Chapter 17
Dawson cursed as he hit his thumb with the hammer. Fucking hell.
“Should I take all power tools away from you?” Sadie joked.
“Probably,” he mumbled, sticking his thumb into his mouth to stop the ache. He found something else to look at, unable to keep her gaze. Luckily, since they were in the last stages of sorting out a wedding, there were plenty of things to look at. Eli and Jay—his two bosses—were standing across the lawn next to hideous gnome statues the bride’s father had insisted on. They didn’t exactly match the giant swans. Eli looked two seconds away from throwing them in front of a moving truck.
“Dawson?”
He snapped back to her. “Mmm?”
“You alright? You’ve been spacey all day.”
“Yeah, sorry, I, um…” I’ve been sleeping with your brother almost every night since we met him, and I’m pretty sure at this point I’m in love with him? Yeah, that’s… not how he wanted to start that conversation. But he had to tell her. Soon. Soon-ish? He just had to tell her.
“You haven’t been around much,” she said with a sly glance. “Are you still seeing the someone you don’t want to talk about?”
Dawson froze.
She smacked his shoulder. “I’m hurt that you won’t even give me a name or talk to me about it. You’re clearly getting in deep; you’ve barely been home in weeks. Are you afraid I’m gonna poach? Soon I’m going to look like I’m carrying a beach ball, and I’ve sworn off men for the rest of my life. Richard has soured the entire gender for me.”
“Thank God I don’t need to worry about you stealing my man.”
“Ha-ha,” she said sarcastically. “At least tell me if he’s hot. I can live vicariously through you while I go through my man-hating phase.”
“Charming.” He should have hit himself with the hammer harder. “They are, yes,” he gave her. Safe enough. As long as he avoided names, he could give her something , so that he could stave off the suspicion for at least a little bit longer. To at least give him some time to work out how to do this smoothly and with no bloodshed.
“ They ? As in plural? At the same time? Are you dating a couple? How did that happen? Where did you meet them?”
He should have lied and just given her Gideon’s name. Except he couldn’t do that. Riley wasn’t some nameless figure to shove to the side just because Dawson had fucked up.
He nodded, pursing his lips as he searched around for where he’d put his nails. “Fucked up” didn’t even begin to cover it. One of the men who touched him every night was the very brother that she wanted to know, who wouldn’t even talk to her. Dawson had kept his promise, and nothing about her had been mentioned, and somehow that made it so much worse.
Who was the dirty secret, Riley or Sadie?
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been really quiet lately,” Sadie said. “I miss you.”
“Sorry, I’ve just been…” Banging your brother seemed like a terrible way to end that sentence. What else could he say? Hiding had become tiresome, and he still avoided telling the truth.
Sadie tilted her head, studying him and coming to the wrong conclusion, which only made Dawson feel relieved. “If you’re not feeling well, then you should head home, maybe get some more sleep? Eat cheese and pass out on your couch.”
“That’s not… how would that make me feel better?”
“It’s worked for me. Cheese fixes everything.”
Gideon would agree with her; the guy put away way too many dairy products. “That’s because you’re not human.” Neither of them were.
“Cruel but fair. Maybe my baby will come out blue!” She mock gasped and put a hand on her stomach. “We’d have to run away and live in the woods so that scientists don’t experiment on us.”
“That escalated quickly.”
“Will you live in the woods with us?”
“You’d starve otherwise. You were not made to be a hunter.”
“Excuse you, neither were you. We’d both be hopeless. Maybe we could live off berries and… grow a garden or something.”
“I worry about how much thought you’ve put into this.”
“Me too. But it’s important to have a plan.” She nudged his shoulder. “You know I’m here if you want to talk? About your sexy couple, or whatever’s bothering you.”
“I know. Thank you.” He felt like the worst scum in the world, watching her walk away. He should have said something. Told her . This would have been the perfect opportunity to do it with some kind of lead-in. He’d done some shitty things in his life, but this took the absolute cake. He knew every time he drove over to one of their apartments—they’d been staying at Riley’s a lot—that he was doing the wrong thing. He couldn’t stop, even knowing that every time Riley put his hands on him, he betrayed a friendship that he’d spent years growing.
