21. Mateo
21
MATEO
PRESENT DAY
No one ever warned me that having more than one kid meant someone stared at you 24/7. All day every day, if they were in my house, one of them was fucking staring at me.
I came to in my own bed, reaching for Em, unsure of what had woken me beyond the distinct sensation of eyes on me.
Little eyes, but not the littlest.
I shifted, finding myself pinned by Liliana’s sharp gaze as she lay on her belly a foot down the bed, dainty chin on her folded arms, fully clothed in her school uniform, ink already staining her fingers. “What—” My voice sounded like Saint’s when he hadn’t spoken for a month. I cleared my throat and tried again. “What are you doing here?”
“Duh, I live here.”
Fucking duh. I sifted through my cloudy mind, trying to recall what day it was, but I had nothing save the belated memory of Embry leaving before dawn to play catch up on the Whisper Farm site.
It was fucking weird to wake up in bed without him. To be this out of it and not be with him. To be this out of it at all . The pain in my stomach was minimal and getting better by the day. The brain fog from whatever had happened to me while I’d been under was fucking insane.
Tuesday .
It was Tuesday.
“You don’t live here on Tuesdays.” Because she had art club at the arse crack of dawn on Thursdays and until four days ago, I’d been the motherfucking don at springing out of bed in the mornings.
“It’s Monday.” Liliana switched to English, which somehow didn’t help. “And you said I could live wherever I pissing like.”
“Don’t say that word.”
“It’s what you said.”
“I know, just... never fucking mind. Where’s your sister?”
“Saint took her out.”
I absorbed that—both that Saint was in the vicinity to have my littlest kid in his care when I hadn’t seen him since he’d left the haulage run, and that he was comfortable enough to do it. That brother, man. He was amazing with kids, but tiny babies terrified him. I loved watching his bond with Hope grow now she was bigger. I loved lots of things, including waking up to my kid when I’d been so sure she was somewhere else.
“Is your mum here?”
“Well, duh ?—”
“Don’t fucking say that either. Come give me a cuddle.”
Liliana wriggled up the bed and under my arm. Then she changed her mind and put a foot of space between us, the same worry she’d had for Embry in the bad old days folding her face in half.
“You’re not going to hurt me, nena.”
“You have holes in you.”
“Stitched holes. I can’t even feel them.”
“Then you’re weird.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
Nothing that she could immediately think of. She scooted closer again but kept away from my torso while I pondered a child-friendly way to explain that my biggest problem was in my mashed melon.
You didn’t bang your head.
I didn’t. So why did I feel like I had?
Someone cleverer than me would know, but Embry was out and I didn’t know where my phone was. Hadn’t for days and days—another anomaly I didn’t fucking understand. I had kids and a 24/7 job. Since Lili had been born, I’d never lost track of my phone.
“Liliana.” Juana poked her head around the door. “Get your shoes on, it’s nearly time to go.”
Lili scrambled off the bed.
“Be careful ,” Juana warned.
“I’m fucking fine.”
“You’re an idiot.” Juana gave me the same glare Orla reserved for Cam and disappeared again.
I scowled after her with pure sibling energy. Most days it was hard to remember we’d once been attracted to each other enough to make a baby. Every day I remembered how much I loved her.
Liliana kissed my cheek and dropped my phone on my chest. “See you later, Pápa. I love you.”
“Te amo. Be good.”
At school? No fucking chance, but I always said it just in case she had the urge to be someone else for the day. And because it made her laugh, a sound I’d dreamed of my whole adult life.
She left the room.
Juana came back with the same hard look on her face, watching me heave myself upright as Saint’s cat invaded my space. “I brought Jonah over to keep you company. And you’re a terrible patient by the way.”
“So?”
“So stop it.”
“Didn’t hear you saying that to Nash when he kept hopping up and down the stairs.”
“Then you weren’t listening. Everyone said it to Nash.”
Facts, but the clipped edge in Juana’s tone pissed me off. “Why are you hassling me? I lost my appendix, not my personality. You thought I’d come home someone different?”
