn’t mean I need someone. I have to look good for everyone who gets the pleasure of all this.” I run my hands from shoulders to cock and back up again. “But especially Lakes,” I joke. “Gotta remain beautiful.”
“Next fucking circuit!” he barks at all of us.
Jed never lets us skip leg day. We work through a series of lower body exercises that have us panting so hard we can’t even bicker, and by the time he calls it on the round, I collapse to the mats with jelly legs.
“This is second-hand murder,” I complain. “Leave me.” They all start walking away. Fucking assholes. Not even ashamed to admit I stay there for another ten or so, and by the time I sit up, they’re all back with water.
“Literally the worst way to cool down, Zahn. You have to keep moving.”
I give Jed the finger.
“You good, man?” Hardin asks, sitting down next to me to stretch out.
“You mean my legs? No. I won’t be able to fuck for three days.”
He laughs. “Your head.”
I shrug. I’m not really a shrugger. I blurt shit almost as bluntly as Kade, make jokes out of everything, and don’t really have any deep-seated secrets because I’ve never been a deep kind of guy.
“Spill it,” Rydan says, working through his next round of lunges.
But… Remy’s trust again. I already blurted all our business once, but things have progressed since then. When they all look at me without any taunts on their lips or bullshit expressions on their faces, I go for it.
“Been getting pretty sexy with Remy. Kissing. Making out. I jerked him off.” Might have been easier to ease into that, but whatever.
Kade’s brows hit his dark hairline and Jed grins, but Har and Ry are analyzing me a bit more, trying to figure out if I’m freaking out about it or not.
“Always thought it’d be Gar if you went for a guy.” Jed laughs.
Shit, no doubt.
“Did he come?” Kade asks the important question.
“Of course he fucking came,” Hardin butts in. “Zahn’s been wanking since he was too young to know what his dick actually did. He knows how to jerk a cock.”
Well, true. I thought they might give me a bit of a hard time about doing this with Remy and risking our business and our bond, but they don’t even seem that surprised. I’m also not ashamed of it or embarrassed by it. If they got to feel the tension and get swept up in the chemistry, they’d do the same damn thing.
Jed hands me new weights and shows me how to squat properly. “You can lift more than that.” He takes the lesser weights away. “When did this shit start?” he asks.
Workout can’t even pause for this chat? No? “Well, we’ve been running a random hookup thing for years, but a while back, Remy admitted he feels weird going to strangers” houses for awkward hookups.” I laugh at that. Love Remy and his weird mind. “So, I agreed to do it with him so he didn’t have to be alone, and he kind of jarringly found out I was into guys too, so that… opened things up.”
“He didn’t know before?” Ry asks.
“I mean, maybe. But we’d never been with a guy before when we went off together, and I honestly didn’t think it was something I had to tell people. Like… shouldn’t you all just know?” I look at them all.
“No,” Jed scoffs. “I mean, we’ve guessed, but you never outright said anything and we didn’t want to pry.”
I bark out a laugh. “Fuck off! You assholes pry about everything!”
“Not sexualities,” Kade says. “That shit is personal until you’re ready to make it a thing.”
“Shit,” I mutter, feeling shitty about that. “Guess I get why Rem was so butthurt over it now.”
“You bi?” Hardin asks.
“I don’t know. Pan, maybe, but don’t want a label. Just open. That’s it.”
“He just likes to fuck,” Ry clarifies, and I finger gun him. “Anything and everything.”
“What he said.” I grin.
“Yeah, but Rem?” Jed moves us on to the next round of leg presses. “You worried it’s gonna fuck shit up between you two?”
If anyone would know about strained relationships over sex, it’s Jed and Kade. “I mean, a bit, but there’s no stopping it now. We’ve already crossed a fuck ton of lines, and… I’m hooked, man. I don’t want to stop.”
Four walks into the gym with Jed’s order of protein shit and electrolyte drinks. He drops it all on the floor, pulls off his shirt, switches out his boots for shoes, and joins us. “You kiss him without the heat?” He jumps right into the conversation, and everyone gives him shit for knowing more than them.
