Chapter 21
Ville
Waking up next to Emery was the best way to start any day.
I watched him sleep like a creep, smiling at the way his curls were mussed and he had drooled on the pillow.
His alarm would go off in a few minutes, so I had some more time to admire him.
Because I did, and not just because of how he looked or how he felt around my cock.
Emery Harrington was a good man. Someone who genuinely cared about people and wanted to do what was right.
He loved big, like all the Harringtons, and he had the same magnetism as the rest of his family, which made us strays flock to them.
Jenn and Mike had started with pulling Russ into the fold, and then they’d just continued to take in people who needed them the most. No matter what would happen between Emery and me, I would forever be grateful for his family for taking care of Wren before I could come into his life.
The alarm went off, and Emery flailed a hand to grab his phone and swiped the screen. Once the phone was back on the bedside table, he opened his eyes for the first time and then smiled at me in that adorable, sleepy way of his I’d come to love.
“Morning,” I murmured, kissing his forehead.
“Morning, sugar.” His voice was still sleep-rough, and something in my chest tightened at the thought of not having this every morning. He lifted his hand to touch my cheek. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, and for once, I couldn’t play it off as if I wasn’t feeling big, serious, heavy things.
“Oh,” he breathed out.
Then he burrowed himself against my chest and we stayed like that for a few more minutes. At least I was holding back the words I’d wanted to say for days now. Maybe longer than that.
Eventually, he sighed and lifted his head to kiss my jaw. Then I watched him slip out of bed and start his day.
I got dressed after Emery, and made it downstairs when he was still scarfing down some breakfast. This time, I kissed him on the mouth on my way past him.
“Have a good day at work, baby,” I murmured, then went to take the coffee Nick had already poured for me.
Wren came inside just as Emery was leaving. My friend looked perkier than I would’ve expected.
“Nick, hit me up!” he said happily, practically beaming.
“What’s got you looking like this?” I asked, gesturing at his… everything.
“Oh, I just went to take a look at my horse, you know.” The pride in his tone was clear as day.
Jenn, who had been enjoying her own coffee, smiled at him. “It’ll be nice to have more reason for you to come visit whenever you can, Wren.”
He nodded, something darker passing his expression for a second. “Yeah. Hawk’s gonna train him and keep him at the training barn for me. The gelding’s already halfway in love with Humphrey anyway, so it’ll be great.”
“Did you buy a queer horse?” I teased, and he rolled his eyes while Nick snorted as he took a tray of bacon out of the oven.
“I don’t know which way he swings and I don’t particularly care, but he actually whinnied at Humphrey while walking past and almost stepped on Crew when he tried to look back at the big guy while Crew was leading him.”
“That donkra is also something special,” Jenn commented, shaking her head a little.
“You should see if Juanpablo likes her,” I said thoughtfully. “I mean it’s likely he won’t, but it couldn’t hurt to try.”
“Huh,” she replied. “I guess I’ll float that by Hawk and Crew.”
Abigail sat on a hay bale in the sun that streamed through the open barn doors. I leaned on the door frame nearby.
“He’s going to quit, isn’t he?” she asked quietly, her face tilted to the sun, eyes closed.
I exhaled, smiling a bit at the way she’d learned to know Wren and his tells over the years. “Yeah.”
“We’re going to record the album and then go on tour, and after that?” She was making an educated guess, but I still made a noise in agreement.
Wren seemed to have surprised himself with these thoughts of quitting. Or maybe they weren’t concrete thoughts yet. For a creative person whose life was all about music and words, he could be a bit dense about some things.
He’d bought a goddamn horse. If that wasn’t a commitment to life not spent on the road, I wasn’t sure what it was.
He wasn’t the type to buy an animal and then board it when he went to see it once or twice a year.
When Wren got attached to someone, he went all in. It would happen with this gelding, too.
I watched as Wren propped his elbows on the top rung of the fence a little way away from us, and just gazed at his horse. He still hadn’t given him a name, which was interesting. He’d also been writing lyrics in the little notebook he kept on his person most of the time.
“Are you gonna poach us once he quits?” Abi asked, opening her eyes to squint at me.
I smiled. “Absolutely.”
The label wouldn’t like it, but the three guys and Abi were all ready to be done, too.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said confidently, then continued her basking.