A vehicle pulled up outside. I swung my legs out of bed and stood fast enough to nearly send me right back down again. But I fought the white spots dancing in my vision and moved to the window.
Rubi .
And he had Viktor with him, of all people. But I didn’t mind the new Russian, because he wasn’t that new—not to Liliana, and I owed him for all the times he’d kept my kid safe in his legit fucking helicopter.
“It’s just Rubi,” Juana said, reminding me she was there. That I was there when my head seemed intent on spinning away to another planet. “And a hundred other people. Heaven forbid I go anywhere alone .”
I planted a hand on the windowsill and swung my wobbly gaze to her. “Where do you want to go?”
“None of your business.”
“Why say it then? I don’t stop you living your fucking life.”
“What life is that? The school run? Or mooching around Tesco with eight bikers watching my every move?”
“They’re there to protect you. And the kids.”
“I know that.”
“So what’s the problem? It’s no different for Orla.”
“Orla has everything she needs at home!”
Juana kicked the chest of drawers and stormed out. I heard her footsteps on the stairs and a minute later, the front door slammed.
She drove away. Her escort followed, Rubi and Viktor in the car, a couple bikes at a respectable distance behind, trusted brothers who worked on rotation to guard Juana on the rare occasion she wasn’t with one of us. It was a round-the-clock detail, same as Orla’s. She could go wherever the fuck she wanted, whenever the fuck she wanted. Just not on her own—a detail that gnawed at me, but I was too thick to comprehend why. And too tired and fucked up to stand at the window thinking about it, even if the cool glass against my forehead was the only good thing about being awake right now.
I wrenched myself away and shuffled to the bathroom. It was clean, thanks to fuck knew who—definitely not Juana. She didn’t do shit like that for us, it was a hard line. We were friends. Co-parents. Not spouses. So why did I feel like I’d pissed off my fucking wife?
Embry would know. He always knew. But he was busy and I hated it. I hated this fucking house when there was no one in it. Like... what was the point of all this brick and mortar if they weren’t here?
My family.
Husband. Brother. Father .
Damn.
I hunched over the sink and glared at myself in the mirror. Red-eyed and scruffy, I didn’t look all that parental.
You’re a fucking mess, boy.
Truth. But I flinched away from my father’s voice—that old cunt could die a hundred times if he hadn’t already—and dragged myself into the shower.
I had grand plans for after, but I fell asleep almost immediately, still wet and naked, just a towel for company.
Sometime later, I woke up cold and with more than the cat for company.
“ Fuck .” I jumped out of my skin, wrenching my belly as I bolted upright, fighting for my life and the escaping towel. “What the shit are you doing in my bedroom?”
Alexei eyed me from the wall he’d propped himself against, watching me flap around as if he’d seen this scene unfold before with someone else. “You would prefer we talk with smoke signals?”
“What? Fuck. I need to get dressed.”
“You do,” he agreed, passing me a neat stack of clothes. “And then we need to do something with your face.”
“What’s wrong with my face?” Apart from the obvious.
Alexei didn’t answer. He left me to get dressed and came back far too soon with coffee, a bowl, and a knife.
Groggy as I was, I had the sense to be unnerved. “Did I piss you off too?”
He smirked. “Not yet. But this—” Alexei waved the blade at my throat. “—this has to go.”
It took me a second to realise he meant the scruff growing wild on my face, not my jugular.
Lacking any better ideas, I moved to take the blade.
Alexei evaded. “Let us not waste time.”
“ You’re going to fucking shave me?”
“Clearly.”
Okay. I needed some of whatever he was smoking if he thought anything about him being this close to me and not slitting my throat was clear. But saying so seemed dangerous, so I sat still in the path of an apex predator and let Alexei do whatever he wanted to my fucked-up face, wondering if it would make things weirder to tell him he smelled kinda nice. I mean, not nice like Embry. Or Lili with her charcoal-bubblegum scent. More like the cologne bottles I’d robbed from Harrods when I was a kid.
