Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ariana
He arrives at the day-after party later than everyone else. I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t notice. When we left this morning, Carter told me that Boston had said to go ahead without him. That was a kick to the teeth, but I’m trying to maintain my confidence despite now needing dentures.
The party is in the Sweeten household’s backyard. The Sweetens are treating the wedding party to brunch before the rest of their friends and family arrive for a barbecue in the afternoon. I got to tag along because I’m Carter’s little sister and Boston’s plus one. Not his wedding date.
At long last, Boston strolls through the backgate, completely alone, claiming that his hangover made it hard for him to get out of bed today. The guys laugh and poke fun at him for being a lightweight, and he just rolls his eyes and waves them off.
I stare at him inconspicuously through my sunglasses, downing my mimosa.
Liar.
He bends down to give two of the dogs, the ones who aren’t in Penny’s lap, belly scratches, never once looking my way.
I’m right here. In pink.
I reach for the bottle of champagne on the table and refill my glass. I skip the orange juice this time. Who needs it?
“Easy,” Arden murmurs. “Pour me one before you drink the whole bottle.”
Boston pulls out a chair next to Callum, about eight seats away from me.
I’m not counting or anything, but it’s as far as he can possibly get from me unless he physically leaves the yard.
He smiles at all the faces surrounding him, smacking his hand into my brother’s across the table, and then he looks my way. He finally looks my way.
There’s a pause in time, I think. Our eyes burn into each other. I bring my drink to my mouth and Boston’s throat bobs as I swallow. My mind goes quiet, even as my heart is screaming at me to say hello.
Unfortunately, it’s at that very moment that Callum turns his head to speak to Carter, and Boston tears his eyes from me to gawk at the side of his Captain’s face.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Boston practically growls.
Callum goes rigid in his seat.
Everyone turns toward them, apparently missing something during the twenty whole minutes that Callum Saltzman has been here.
I’m the smart one, so I look at his boyfriend instead.
Wyatt is seated on the other side of him, glaring ahead at nothing.
He doesn’t look like his usual self. Not even close.
How have we missed this difference all morning?
He looks like he’s about to explode.
That is so not a good sign.
“What?” Carter asks, glancing between Boston and Callum, confusion sweeping over his face.
Boston, horrified, reaches forward and rips the sunglasses off Callum’s face.
Declan gasps, Carter’s eyes widen, and Callum’s gaze hits the table.
I stifle the noise of shock that threatens to fall from my mouth.
Callum is sporting a big, bruised eye. It’s swollen to the point that his lid is almost entirely forced shut. That is the kind of injury that comes from a fist hitting a face. I’ve seen enough victims of my brother to know the look.
“What the fuck?” Seth hisses.
“Did that happen at my wedding?” Declan asks quickly, his voice full of concern. He leans forward, across Wyatt’s body, and touches his fingers to Callum’s face.
Callum jerks away from his hand, letting out a hiss of pain.
“Holy shit,” Lauren breathes from across the table.
Arden promptly gets to her feet, snatching a cloth off the table. She beelines for one of the coolers, her shoulders rigid, sliding right into nurse mode without a second thought.
Callum still doesn’t speak.
Declan drops his hand and slowly glances at Wyatt instead, trying to catch his eye. He can’t. Wyatt won’t look at him. It’s entirely clear that something is very, very wrong. Wyatt is simmering in his seat, his jaw pulsing, anger steaming from his every pore.
“Saltzy,” Boston demands, his voice firm.
“It’s fine,” Callum says sharply, ripping his glasses from Boston’s hands and putting them back on his face. “Thanks, Boss. Just the attention that I want.”
Boston seems to realize his mistake. He winces a bit, but his regret doesn’t override his concern.
“What the fuck is going on?” Carter hisses, leaning forward on his elbows. “Start talking Cap, because I’m about to blow a fucking fuse.”
“Aren’t you always?” Callum glowers.
“Wyatt,” Declan finally says, and his tone has an edge. Apparently, his lack of response is starting to become an obvious concern. “You don’t have anything to say?”