Every night I made love to Emery. The sex we were having had changed into something softer. The hour glass running out of sand seemed to bring that out of us.
Then on Wednesday, he came home from work, upset and exhausted, grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the house. We ended up in that equipment shed again, and there was nothing gentle in the way he needed me, so I gave him what he wanted.
He was aggravated, almost fighting me, while simultaneously pushing back to every thrust. Once we’d both come, I pulled out roughly to give him just a little bit more of what he needed, and then I hugged him tighter than I had in days.
He didn’t explain what was going on, because he didn’t need to. It was a combination of time running out and whatever had happened at work.
“Thank you,” he murmured against my neck.
I didn’t say anything, because I wanted to say “any time” but that wasn’t true, because I’d be gone soon.
Thursday evening was a Harrington Family Game Night. Apparently this was a thing, and everyone was invited. I didn’t even want to do a head count, because the house was packed full.
There was a game of Monopoly going on at one end of the dining table. The other one had Scrabble. The coffee table in the living room was hosting UNO, and there was also a kids’ game Payton was patiently teaching Aria, who was just old enough to understand it.
Crew and Mal were sitting on the floor with the kids, playing with them while pretending they didn’t know how to play it. It was adorable as all hell.
Since I was late to the party—I’d made some travel arrangements for Sunday afternoon, a timeline I’d been ignoring as best as I could—everyone was already settled.
Nick was observing the Scrabble while he made sure snack bowls and drinks were full.
I went to get myself a pop from the middle of the table, then leaned to the counter out of Nick’s way as I watched the different games.
Mike came into the kitchen from somewhere in the back, then kissed the top of Jenn’s head and whispered something in her ear.
She immediately started to reorganize her Scrabble tiles.
“Hey, that’s cheating!” Gemma exclaimed from her seat across the table.
Judson nodded. “What Gemma said!”
Wren tried to hold back laughter, but didn’t succeed. I glanced at the score pad Judson was in charge of, and Wren was in the lead, but nobody was surprised about that. He was too good with words.
Bodhi’s gaze snapped up at the sound of Wren’s raspy laugh from where he sat by the Monopoly board.
“Straight to jail for you!” Hawk crowed, pointing at Fern.
For some reason, she smirked evilly, then started to—bark like a dog?
Mike noticed my expression and sidled up to me. “House rule. If the one who uses the Scottie piece gets jailed, they can immediately get out by doing… that.” He nodded toward his daughter. “It’s why we had to do a random draw for pieces when they were kids, because everyone wanted the dog.”
“That still happened tonight,” Nick stated dryly.
“Are there any other house rules I should know of?” I asked, hugely amused by this Monopoly one.
“There’s something for every game,” Mike said with a shrug, though his voice was fond. “When you’re trying to keep this many people interested, and they all have a competitive streak they inherited from their mother–”
“Rude,” Jenn interjected, adding her tiles to the board. Gemma immediately cupped her hands around her eyes like binoculars, and Jenn smirked. “Go ahead and look it up little girl. Syzygy is a real word.”
“No way you had two y’s and a z,” Gemma grumbled even as she grabbed her phone. A second later, she let out a whine. “Fine. You win.”
I stared as Gemma stood up and curtsied to her mother, who accepted the acknowledgement with a hand on her daughter’s head.
“Noooo…,” Keegan whined in the living room. I looked over to see him trying to organize what seemed like an impossible amount of UNO cards in his hands.
Since Emery was playing it with Kee, Demi, Jerrica, and Isley, I went to sit on the couch next to Russ, who was also just watching the proceedings.
“UNO gets competitive as all hell,” Russ said quietly. “It’s a bit rowdy with these ones, though.”
I watched as the siblings bantered and played, I realized that I’d never had this.
Not only was I an only child, but I hadn’t had many friends growing up.
I hadn’t been able to bring anyone home because of my dad, and the closest I’d gotten to this type of pastime was in the summers at the cottages with my cousins.
We’d played some board games and even some regular old card games, but we’d been more into being outdoors and swimming and fishing.
Eventually, Demi won the round of UNO and held up her hands in victory.
“Now, if someone would help me get up from here, I’d be very happy.”
Right, sitting on the floor couldn’t have been very comfortable, yet she’d still done it to be able to play easier. I assumed leaning forward from the couch wouldn’t have been great, either.