“You are tired,” he murmured, focusing on the spot where my hairline joined the mess on my jaw. “People are not used to that.”
“What people?”
“All the people. Is like when Saint was hurt, and he did not know how present he was in their lives until they told him how much they missed him.”
“Where did he take Hope?”
“To the duck pond. And then to have breakfast with Cam. Juana picked her up a while ago. They are at home now.”
“I don’t need to know where Juana is.”
Alexei wiped his blade on the towel I’d lost track of somewhere along the way. He studied my face as if it was an organ he’d removed during an autopsy. Somehow, he’d yet to touch my skin and I didn’t feel like that would change any time soon. “I am telling you where Juana is because that is where Hope is.”
“Okay.”
“Are you all right, Mateo?”
“Yeah.”
Alexei gave me a dry frown and went back to tidying my face. Five minutes later, he was done, and he stole the mirror from Lili’s room to show me.
Wow. Still had hair, still had a dark wash of scruff on my jaw, but for the first time in... probably ever, both entities looked like they might belong to the same person. “You’ve done this shit before.”
He shrugged. “To myself. I do not like people touching me.”
“And you don’t trust Cam with your barnet?”
“No.”
“Maybe he should trust you with his.”
Alexei finally smiled. Almost. “You may tell him that.”
He stepped away and evaporated with the bowl and the blade. He left the mirror, but I didn’t glance at myself again. Alexei had done a good job on me, but no fresh trim in the world could hide the ugly as fuck scar bisecting my face, and I wasn’t in the mood to look at it. Twice in one day was enough.
I stood, waiting a second for the dizziness to fade, and pulled the T-shirt Alexei had left me over my head. Raising my arms was a fucking mission, but I didn’t mind it. Being stuck on a perpetual waltzer bothered me more, but the more I moved around, the steadier I felt, and without Alexei to distract me, the bedroom closed in on me again.
My phone lay abandoned on a pillow. I swiped it up and peered at some messages I’d missed buzzing through, mostly from my brothers asking if I needed anything. A selfie from Saint. Of Hope, not himself, but it was still another first.
Two other messages stood out.
Juana: Sorry about this morning. I came over to be nice
Mateo: im sory too
Mateo: did u clean the bthroom?
Juana: Absolutely not
I looked up as Alexei reappeared in the doorway. “Did you clean the bathroom?”
He didn’t blink. Or answer the question. He studied me again, tilting his head. “If you are feeling bad, enforcer, you should do something that makes you feel good.”
“Who says I’m feeling bad?”
“Your face, now I can see it again. It is what Liliana was worried about—that she could not see how you were feeling.”
I’d opened a drawer to find socks. I shut it without getting any. “When did she tell you that?”
“She did not tell me.”
“How do you know then?”
“She told Rubi when I was nearby.” Alexei came closer and reopened the drawer. He selected a pair of socks and pressed them into my hand. “If it’s any consolation, she was laughing so hard in the next moment, she fell over her own feet.”
It was a consolation. A fucking massive one that made me contemplate how I’d ever found it easy to be a shitbag to Rubi. Or to distrust the brother who didn’t like the way me and Em shoved socks and trollies in our drawers. “Thank you.” I waited for Alexei to stop death-glaring my underwear. “For everything.”
“You will be okay today?”
“I think so.”
It wasn’t exactly admitting I maybe hadn’t been when he’d ninja-ed into my house, cleaned my bathroom, and given me a fucking glow up, but understanding warmed Alexei’s gaze anyway.
“Mateo, you have been strong for many people. It will not kill you to let them be strong for you in return.”
He turned away and left me with that. Gone before I had one foot on the landing to follow him downstairs.
I found myself alone in the house again, feeling like I could go for another nap. But the empty house got under my skin, and... I didn’t like sleeping without Em by my side. It felt upside down—it felt wrong, and I couldn’t stay in this fucking house a minute longer.