“Yeah.” I turn away, hiding my face. This is the only part of the whole thing that puts me off a little. It’s feelings. Real ones. Ones I swore I’d never have and didn’t want. Things are changing inside me, and Remy is the root and the reason.
“That means it was sexy,” Hardin says, laughing at my back. They think I don’t want to admit to the kiss being hot, but it’s not that. And I won’t tell them the truth yet.
“He’s got a stiffy over Rem,” Kade shouts. “Remember all those times you called me out on my Laken boners? Huh? Sat on my bed and made me feel like a fucking loser. Payback, bitch.”
I grin. Guess I deserve that.
“He hard right now?” Jed asks while someone else spins me around.
“Oh, he’s hard!” Four barks.
And just like that, the intensity of the conversation lightens, switching to good-hearted fun rather than deep-seated feelings.
“Alright. No more Remy talk! This idiot can’t handle it,” Rydan mocks the shit out of me.
“Rem coming over tonight?” Hardin asks. “I’d be down to see you two get down.”
I throw my water bottle at him, but can’t fight my smile. The workout gets abandoned for this bullshit, but I can’t say I’m unhappy about it.
“Ask Dom for tips,” Kade says. “He knows how to suck a dick. Or do you already know?”
“Remy knows,” I fire at him. “Best head of my life.” I hop on Kade’s shoulders and take his knees out, finally getting the jump on him. I pin him to the mat and straddle his disgustingly toned body. “Maybe me and Remy can win Lakes over to our side.”
Kade laughs but punches me in the gut. “Good luck. The twins are already trying.”
Kolt and Bass ain’t got nothing on me and Rem.
Fuck, best workout ever. Love that my brothers are always good for a mood booster and to help me get out of my web of tangled feelings.
I get in from an overnight flight at six in the morning, and of course, my early-rising mother—who passed that gene on to me—is sitting on the front deck, wrapped in a blanket with a cigarette burning between her fingers. Just as I walk up the steps, Laken comes out in her winter coat, carrying two coffees.
“Ladies,” I greet them both with a smile and turn down Laken’s coffee offer. I need to sleep, and caffeine makes me wired. I reach for Mom’s cigarettes instead, but she smacks my hand away and hides them in her pocket.
When I pout, she throws them at me and calls me a twat. “What’s got you smoking, baby?”
I glance at Laken, who already knows, but she just smiles. She won’t tell my secrets, even to my mom, until I give her the go-ahead. Well, right now might be the time. I light one of these vile things, hoping the answers will come as the paper turns to ash, and sit my ass in a rocking chair.
“You think it’s possible to not even have a sexuality, but instead, you just want one person because of who they are rather than what they are?” I ask.
“You?” Mom calls me out. “Mr. Variety? The one who says he won’t settle because monogamy is an archaic notion that we conform to only because we think we have to?”
Goddamn her for never letting me get away with shit. I laugh, owning it. “I don’t mean sexually. I mean, yeah, a little sexually. I still want some variety in my fucks.” I think. Right? “But not with anything else. To just be close to one person who I experience it all with, you know? Not focusing on their gender or anything like that because it’s just… the two of us together that makes the whole thing feel better than anything else.” Am I even making sense? Probably not. I suck at verbalizing my mind’s veering thoughts. “Is that shit possible?”
“Anything is possible.” Mom leans back in her chair, looking out at the resort. “Connection is connection.”
Laken nods at my cigarette, reminding me that I have one. I grin at her, and she encourages me to keep talking.
“Best friends fall in love all the time, right? That happens. There’s a fucking boatload of movies and books about it.”
“It does,” Mom says, looking at me now. “You saying you’re in love with your best friend?”
“No,” I scoff. “I wouldn’t know what love was if it fucked me in the ass.”
“Mhm.” Mom shakes her head at me.
