Chapter 7
Ethan Quinn
As predicted, we were the first to arrive at Darius’s slice of heaven. The homestead he’d built at the foot of a cliffside, where he could shut the world out, spend his days growing his damn tomatoes and other vegetables, and, last I heard, raise chickens.
It was a small farm in the middle of the forest, and it was evidently Gray’s dream come true as well, seeing as he’d moved up here faster than someone could say zombie apocalypse.
I parked in the tree line next to Darius’s truck, and before Lias could climb out, I grasped his shoulder.
He met my gaze with a flat stare of his own.
It fucking pained me to see him this way.
“Talk to Ma,” I urged him. “Or me. Or any of us. Whatever it is, we can figure it out, whether we help you get over her or hunt her down.”
He nodded with a dip of his chin and said nothing, so I considered the topic dead for now.
We grabbed our gifts and left the truck, and we started our trek toward the house. Past the greenhouse, their little potato field and planting beds, and across the rushing stream.
By then, I spotted Jayden poking his head out on the porch, before he disappeared inside again and yelled.
“I think it’s your brothers, Darius!”
He was a cool little kid. I couldn’t deny that. He hadn’t had an easy life so far either, so I knew he was going to thrive with my brother and Gray.
Jayden reappeared with the rest of the family, including Justin, the four-year-old.
I heard Jayden say, “They have gifts,” and I grinned.
Darius was so fucking whipped. He’d cruised through his thirties and the beginning of his forties with a perpetual scowl on his face, but it was fading away these days.
It was good to see.
“Are we at the right place?” I asked. “I’m not seeing that many balloons.” Of course, in my brother’s view, his place probably looked like a Party City. I spotted balloons on the porch, as well as a banner wishing Jayden a happy ninth birthday.
Gray smirked and slapped Darius’s arm. “You hear that, baby? Not that many.”
Darius rolled his eyes but plastered a smile on his face, and at that point, we reached each other.
Gray was the host in the family, that much was clear, because he did the whole spiel about how good it was to see us and so on.
We didn’t really do that in our family. We were more those people who jumped into conversation immediately, as if no time had passed since the last visit.
Justin was quick to climb Gray like a tree, not happy until he was on Gray’s hip.
Darius looped an arm around Lias’s neck and spoke quietly for only them to hear.
“So, who’s the birthday boy?” I asked, holding up my gift.
“Me! That’s me!” Jayden smiled widely and stepped forward.
“Oh, that’s right—it’s you.” I chuckled and handed it over to him. “Happy birthday, kid.”
“Thank you so much. It’s fuckin’ huge.” He grabbed the box and ran for the porch.
I laughed.
“Jayden!” Gray hollered. “What did we remind you of earlier?”
Jayden stopped short on the porch steps. “I can’t even curse on my birthday?”
“Technically, your birthday’s tomorrow, small fry,” Darius drawled.
“Oh shit. I mean crap. Fucking dang it.” Jayden smirked and proceeded to leave the gift on a table on the porch.
“It’s a work in progress,” Gray chuckled.
No kidding. But if the kid had survived on the streets in Philadelphia, I reckoned he could curse all he wanted.
Darius brought the kid with him to the gym quite a bit, and I’d started teaching him kickboxing.
He was rough around the edges but sweet.
He followed Darius around like a puppy too, something my brother soaked up.
“Don’t forget this one, kiddo,” Lias called, holding up his gift too. In a quieter voice, he asked, “Do they bite?”
I shot him a look.
Gray blinked.
“For chrissakes,” Darius chuckled. He smacked Lias upside the head. “They’re children, not cats. You’ve also met them before.”
“So?” Lias scowled. “Hazel magically turned into a biter at some point.”
True enough. Elise and Avery’s youngest was a quiet, innocent angel until someone got their fingers too close.
Justin leaned in to whisper in Gray’s ear. “I bite my food, Daddy.”
“And that’s a good thing, sweetheart. Otherwise, you can’t eat muffins.” Gray had fully boarded the dad train.
In the next few minutes, Jayden had gathered his first two gifts on that table, Lias had escaped inside to help Gray with something—presumably to get away from Darius and me—and I helped Darius bring out drinks and ice.
“How was he earlier?” he asked me.
“Lias?”
He nodded and set the last bucket of ice next to the porch steps.
“Not great. I’m gonna ask Ma to convince him to stay at their place tonight,” I said. “He gets worse when he’s alone.”