Or, at least, longer than the ten minutes it took me to find the car keys someone had hidden in the fridge. The full fridge that had Rubi written all over it, and he should’ve been my first stop when I finally hit the road, but there was another brother I needed to see first. A brother I’d owed a life debt to since the night he’d let my kid run free onto the compound when we all knew he could’ve stopped her.
The big old house was a mile away from mine. Nash and Saint had replaced the windows a while ago, and Cam had rebuilt the roof. I’d fixed the eroding render on the outside, but it still needed painting, which couldn’t happen until the spring, when Embry turned his hand to the crumbling drywall.
He’d be the last brother to leave his mark on the house Locke and Nash had bought at the start of the year. I realised that as I slipped inside, followed the sound of Gold FM upstairs, and saw the fresh plaster coating the walls.
Ranger .
He’d been busy in the week that had passed since I’d last been here, though how the fuck he’d blown through the entire first floor on top of a never-ending haulage run and scattering Rocco in Norfolk, I had no idea.
I found Locke in one of the back bedrooms, fixing floorboards, dust in his hair, an ease to his grin that hadn’t been there the first few years I’d known him.
He blinked at my tidy face. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“The accountant wasn’t vibing with my troll era.” I leaned in the doorway, fighting the fatigue dragging me down. “Mad cunt broke into my house to give me a fresh trim.”
Locke laughed and heaved himself from the floor, mindful of the back I knew to be covered in the same vicious scars as Viktor’s. “It looks good on you. Can’t lie, I was expecting the troll version of you.”
Because he knew I was coming. Just like I knew he’d be here. Because that’s how our lives had to be—all of us, not just Juana.
It’s different for her .
The thought jarred me. So did Locke’s next words as he came closer and assessed everything about me, from my tired lean on the doorframe to the symmetrical scruff on my face.
“They let you out, eh?”
“Who?”
“The people who love you, brother.” Locke inclined his head to the room next door. “Come sit.”
I didn’t need to sit. I had things I needed to say to him before I faced the music with Juana and whatever was going on with her. But Locke was a parental force of nature, to all of us, not just my kids, and I found myself on a couch in the next room anyway. “This is Willow’s room?”
“Whenever she wants it to be.” There was a workman’s kettle in the corner. Locke flicked it on, Motown still filtering out of the battered radio. “That might be never, now she’s all fuckin’ grown up, but I wanted to do it for her anyway. Nicky too.”
Locke wasn’t a soul who wasted much time hiding his emotions. But even if he had been, I’d have seen the sadness flicker in his gaze. I knew what it was like to have the basic beats of fatherhood ripped away. It was the affinity I shared with this brother and why I’d sought him out.
He passed me a mug of black coffee, the only sustenance I’d reliably wanted over the past few days. “Something on your mind?”
“I wanted to say thank you for helping Lili when she got upset last week. Em told me what you did for her.”
“It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing. I don’t know what our fucked-up little family would do without you.”
“Your family isn’t fucked up.”
“I know, I meant it with love. All of it. I’m a better dad because of you.”
Locke sipped at his own coffee, eyeing me over the rim of the mug like he wanted to counter the words spilling out of me, but he said nothing. Just let me figure it out and fudge my way through it.
“I’m grateful for everything you do for Hope too,” I said eventually.
“It’s not a hardship, Mats. That kid has been my therapy since she was born.”
It was my turn to scrutinise him. “Does she remind you of the baby you lost?”
“Of Wren?” Locke exhaled, nose flaring. “Maybe. I mean, she was preterm and I only held her for a minute or two, but as the years have gone by, in my head she had dark hair like Logan, big eyes like Nicky—like Hope, I guess.”
Hope wasn’t my biological daughter. But I was her dad, and I loved her. Imagining a world where I’d had to bury her staggered my pulse, coldness flooding my veins. “You’ll see her again.”
Locke smiled a little. “I know. Sooner than ever if her sister keeps at it the way she’s going.”
“Still stressed about the boyfriend?”