His boyfriend has a black eye. He should have many opinions on the matter.
Wyatt clenches his jaw, his gaze still burning straight ahead. He doesn’t look at Declan. He doesn’t look at Callum, either. He keeps his eyes on his safe person across the table. His best friend—EJ.
EJ stares right back, but says nothing, either. His gaze is softer, more understanding.
Penny shifts forward. “Wyatt.”
Arden strolls right between the concerned group of friends.
She doesn’t even ask, she just pries the glasses off Callum’s face and slides her hand to the back of his head.
He goes to move away from her touch, but then realizes who is touching him.
He’s going to have to deal with her acting as his nurse if he wants to avoid dealing with my brother.
He sighs, letting her cradle his head as she presses the homemade ice pack to his face.
“Someone better start fucking talking,” Boston orders.
“Maybe this can wait until later,” Tiffany suggests gently. “It’s not everyone’s business.”
Wyatt’s jaw pulses again, but he doesn’t move an inch.
“Does that feel okay?” Arden asks and Callum mumbles something in response.
“Saltzy,” Declan tries again. “I need to know if someone—”
And it’s at that very moment that everything erupts.
One second, all the attention is on Callum and Wyatt—apart from Wyatt, who is glaring straight ahead at his best friend like he can’t physically hear a word that anyone is saying.
Next, Carter is out of his seat and EJ is being torn from his chair.
He’s thrown right onto his back atop the freshly cut lawn.
He lands with a loud, painful thump. A gasp of shocked pain leaves his body.
Carter is on him in seconds, rearing back his fist.
Everyone jumps to their feet, except for Callum.
Except for Callum and Wyatt Caulfield.
“Forker!” Declan barks, loud and demanding, but my brother can’t hear him anymore. He can’t hear anyone.
“What the fuck is going on?” Seth shouts.
Boston is around the table in seconds, right as Carter goes to swing, grabbing him by the neck and hauling him off EJ.
He tosses my brother to the ground like he weighs as much as a lawn ornament.
While that brings my brother back into his body, EJ just lays there, flat on his back, unsmiling and expressionless.
He stares up at the sky and says nothing.
Well, thankfully, this happened after the wedding. It would have been horribly awkward having all the groomsmen trying to kill each other at the altar.
Carter’s eyes are full of fury as he stumbles to his feet and heads right back toward EJ. Boston buries his fist in his shirt the moment he's within reach, hauling him back like a disobedient dog. Carter tries to storm forward anyway.
“Nice knuckles, Dalton.”
And that’s when I notice. That’s when everyone notices. EJ’s red and battered knuckles. Cleaned, obviously, but clear evidence of a fist that hit a face and made irrefutable damage.
Oh no.
Declan’s expression falls, pure shock washing over him.
“Eej…” Seth whispers, disbelief in his voice.
EJ still hasn’t moved, and neither has Wyatt. EJ stares at the sky and Wyatt stares at the table, his hands clasped in front of his mouth. There’s one long moment of stunned, painful silence. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks.
Arden goes back to hesitantly icing Callum’s face. Her eyes are wide, probably as uncomfortable as I am being in the middle of this mess. This isn’t how this group operates. Not against each other. EJ and Wyatt are inseparable. They’re brothers, in every sense of the word besides by blood.
This is bad.
Wyatt suddenly jumps to his feet, his chair flying out behind him. He doesn’t look at any of us as he turns and storms up the back deck, right into the Sweeten household. He shuts the door gently behind him. Somehow, that’s louder than if he had slammed it.
“Wy,” Penny calls after him softly, getting to her feet.
Avery is up in half a second, following them both.
Everyone else slowly looks back at EJ, who still hasn’t moved from his spot on the ground.
“What did you do?” Declan asks, his face a mask of disappointment and simmering anger.
Carter is furious, slowly pushing forward inch by inch. Boston keeps a hold of him, just in case. He’s back in his own head now, but that is still his Captain sitting at the table with a damaged face.
Callum thanks Arden, gently pushing her hand away.
She lets him, dropping the ice pack to her side.