“There you are!” Eli said, slapping Dawson on the back hard enough he stumbled forward from the surprise.
“Been here for four hours now,” Dawson said. There his nails were. He snatched them up and eyed Eli critically. “What? If you add anything else to my list, we’re gonna have to get someone else because there are only so many hours in the day, and the bridal party is gonna be here for their pictures in just under three hours.”
“Lucky for you, I enlisted help.” Eli tugged at the cuffs of his hoodie in annoyance. “We’d already be fucking ready if the father of the bride didn’t keep changing things. He did two more changes already today.”
“Yeah, I know.” He’d heard this rant, twice already. “What does ‘enlisted help’ mean?” he asked cautiously.
“My siblings, and Gabe. Seb can’t really handle a hammer, but he could be a good mule, probably. And Charlie can yell real loud?”
“Uh…” They didn’t really need either of those things. “I guess at least Gabe can carry things too?” Eli’s best friend—who routinely made an appearance and never strayed more than a foot from Eli when they were together—had lean muscles from his daily training. If anyone were going to be the most useful in this situation, Dawson would put his money on Gabe.
“Yeah, and he looks great with his shirt off, so he can distract people while I run.”
A weirdly specific skill set, but okay.
Eli laughed at the expression on Dawson’s face. “I’m kidding, oh my God! Seb can’t handle a hammer, I wasn’t lying about that, but he can help with some of the finer details, and he’s good at talking.”
Dawson would have gone for the distraction skill, but what did he know? “Good to know?”
“Knowledge is power. So the last of the flower arrangements are coming in about ten minutes, along with the vines and roses for”—he gestured at the arch that Dawson was finishing up—“that monstrosity. Will you be—”
“Arch is almost done.” The mix-up with the supplies had been easy enough to rectify, and once he’d finished setting up the gazebo, he’d gotten to work finalising it. He’d left that until now since the greenery that would wrap around it wasn’t being delivered till today, to avoid it wilting before the big moment.
“Nice. That means we’re on track, and I haven’t even punched anyone yet.”
“Small miracle.”
“I’m giving myself a pay raise.”
“Right, I see how it is. Let me guess: you have a pizza lunch organised for the rest of us to say thanks?”
“Get your own pizza, you cheapskate.”
“When’s your enlisted help getting here?”
“Seb should be here any minute. Rumour has it that there’s a house rule that says he’s not allowed to work on the weekends, so he shouldn’t be late.”
“Rumour has it?”
“Little birdy named Will told me.”
Dawson checked the sturdiness of the arch and declared it complete. He stood and gathered his gear, packing some of it away in his toolbox and the rest on his tool belt. “Will?”
“One of his boyfriends.”
Right. Multiple. He’d said that the other day.
Half an hour later, while he and Eli were bickering as they wrapped the vines with real thorns that fucking hurt around the arch, a third person entered the war zone.
“Manual labour; didn’t know you had it in you,” the newcomer drawled. They wore a pair of dark jeans and a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, one hand stuffed in a pocket. The stud in their eyebrow glinted under the sun.
“Fuck off, Seb,” Eli said. “As if you’d know manual labour if it hit you in the dick with its hammer.”
The man—Sebastian, the brother—winced, adjusting himself. “Can we refrain from including my anatomy in your violence?” He leaned toward Dawson, hand outstretched. “You must be Dawson. I’m Sebastian. It’s nice to put a face to the name. Every time I’m around, you seem to be off on a job somewhere. Eli says you do good work.”
Dawson gave Eli a sly look; he rolled his eyes in response.
“He makes it sound nicer than it was,” Eli said dismissively.
“Uh-huh.” Dawson wished he had a recording device for this conversation. He needed proof if he wanted anyone to believe him. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
“Yeah, we need you to be a pack mule, and also, if anyone pisses me off, you can bring over one of your cop boyfriends and arrest them.”