The twenty-five -year-old boyfriend I’d heard all about. Em and Rubi were the best gossips, especially when they thought I was asleep.
Locke grimaced. “I’m trying not to be until I know more about him.”
“Met him yet?”
“I promised Orla I’d wait until Willow asked me to.”
“You got eyes on him?”
“Not until I calm the fuck down about it—goddamn, I’m annoyed again.” Locke unclenched his big fist. “Never knew I was this much of a Neanderthal, but it messes with my head this fuckin’ grown man is only a few years younger than you.”
“I had a toddler when I was Willow’s age.”
“Nothing wrong with that. I was a young dad once upon a time, but at sixteen I didn’t know my dick from the two brain cells I had competing for third place. I could never have done what you did.”
I could never have saved Embry on the bathroom floor that night if you hadn’t taught me how.
But those were the words that wouldn’t come out. That snarled in my chest, thick and oily, generating the kind of warmth that made my eyes burn and my hands shake around my coffee mug.
I set it down and scrubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
Locke had been chilling on the floor by the kettle. He got up and came to the couch, easing down beside me. “I’m wondering if getting floored by your appendix has let the last few years catch up with you.”
“Last decade, more like.”
“That too. I’m just saying you aren’t the type to sit around thinking about shit, but when you’re flat on your back with nowhere to go, you don’t have a choice.”
It sounded like the kind of waffle Embry said to other people, but not to me because I annoyed him too much before he got the chance. “It’s hard to stop being a twat when it comes so naturally to me.”
Locke snorted. “That’s not even close to what I said.”
“I know?—”
Activity outside had me jerking up.
Locke steadied me. “It’s just Nash.”
Course it was. I relaxed again. Kind of. The sense of something undone still ate at me. “I meant it when I said thank you, for all you do for my kids.”
“I know.” Locke pulled me in for a hug. “Just don’t forget that you went to a fuckin’ folk festival for mine.”
I had forgotten that. On purpose. Snuffed it out with a resolution to never soberly attend anything Nash and Rubi liked ever again. But I took Locke’s point, and his affection, and used it to get my shit together in time for Nash and Orla to join us.
Orla was massive. Way bigger than Juana had ever been. It suited her, though, and I knew it was because I’d never seen her happy before.
Not that she was all that happy with me . “What did you do to Juana?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you . She made you breakfast and you didn’t even eat it.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
This morning seemed a lifetime ago. I held my hands up, already surrendering. “She never said anything about breakfast. Just bitched me out about security and kicked my furniture.”
Nash’s ears pricked up. “What’s wrong with her security? Something happen?”
“No, she’s just fed up with being followed around.” I glanced at Orla as Locke offered her his seat and she refused, already rolling up her sleeves and inspecting Ranger’s flawless work. “You used to get like that too, right?”
Orla shrugged. “Wouldn’t you? I had no privacy. This is what I tried to say the other night when I screamed at you instead.” Locke, not me. I’d heard about that too. “Everywhere I went, everything I did, whoever was on me went running to my dad or my brother. Do you know how hard it is to get— oh. ” Her eyes widened. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
Orla spun to face me proper, hands on her curvy hips. “Honey, your baby-mama needs to get laid.”
Her declaration deadened the air. For me, anyway. Nash had already put himself to work in a different room, and Locke was apparently fascinated by the floorboards. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Orla shot me an impatient look. “It means what I said. Think about it. She’s been alone since Raul died, and she probably sees no prospect of that changing anytime soon.”
“Whose fucking fault is that?”
I knew it was crazy, and I grumbled it under my breath, but Orla heard me anyway, and she was suddenly right in front of me.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
She leaned down. “Say it again.”
Don’t. I knew better. But above all else, I never missed the chance to be a complete fucking idiot, and the words flowed out of me, sealing my fate. “Juana needs to be with someone who understands this life. Who’s safe around my kids—who likes kids, and when she got here there were two options. But Folk nicked Decoy, and you pinched him.” I jabbed a thumb at Locke.