He stands without a word, and I wait for him to follow Wyatt, but he doesn’t.
He walks around the table, right past his teammates, and stares down at EJ in the grass—who is still wordlessly staring at the sky.
EJ’s eyes shift to his.
Callum dips his chin and holds out his hand.
EJ just looks at it, his throat bobbing.
Cal doesn’t move, he doesn’t retract his offer either, he just waits. Patiently. Stubbornly. Eventually, EJ slowly reaches for Cal’s hand and lets him hoist him back onto his feet. He studies him, a silent apology oozing out of him—thick, heavy, and tangible.
Callum nods, accepting words that were never voiced, and gently pats him on the back. He turns, meeting Carter and Boston’s furious expressions.
“Leave him alone,” is all he says, before he heads into the house to go and find his better half.
Everyone slowly averts their gaze to EJ.
It is abundantly clear that nobody is more ashamed of EJ than EJ himself.
He hit Callum. EJ. The obnoxious ball of sunshine.
Hard enough to give him a black eye. Carter isn’t going to rest until he has answers, not when it was one of his teammates who got assaulted.
He backs his own people, and he might like EJ, but Callum trumps him by a mile.
EJ’s eyes slide across the lawn to Seth and Declan. They’re looking at him like they don’t recognize him. Like they don’t know him at all. He physically flinches at what he sees on their faces, and I don’t blame him.
“Start talking,” Declan snaps quietly.
“No,” EJ mumbles, shaking his head. “No. Talk to Wy.”
“EJ,” Seth warns.
“I’m not saying anything,” he murmurs, glancing down our row of tables. “Lau, can we go for a walk?”
Lauren, whose eyes are full of concern, eagerly heads right for him. She ignores everyone else, choosing not to leave their friend completely alone when he needs someone the most. She winds her hand around EJ’s arm and guides him out of the backyard.
Declan and Seth watch them go, exchanging a wary look.
“What the fuck?” Carter whispers, running his hands over his head.
“Wyatt will never talk to him again,” Seth says.
Dec brings a hand over his face. “EJ wouldn’t hit Wyatt’s partner. Not without reason.”
“What fucking reason, Lowesy?” Carter barks.
“You aren’t allowed to have an opinion on when someone is or isn’t allowed to hit someone else,” I snap, because he does not know that man as well as they do, and he needs to remember that.
This doesn’t involve him, and his judgment is not appropriate when hitting people is practically his favourite hobby.
His head whirls my way, like he forgot I was here at all. Boston shoots me a pleading look over my brother’s shoulder, begging me to rein it in until he calms down.
“Something happened,” Declan murmurs, more to himself than anything.
Seth agrees, his brown eyes full of worry.
“I’m going to go check on Wyatt,” Tiffany says gently, excusing herself.
“Saltzy disappeared around midnight,” Carter says, trying to recall the events of the night to make this make sense. “We all did that shot at Ari’s table. He wasn’t there. EJ wasn’t either.”
Declan’s brow furrows. “Was Wy?”
Carter stares at him, curtly shaking his head.
The three of them were gone. One of them now has a black eye.
“EJ came back, but I didn’t notice his hand,” Seth says. “I was in the rideshare back to the hotel with him. Wyatt had left by that point. Eej was quiet, but the girls were singing, so there really wasn’t much room for conversation.”
“Wyatt wasn’t with the rest of us at the end of the night, either,” Declan confirms, his eyes skirting over the table. “At the hotel. When we decided not to have an afterparty and just hit the sack, he and Callum were both not there. That’s not like him.”
“Neither was EJ,” Arden mutters. “I remember that.”
“That’s definitely not like EJ,” Seth adds, shaking his head.
It’s quiet for a long moment. Declan sighs, glancing up at the house. “When everyone else gets here, do not bring this up. If Saltzy stays, let him keep his fucking sunglasses on without question, and if EJ comes back, drop it, alright? We’ll get this sorted out, but not publicly like this.”
“Reno’s going to notice Cal’s face in half a second,” Boston says.
“Then punch him in the dick before he mentions it,” Declan grumbles.