“They’re not on your speed dial, and unless you murder someone, Quinn wouldn’t be interested,” Sebastian said, with an expression eerily similar to the one Eli currently wore. Definitely brothers. He’d noticed that Sadie and Riley occasionally had similar expressions as well. Not something he’d mentioned. Something he’d thought a lot about, though.
“He owes me, and I could be persuaded to go that far,” Eli said, shrugging.
“Wouldn’t need much persuading,” Dawson added. Why did the name Quinn sound so familiar? There were over five million people in Sydney; chances were, he’d met a few people with the same names. Inevitable.
“Riley is coming too. I had a meeting I couldn’t postpone again, and it’s been too long since we’ve caught up. So we’ll do it while we’re… being pack mules?”
And now a Riley. A day for familiar names, then. Speaking of Rileys, Dawson needed to send his a message to see if they were meeting up once he’d finished here.
“You have no idea how many things need to be carried in. I hope you had your Weet-Bix. Also, a coffee date with your best friend is not a meeting , you loser.”
“It is when both of us work long hours, and he’s busy with some new sidepiece.”
“Are you jealous, Seb?”
“I have more than enough men to handle, thanks,” Seb replied dryly. “I pity anyone that has to put up with Riley for more than twenty-four hours. Better them than me.”
“He is pretty hot.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Seb warned.
Dawson’s Riley was hot too. Maybe it had something to do with the name? Come to think of it, while he hadn’t met many Rileys in his life, they were all pretty good-looking. Maybe there was something to it?
“I need more personality in my partners anyway,” Eli said with a shrug. “No fun to break them down if they were boring to start with.”
“Uh-huh. You’ve literally never had a girlfriend, Eli, but nice try.”
“I’ve never met anyone I like,” he said defensively. “Fuckin’ sue me for being picky. At least I have standards. Your first boyfriend broke your heart, and then you let him come crawling back, like an idiot.”
“You mean you haven’t met anyone that wasn’t Gabe,” Seb said. “And I’m not responding to that comment about Quinn.”
“I wasn’t asking for a response. It’s the truth .”
“Are you hangry right now? Do you need a muesli bar?”
“Do you have one handy?” Eli asked sarcastically.
“Nice arch, by the way,” Seb said, ignoring his brother. “Does the bride want to be stabbed before she gets herself wed to the poor groom?”
“It does seem that way,” Dawson said. The roses were beautiful, but the father of the bride had insisted on keeping the thorns. Dawson hadn’t heard what his opinion about the groom was, but maybe he was hoping that one of them would get stuck with one and call the whole thing off? People had done weirder things to stop weddings. He’d even witnessed a few.
“How sturdy is it, though?” Eli asked.
“Are you questioning my skills?” Dawson asked, offended.
Eli grinned, a hint of mischievousness in it. “Yeah, a little bit.”
“Has he always been like this?” Dawson directed the question at Seb.
“Always.”
“Okay, fuck you both. Oh, look, there’s your imaginary best friend.”
Dawson turned, and his eyes locked with Riley’s ice-blue eyes. His Riley—who had one hand in the pocket of his slacks, his usual reticent look on his face—faltered when recognition set in.
“Finally,” Seb muttered. “Thought he’d decided to stand me up again.” He headed straight for Riley without another word.
“That’s Riley,” Eli said unnecessarily.
“That’s your brother’s best friend?” Dawson asked, needing to verbally hear the clarification. It could be coincidence, right? He could be here to… arrest someone. If he said Eli had committed some heinous crime, Dawson would believe it.
“Last time I looked. Though we only met him recently even though apparently, they’ve been friends for years and just kept it a secret from everyone? Who hides a best friend? That’s weird, right?”
“Right.” Dawson unfortunately knew a thing or two about hiding things. Boyfriends, best friends, nails he needed.
His Riley and Eli’s brother’s best friend were the same person. He’d been that close all this time? Barely one degree separating them. He could have met Riley years ago. Would he have noticed the similarities between him and Sadie before they’d known? Those eyes were a dead giveaway, and he liked to think he would have had some suspicions, but he probably wouldn’t have. Some things didn’t stand out until they made themselves known, and then they couldn’t be unseen.