He cringed. “That gets weirder every time you say it. I was never going to hook up with Juana.”
I knew that. I also knew it was a horrendous thing to mourn how convenient it would’ve been for me if shit had been different. But the thought of a stranger around Juana, around my kids, gave me fucking hives.
Couldn’t hide from the fact that Orla was probably right, though. Some shit Juana had said recently—to me, to Em, it was starting to make sense. “All right, so not you then,” I said to Locke. “But who else is there?”
“Who else is there for what?” Nash wandered in, covered in dust, no limp for the first time in forever.
“Juana needs to get some.” Orla skewered me with another eat-shit glare before she moved to Nash’s side and gave him the love he deserved. “Mateo thinks Locke should do it.”
Nash blinked. “Eh?”
“Not what I said.”
“Yes, it is,” Orla snapped.
I risked a real glare. “No, it fucking isn’t.”
Locke sighed. “Regardless, it’s not happening, and it was never going to.”
“Okaaay.” Nash tried to catch up with the madness. “Are you sure that’s what she—” He caught Orla’s glare and raised his hands. “All right. Then what are we doing here? Deciding who she can fuck? Cos that’s as messed up as loaning her Locke.”
Locke’s fair brows ticked up. “Say what now?”
Nash grinned. “Babe, she’d never give you back.”
“It’s true,” Orla agreed, pursing her lips as she gave it serious thought while Locke tapped out of the conversation, shaking his head. “So who is there? It’s got to be someone good... which means, actually—” She rounded on me again. “—this is your fault.”
I scowled as much as I dared. “How’d you work that out?”
“Girls talk, sweetheart. I know it’s been a while, but who do you think has the best reputation around here for giving women multiple Os when he fucks them? And I’ll give you a clue: it sure as hell isn’t you.”
I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my knees even though it crushed my bruised abdomen, spitting a stupid answer even though I knew the truth. “Your brother?”
Orla smirked. “No.”
I took the jibe about my own performance rep on the chin and let the rest of it sink in.
Embry .
It made sense. He was a people person and apparently a people pleaser too. Who knew?
I should’ve done. He’d sucked my dick enough times, his stormy gaze locked on mine, that I knew he took that shit seriously. And he was beyond fucking good at it.
Didn’t know how it felt to have him inside me, though. Making me come with his thick cock, which was definitely what Orla was talking about.
I licked my dry lips.
She smirked, like she knew it—knew that I’d spent years thinking about it, years wanting it, but the right moment had never found us.
Locke took pity on me. Changing the subject. I zoned out while they talked about Christmas. The secret Santa I’d already bossed because I’d drawn Folk and Lili had made his present at art club.
I missed Embry and thought about texting him, but I didn’t know what to say. He already knew I missed him and I loved him, and that I was really bad at being home alone. What else was there to say?
Tell him you want him to fuck you.
Tempting, but I figured he’d say no . Because I was still healing or whatever. And I wasn’t in the mood to get rejected. I was in the mood to watch him work—watch him move. His lithe body bending and stretching as he built walls with his bare hands, a skill he thought was menial, but I’d tried that shit. It was hard. The layers of skill took concentration and patience, no gratification until the very end, and...
Oh. Was that a metaphor? Orla would know, but I tuned back into the room to find she’d gone, Locke had too, and I was dozing on the couch to the soundtrack of Nash nailing skirting boards to the walls.
Wow. Two naps in one day. I rubbed my face, trying to clear the fatigue weighing me down. My limbs were fucking lead as I straightened, and the idea of driving home made my head spin.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep like that.”
I spared Nash a glance.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re actually asleep.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Nash fired the nail gun a couple of times, then set it down and moved to the kettle I was already sick of the sight of. Building sites weren’t my jam. “Coffee?”
“Rather drink piss from my shoe.”
Nash grinned and sorted himself out. Then he came to sit beside me, stretching his legs out, massaging his thigh. “Orls said to tell you she’s sorry for winding you up about Embry.”