“Good plan. Is it really all about Evelina?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I followed him over to the grill, where he was ready to prepare our food. “My guess? He found her on social media or something. Maybe she’s happy. I don’t know.”
Darius hummed and poured lighter fluid on the charcoal. “He better figure shit out or ask for help before Ry and I get involved.”
No joke. With Darius’s background as a private military contractor and Ryan’s past in the Marines, nobody wanted shit to go that far. Lias would flip his lid if he realized they were digging into his private affairs.
“I really don’t wanna get involved,” Darius muttered.
“I’m working on it,” I replied. I pulled out my phone and wondered why I hadn’t connected to the Wi-Fi yet. “Did you change the password for the Wi-Fi?”
He knitted his brows. “You can’t go five minutes without uploading a selfie to Instagram?”
For fuck’s sake. “I wanna check my messages.” Maybe I got a little defensive.
He and Ryan were fucking always on my case.
What if Natalie had responded?
My brother smirked lazily. “If you want the password, you’re gonna have to seek out the younger generation of our household. Gray cares about that shit too.”
Asshole. Like Darius wasn’t spending his evenings doomscrolling YouTube for prepper videos.
Whatever. It could wait. At the sound of cars pulling in, we turned around and spotted the next guests to arrive. Our folks and Gray’s mom and stepdad. And brothers, I noticed.
“How many did you invite?” I asked. Darius hated having too many people on his property.
“Enough to feel sympathy for our septic tank,” he grumbled.
I laughed. “What the fuck are you planning on feeding us?”
“Food,” he shot back. “Not that you know what that is.”
There we go again.
I rolled my eyes.
Not long thereafter, the property had filled up with guests, I’d given up on their shitty Wi-Fi up here, and I’d dutifully ratted out our brother to Ma, who’d jumped straight into fussing and digging for information.
A bunch of kids were running around too, so I stuck close to the barbecue area where they weren’t allowed.
It helped that I had a beer in my hand too, and Avery was here as well.
My only issue now was that Natalie hadn’t responded to me.
I checked my phone again just to make sure.
Nothing. But the connection was utter shit.
She’d started the teasing, goddammit. I’d continued. She was supposed to return the banter so we could go back and forth until I’d gotten my fill.
Something was seriously wrong with me. Was I actually getting worked up over a client not replying in a timely fashion on a fucking Saturday?
On the other hand, she had to be playing a damn game with me.
I brushed my thumb over the screen and couldn’t help but scowl. She’d read my last message. I saw the read label. Half an hour had passed since she’d read it, for chrissakes. What was her problem? What was my problem?
“Who pissed in your low-calorie, organic beer, little brother?” Darius asked, loading food onto the grill.
I fired off my scowl at him instead, and I couldn’t help but get irritated. More so than before. It was his fucking beer, and it sure as hell wasn’t organic. Or low-calorie.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” I told him. Unfortunately, I might need it. Because I sure as shit wasn’t going to figure Natalie out on my own.
Avery snorted, and Darius gave me a no-doubt unhelpful wisecrack. I missed the exact words, because the pressure had officially built up enough for me to let it all out there.
“It’s just…” I sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand over my face.
Goddammit. Was it so wise to come to these two for advice?
“I have a new client at work. She’s…” Fucking infuriating.
“She gets on my nerves. She doesn’t react the way other women do, and she’s sitting on a high fucking horse if she has the balls to tell me I’m pretentious. ”
There we go. That was my problem. It still bothered me that she’d called me pretentious. Arrogant, I could get behind.
Avery stared at me. “You are pretentious, Ethan.”
What the hell?
Darius evidently agreed. “Yeah. You’re without a doubt the most pretentious guy I know. You’re the one sitting on a high horse, for chrissakes. Can you even breathe up there?”
“Fuck you, fuck you both,” I told them. I couldn’t believe them.
Did they understand the definition of pretentious at all?
“I’m not going to apologize for having standards.
Some of us strive for perfection.” Just because I didn’t believe perfection existed or should be attained didn’t mean we couldn’t try to get closer.
You don’t even want what you’re striving for, jackass.
I clenched my jaw as Avery and my brother merely found me funny.
“Thanks, buddy. I needed that laugh,” Avery chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna check in with the wife and tell her she’s not perfect, according to her own brother.”
He was joking, I hoped. That wasn’t what I’d meant at all, and I prayed he fucking knew it. This was the culmination of years’ worth of semi-good-natured mockery. They saw me as a gym bro. I saw someone who constantly wanted to improve himself.
Yet you’ve called yourself a god who walks among men since you turned thirty.