Oh, fuck.
Riley was here.
“He can’t be here,” Dawson said, panic clawing its way up his throat.
“Why?” Eli asked, raising an eyebrow and looking even more like his brother.
Dawson searched the area for Sadie. Where had she gone? To help set the tables or inside the building? Fuck, fuck, fuck. He needed to get her to leave. Or to get Riley to leave. Or he needed to leave. Someone needed to leave. If Dawson set a fire somewhere, then everyone would have to leave. Solid plan. Who here smoked? He needed a lighter.
Riley kept his gaze on Dawson even as he spoke to Seb, standing too close together. Eli had made some pretty interesting insinuations that Dawson didn’t like the sound of. What were they to each other?
Sidepiece. Dawson almost laughed hysterically. Seb had been talking about him and Gideon. The reason why Riley had been so busy lately. Because he’d been fucking—dating—the two of them. What an absolute mess this whole thing had become.
“Hey, Riley,” Eli said as they got into earshot. “Seb has had such lovely things to say about you, it feels like I’ve known you for years .”
“Don’t be a brat.”
“Seb said we shouldn’t date, which is a shame. But alas, I’m already taken.” Eli dragged Dawson to his side. Dawson’s shock meant Eli didn’t have any trouble despite being so much smaller. “This is my boyfriend, Dawson. We’ve been keeping it a secret. Because that’s what normal people do about normal relationships.”
Sebastian put his hand over his eyes in utter exasperation.
Riley’s eyes swirled in a mix of heat, anger, and something much deeper, hidden below the surface. There was a sharp edge to his gaze that could have cut diamonds. There were plenty of secrets in this circle, but none of them had anything to do with Eli.
“He’s kidding,” Dawson said weakly. He tried to laugh, but it wouldn’t come out. Riley had a way of making his brain fall out of his ears, even when he wasn’t even looking at him. It was a terrible time for him to lose his ability to think.
“Don’t deny our love, honeybun,” Eli said, squeezing Dawson around the waist and giving him doe eyes that were strangely effective. “You don’t have to be shy.” The freckles. It had to be the freckles. A trick: Eli being innocent meant Hell had frozen over.
“I’m demanding a pay raise for this.”
“Whatever you want, pumpkin.”
He should definitely have been recording this. Jay would give him the raise. He deserved hazard pay every time Eli came on a job with him. They all did.
“Do you ever think maybe I keep things from you for a reason?” Seb asked dryly. “You’re a brat.”
“A loveable brat.”
“Another incorrect answer. You are a straight brat who needs to stop yanking people’s chains. Three strikes and you’re out, kid. Also, do you really want Gabe to get here and see you like that?”
Eli immediately let go and took a step away from Dawson. “Why are you like this?”
“It’s fun,” Seb said, deadpan.
“You know, I think I hear someone calling me,” Dawson said. Could everyone hear the panic in his voice? “Um. Inside.”
“Inside?” Riley asked, raising a perfect eyebrow. That simple look lit Dawson on fire, and he knew he had to get away from here before he did something stupid. Even more stupid than starting something with the man in the first place. Were they out? Would Riley say they were together right here, in front of everyone? Did Dawson want that?
Yes. Another reason to get out of there. They hadn’t had this conversation yet. Also, he needed to find Sadie and get her away from here. Lure her to her car with the promise of ice cream.
“I have really good hearing,” he managed to get out. He almost tripped in his haste to get away from them.
He vaguely heard, “I think you scared him, Riley,” and his ears burned in embarrassment.
Even the air conditioning in the narrow passageway leading into the main area of the hall didn’t alleviate any of the heat in his cheeks. He’d acted like an idiot, no subtlety or finesse whatsoever. If he’d been trying to keep anything on the down-low, he’d failed.
“Dawson.”
Dawson winced. He should have known that Riley would follow him in here. He stopped, going no further than his own pride would allow him to run. That didn’t mean he’d turn around and face it, because his pride really didn’t go that far.