“It’s not true?”
“Oh, brother, it’s true. But she didn’t need to rub it in your face like that. No one likes to hear about their people fucking someone else.”
“I’m all right with that part.” I took a moment to measure my words, unsure of how much our brothers knew about Embry’s history these days. Who could stand to know and who couldn’t live with the truth. “It’s nice to think that he, uh, had fun.”
Nash’s steady gaze didn’t waver. “I feel that way about Locke—with women, anyway. Can’t say I enjoy thinking about him with other men.”
“It’s different?”
“It shouldn’t be. But I’ve always been territorial over Orls, and maybe I wouldn’t be if she was into birds too and I was less of a basic bitch.”
Nash wasn’t basic, or a fucking bitch, but my brain was too crowded with other shit for me to be nice and tell him so.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. Nash rubbed my back, and it reminded me of Locke doing the same for me when I’d pitched forward in the hospital waiting on Embry to survive his surgery. They were different people—vastly fucking different—but their heart was the same.
“What are you going to do about the Juana thing?”
All right. Maybe they weren’t the same. Locke would definitely have left that shit alone.
I swiped Nash’s coffee mug and tipped a mouthful down my throat. “What the fuck am I supposed to do about it? Cut her security and let her take her chances out there?”
Nash flashed a grim smile. “That’s not an option and she knows it— Orla knows that. But there has to be a way of separating her privacy from you. Unless there’s something between you, her, and the good father that could settle this down.”
I cringed. “I don’t want to fuck Juana, and I’m pretty sure she’d set my dick on fire before she wanted to bang me either.”
“What about Embry?”
“The fuck are you smoking?”
Nash laughed. “Not a lot these days. Just trying not to assume I know what you’re thinking. Cam being poly as fuck has always made sense to me, but it was years before I knew that shit about myself.”
“I’m not fucking poly. Embry’s mine .”
Still laughing, Nash snatched his coffee back and I considered punching him, but he’d got me thinking too much and I sank into another clusterfuck head spin. Not about banging Juana. Or even Embry banging Juana. Not really. More that maybe I was selfish not to let it happen—I mean, if he was that fucking good... she deserved that, right? And she’d be safe with him?—
“ Mats .” Nash clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t get in your head about it. Everything you do is to keep her safe, and she knows that. We’ll figure out the rest of it, I promise. Don’t be sitting there thinking you’ve fucked up, cos you haven’t.”
I probably had. Usually did. But I appreciated the sentiment and took advantage of Nash’s pragmatic personality to find a solution. “What would you do if it was Orla?”
“You mean what did I do. But the answer is complicated, my brother. I was in love with Orla and the thought of her going out to meet someone else was a dagger to my heart. That’s why I put Locke on her detail. Cos I knew there was something between them, even after her and me got our shit together, and I was okay with that—more than okay.”
“Because you wanted him too?”
“It wasn’t that simple, but yeah.”
I blew out a breath. He was right, this wasn’t the same. And did I wish it was?
Probably not?—
Definitely not. If Embry was going to fuck anyone, it was gonna be me .
I rose from the couch, ignoring the dancing spots in my vision. “I’m gonna go see Em.”
“At the farm?” Nash caught my elbow. “Maybe you should go home and wait for him there.”
Right again, but the farm job was behind. Embry was going to work late, and I already knew I couldn’t fucking wait that long.
I left Nash and stomped to my car, aware he was going to follow me— annoyed he was going to follow me and drowning in irony. This was how Juana felt each and every day. A prisoner in her own fucking life when Embry and my brothers had risked so much to save her from that fate.
Do better . A thought that had me slowing at the junction that would take me to Joe Carter’s farm instead of passing through the green lights. Horns honked behind me. Didn’t give a fuck. I sat in my own little world until Nash rolled up beside me and knocked on the window.
I opened it.
He flipped his visor, his kind eyes full of concern, but I waved it away.
“How soon can we find Juana a new bodyguard?”