“But I’ve got something going on with him. Lakes told me that not everyone is looking for romantic love. That I can look for a bond or a connection, like you said, and that’s enough. More than enough. That I can want that instead of the lovey-dovey shit.”
Mom smiles at Laken, silently thanking her for being available to chat that night Remy and I called her after the blowjob confession.
“Want my two cents?” she asks.
I groan. “You’re going to give it to me anyway, devil woman.” When she shuts up after that with that motherly look on her face like she knows something I don’t, I relent. “Fucking fix me, Mom.”
“You ain’t broken, baby. But you and Remy have a bond that has spanned your lifetime. You’ve literally been through everything together and you haven’t broken. Trust that. Trust that whatever is happening between the two of you right now, you can get through it together, too. Respect your friendship, but learn together. Let it happen however it is meant to happen and stop worrying so much about relationships and sexualities. It’s you and Rem. It always has been. Things are just morphing now.” She smiles at me. “And come to me when you eventually freak out about it.” She laughs, standing to kiss the top of my head.
“I won’t freak out!”
She rips the un-smoked cigarette out of my grip. “And stop trying to be like Jed and Kade. Those smoking dipshits will die sooner than you. Sorry, Lakes, but so will you.” Mom grins at her.
Laken hasn’t had a smoke yet this morning since she’s trying to quit, but I’ve seen her sneaking them here and there.
“Really? That’s all the wisdom I get? You fixed Four, and Laken’s boyfriends! What about me?”
“I trust you in Remy’s hands,” Mom says, heading inside and ending the conversation before I really get the chance to vent. Maybe she knows my thoughts aren’t clear enough to properly shout about them yet. Guess I’m not mature enough to get her tough love speech. Smartass woman.
Laken and I sit in silence for a bit, watching the harbor and the guests start to wake at the resort. The weather is calm and cold, but it’s the perfect temperature for sitting under the shelter of the front porch, stewing in thoughts that don’t feel so confusing anymore. Mom trusts me in Remy’s hands, which means I need to be trustworthy to have Remy in my hands, too.
“Hey, Lakes?” I ask, relaxed. “You know what else there are a lot of movies about?”
She laughs, already knowing what I’m going to say. “Oh, here we go.”
“My brother’s girl is a hot movie trope.” I stand and grab her hand, ready to lead her inside for breakfast. “I’m just saying. We can still make this happen. You keep shutting me down and I’ll have to start working on Genevieve.”
Laken’s smile is beautiful. “I’ve already lived that movie once,” she says, fighting me through the front door. “But maybe the sequel will be better.”
“I fucking heard that, Bossy!” Kade shouts.
Before she’s even got her coat off, Kade has her ponytail fisted in his grip. Their eyes connect and sparks fly, and I wonder if it’s as visible and palpable to other people as it is to me every goddamn time I’m around Remy lately. Jed looks over from the kitchen table, and when he sees his girl and his brother caught up in a battle of wills, he just grins and goes back to eating.
I sit down with everyone who is awake, ready to eat and go to bed. But I’m back on my feet a second later when Four runs down the hall, half-dressed.
“Zahn!” he shouts, eyes scanning the table until he finds me as I stand. He sags, almost like seeing me is a relief, but he tenses again on the next breath. “SR just got a MAYDAY call from your company. How many pilots do you have out right now? Where’s Remy?” He’s walking to the door, finishing getting dressed.
My heart fucking explodes. “He should be back anytime now. He’s due to land at seven.” My phone is in my hand and I’m calling Remy on repeat, texting whoever I know at the airfield and calling the airfield in Nome to see if he left okay.
No. No. No. No. No. This cannot be happening!
“Four?” I beg him for information as he opens the front door. My palms are sweating and my mind is racing, and I think my heart is breaking.
He turns, palming my cheeks. “Keep trying him. I’ll tell you as soon as I know something, but if you hear before me, please tell me so I can fucking breathe, okay?” His eyes meet mine. “He’s gonna be fine. It might not even be him.”
It is him. He’s the only pilot we have in the air right now.