Heat flared at his back as Riley crowded him against the wall. Riley brushed his hair away from his nape, and then lips whispered across his skin. A forearm appeared in his periphery as Riley leaned it beside Dawson’s head.
“How long?”
“How long what?” It sounded belligerent, but he honestly had no idea what Riley meant.
“How long have you worked for them?”
“Jay and Eli? I don’t know. Something like six years.” He couldn’t think enough to formulate more than that. He could have said twenty years, and he’d believe himself.
“And Eli?”
“I just told you how long I’ve worked for them.”
“You and him?”
“Oh. Oh . God, no. He really was just kidding. He doesn’t like men, firstly, which kind of rules him out of the selection pool in the first place. He’s also way too young for me and…” Dawson lost his train of thought as Riley turned him around. He gripped Dawson’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, and the look in his eyes made Dawson’s stomach flip; the intensity of that gaze was impossible to ignore. Dawson had no idea how he’d ever thought those eyes were cold. If anything, they held too much emotion in them to ever be able to figure out what Riley thought at any given moment.
“Are you jealous?” he asked, the idea of it laughable, and yet he couldn’t think of another explanation. He arched his throat, reaching for Riley’s tantalising lips. Riley splayed a hand over his collarbone and kept him in place.
“Do I have a reason to be?”
That wasn’t a no. Dawson’s knees weakened under the implication that if Dawson said yes , then Riley would be? It shouldn’t make Dawson flush with need, and yet it did.
“No,” Dawson breathed truthfully, not even able to lie to get Riley more worked up. He was so consumed by Riley and Gideon that there wasn’t room for anything else. They took up all of the space he had, every nook and cranny and all the tiny gaps.
Riley kissed him then, and Dawson moaned loudly, twining his hands around Riley’s head, digging his fingers deep into soft hair. Riley’s body pressed against his, and fucking yes . Dawson had bulk on Riley, and it never seemed to matter; he always made Dawson feel cherished and delicate.
“I am,” Riley said, kissing along Dawson’s jaw and dragging his teeth along it. “I don’t want anyone else to touch you. Gideon and I are the only ones who have permission.”
“Y-yeah, yes.” They were all he wanted. He dragged Riley’s head back up for another kiss, tangling his fingers in his hair and arching up into him. A hand skimmed down his back and over the curve of his ass.
“Say it.”
“Only—only you. The two—you. Please .”
If Dawson dragged him into an empty room, or hell, even the toilets, would Riley fuck him right here? Dawson would settle for getting on his knees. A quick hand job. Whatever would let him get his hands and mouth all over Riley, like, yesterday.
His need for Riley, for both of them, went beyond anything he’d ever experienced. He couldn’t go an hour without thinking about them, without checking his phone, without wanting to speak to them or see them. Almost like they were an obsession, and he only craved more.
“Dawson?”
Dawson froze, terror like ice-cold water pouring over him. Oh, no. Oh, no. He tugged Riley closer, a futile attempt to stop the train in its track. Riley turned towards the voice and sealed their fate.
“ Riley?”
Dawson couldn’t look, too afraid.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Sadie asked. The hurt and anger in her voice rolled Dawson’s stomach.
He didn’t mean for her to find out like this. He’d wanted to plan it better, ease her into it, try to explain it without it sounding horrible. Like he could make this sound better . He didn’t want her to hate him, and he’d kept it to himself for too long.
Her angry features turned to him. “Dawson? What the hell are you doing with him? Sucking face?”
Everything twisted up inside him, like his organs were being turned into a pretzel. Fucking hell, the look on her face. Surprise, devastation, hurt, and so much anger. He felt like the worst kind of scum. He’d done that.
He needed to say something. Preferably something good that could heal the hurt. That could do something to bridge the gap that continued to open between them.
“I can explain,” was all that came out. He didn’t know how he would do that, or why he’d said something so asinine, but he couldn’t think of any other words.
“Oh, come on,” she scoffed. “ You can explain? That what, you were making out with my brother in a way that’s clearly not your first time? Oh, I’m sorry. You don’t want to be called that, because you can’t bear to acknowledge the thought that you have a sibling that isn’t connected to your own precious family.”
“Sadie—”
“Shut up,” she interrupted. “I don’t want to hear it. How could you? Has it been him this whole time? I’ve been devastated over all of this, and you’ve been laughing behind my back and fucking him instead of being on my side?”
“Sadie—”
“I said shut up,” she hissed. Her eyes went glossy with unshed tears, an angry red spreading over her cheeks.
“Don’t speak to him like that,” Riley said. “Whatever issues you have, they won’t be solved that way.”
Sadie whirled on him. “I can’t even begin to understand you, or why you can’t even give us a chance, but him? He’s my best friend. Judging by the look on your face, you already know that. You don’t get to ignore the fact that I exist, your goddamn fucking sister , and then sleep with my best friend behind my back. You don’t get to do that, when you can’t even give me the courtesy of one single conversation that doesn’t involve you having me escorted out of your office like a criminal.”
Dawson didn’t know what to say. She had every right to that anger, and any apology he made wouldn’t be enough. He’d known he’d fucked up from the very first moment he’d kissed Riley in his car. Known and still kept going. Had fallen in love with his best friend’s brother, right under her nose. He deserved every bit of vitriol she spat at him. And more.
“I—” How could he make this right? He couldn’t. His heart ached, and he didn’t know how to fix it.
“Are you done?” Riley asked coldly.
Dawson grimaced. He’d gotten used to Riley’s brusque conversation skills. Sadie didn’t understand it the way he did or know enough to look beyond the words to the warmth that lay hidden underneath.
Her jaw dropped open. “ Excuse me? Am I done ? I haven’t even fucking started, you asshole.”
“Don’t expect an adult conversation if you won’t act like one,” Riley continued as if she hadn’t said anything. Dawson resisted the urge to slap his palm against his forehead. “What we choose to do has nothing to do with you. We’re neither your child, nor your spouse, nor your responsibility. In fact, to me, you’re nothing.”
She flinched. Maybe Dawson should have slapped his palm against Riley’s mouth instead. If his intent was to make it better, he was going in the wrong direction.
“Wanting to change that doesn’t make it so. Speaking to him like that is certainly not going to change my mind.”
“I had a right to know this was happening. For so many reasons that you seem so determined to ignore. Fuck both of you.” Tears pricked at the bottom of her eyes, and Dawson felt lower than dirt. He’d done that to her. He’d destroyed their friendship because he’d thought with his dick and kept going back for more, even knowing that it would inevitably lead to this.
Her mouth opened like she wanted to say something. Dawson braced himself for more harsh truths. In the end, she shook her head and walked away, her head held high, and her gait stiff.
Dawson steadied himself with a hand to the wall.
“Dawson,” Riley said gently, curling a hand around his elbow.
Dawson flinched away from the touch, acid crawling up into his throat. He’d never be able to get the look on her face out of his head. He wanted to go after her, but it would only make it worse. She’d be too angry to listen, and they would both say things they could never take back. Dawson had done enough damage already with things that he couldn’t take back.
“Dawson, look at me.”
Riley’s blue eyes came into sight before his brain could catch up, his response to Riley’s demands so instinctive now. The wrong move because all he could see was Sadie. He’d so wilfully ignored it, and now he couldn’t ignore it anymore.
“I… I can’t,” Dawson said brokenly. “I need—I’m sorry.” He couldn’t look at Riley or notice all the similarities between him and Sadie. Couldn’t look at the broken pieces he’d created. None of this was Riley’s fault. And Gideon—he had never deserved to be in the middle of this mess. “Please.”
He’d ruined everything.
Riley nodded and took a step back, giving Dawson room to get past him without having to touch him. He didn’t know what he would do if Riley touched him again, and the last thing he needed to do was fall back into his arms and continue making the same mistake.
He couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
“Dawson.”
Dawson paused, not looking back. Please don’t be an asshole. I can’t deal with it right now.
“I’ll be here when you need me.”
Dawson squeezed his eyes shut. Fuck. His stomach churned uncomfortably, and he bolted.