Chapter 13
“Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong, Ding”
Greyson blew into Soren’s house like an unwelcome blizzard, his presence crackling with barely restrained fury. “Soren!” he bellowed, shaking the rafters. “Get your fucking ass out here!”
His brother appeared at the top of the landing, strategically keeping a flight of stairs between them like a shield. “I’m not doing this, Greyson.”
“The fuck you aren’t.”
“Look, the check was her idea.”
“It’s over.” His words sliced through the air with deadly finality.
“No. I’m not going through this with you again. She’s thirty fucking years old, Grey. You don’t get to control us like kids anymore.”
“She’s done with you.”
“Bull. Shit. We have something—”
“You have nothing.”
“Says who? You?”
“Says Wren. It’s over between you two.”
Soren’s spine stiffened as suspicion crawled up his rigid back. “What did you do?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and shot Wren a text.
Greyson crossed his arms over his chest and waited, every muscle in his body coiled like a predator ready to strike.
The awkward silence stretched taut between them as they waited for her to respond.
“She’ll get back to me in a second.”
“I’m sure.” Greyson’s words dripped with skepticism.
“She will.”
“Maybe if you stare at the screen a little harder, text bubbles will appear.”
Tension radiated from his brother as he forked his fingers through his dark hair, sweat beading at his temples despite the cool air, the strands falling in disheveled waves. “She typically answers right away. Maybe it’s a bad signal.”
Bullshit. Wren was surgically attached to her phone, her lifeline to the world. She paid extra for her plan to ensure she had the best service, while everyone else barely got by with two bars.
She was probably panicking as much as Soren right now, her pulse hammering against her throat as she bit that sexy lip of hers. Greyson wouldn’t let things get any further between them until they cleared this up. Best his brother learned the truth sooner rather than later.
“She’s obviously ignoring you.”
“Give it a sec!”
Greyson paced toward the wall where Soren had a pretentious assortment of unopened champagne bottles displayed like trophies. It made quite a collection, yet he never saw his brother drink a single glass of champagne in his life.
“What are you saving these for?”
Soren shrugged, his shoulders heavy with something unspoken. “A special occasion.”
There were at least fifty bottles, some worth well over a thousand dollars, their labels gleaming like promises. “That’ll be some occasion.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ve been preserving them so long they seem a little too special to crack open.”
He understood that sentiment all too well, the ache of it settling deep in his chest. He’d been protecting Wren for more than a decade, keeping her at arm’s length like his most precious possession.
Opening this particular Pandora’s Box felt wrong on every level.
Dangerous and reckless. It also felt like the reward of a lifetime, the sweetest sin he’d ever consider committing.
“Did you hear that?” Soren frowned, his head tilting.
“What?”
“I heard a squeak. Did that come from your stomach?”
Greyson unzipped his coat, the metallic rasp cutting through the silence. “It’s Rat.”
“You brought a fucking rat into my house?”
“No.” He lifted the kitten like a toast, and the tiny creature squawked again.
“What the fuck is that?”
“I found it under my porch. He’s too small to live with the other rescues yet.”
“So you’re just carrying him around like a Momma Kangaroo?” His brother laughed, the sound rich and incredulous. “Living in the woods is making you weird, bro.”
Greyson stroked Rat between the ears as his little sticky claws tried to catch his calloused fingers. “He’s feral. The mom abandoned him, so he needs to be socialized for a few weeks.”
“So, you’re just sittin’ at home playing with yarn and bottle feeding that runt? Charming.”
“Wren’s got a lot on her plate right now.”
“There it is. I knew you didn’t volunteer to play nursemaid to a cat on your own.”
His brother cut straight to the bone. Nothing in him wanted to take care of an underweight kitten, but Wren had assumed he would, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her no. Besides, Rat actually seemed kind of cool, growing on him like moss on a tree.
“Nothing charming about this little hell spawn. He might look like a dust bunny, but he’s packin’ murder mittens.
He has no regard for personal space or the laws of physics, and I’m pretty sure he’s training for a prison break.
I’m not adopting him. I’m just trying to keep him alive until he’s big enough to move in with the others at the sanctuary. ”
“Keep pretending it’s an inconvenience. Nicely played.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Grey. That little rodent keeps her coming by, doesn’t it? Pretend all you want that you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m not that stupid.”
Sharp truth cut him open like a blade. As long as Rat lived with him, Wren would stop by to check on him, her presence filling all the empty spaces in his life.
He’d been running out of excuses to visit The Haven now that construction on the yoga studio had concluded.
And, God help him, he really liked when she came to his house.
He liked the way her scent clung to the furniture, and how she unconsciously arranged the crap by his sink whenever she used the bathroom, making his space more homey.
Feeling exposed and desperate to flee, he snapped, “She get back to you yet?”
Soren tapped his phone and frowned, the expression darkening his features. “No.”
Greyson shifted and glanced out the front window, letting Rat tour the sill with curious whiskers twitching.
“Dad tried talking to me about his funeral yesterday.”
Greyson looked back at him on the landing where he now sat on the top step, waiting for his phone to ping like a lovesick teenager. “And?”
Soren shrugged. “He wants his ashes scattered off the back of one of his ships.”
“How on brand.”
“At least he didn’t request we fly Bette Midler out to sing ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ or some shit like that.”
“Small mercies.”
They fell silent again, the air thick with tension no matter how much Soren tried to dissipate it with small talk. He wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. His brother would either admit defeat, and promise to back off of Wren, or he’d get a size twelve boot up his ass.
“Dad also told me—”
“I’m not here to talk about Dad.”
Greyson wasn’t in the mood to grapple with his guilt, grief, or regret.
Not that he had much guilt regarding his father, but it was hard not to have regrets when dysfunction reached its endgame with no resolution in sight.
Some part of him always hoped they would eventually get over the loss of their mom and be a family again, whole and unbroken. That never happened.
“Did you hear that Logan’s trying to be a hand model?”
Greyson frowned and glanced up at Soren, confusion creasing his brow. “Didn’t he lose a nail in a pickleball game last week?”
“Yeah. That’s a real crusher in his industry.”
They both chuckled, the sound breaking some of the tension. Greyson lowered into one of the high-backed leather chairs in the foyer, his body sinking into the expensive material as he checked his watch.
Soren’s home was completely different from his rustic cabin.
Everything smelled like expensive leather and furniture polish, the scent of money that never knew a hard day’s work.
There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. Maybe such privilege was a testament to his manhood, but Greyson never felt the need to flex their wealth in such a suffocating way.
Soren stood from the steps, paced the landing like a caged animal, checked his phone, then paced again. “How do you just sit there like this isn’t weird?”
“It’s not weird. We all knew you and Wren weren’t going to pan out.”
“Fuck you, Grey. No one knew that.”
He lifted a brow, his expression maddeningly calm. “Sure.”
“You’ve got some balls. All our lives, we listened to you and backed off. Any one of us could have gone after her the minute she became an adult.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But we could have.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But. We. Could. Have.”
“But. You. Didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, neither did you. Why the sudden interest? Is this even about her or do you just need to fuck me over to feel like a big man?”
“Watch it.”
“Or what? There’s only one of us feeling threatened right now, Grey, and it’s not me.”
He sent him a silencing glare. “I’ll let Wren explain it to you.”
Soren shook his head and scoffed. “Is it so fucking hard to stomach that she might be into me?”
His scowl drilled into him like a physical force. “She’s not.”
Soren laughed without humor, the sound bitter and sharp. “You weren’t there. We had an awesome date the other night. And last night—“
“The whole town’s talking about last night. I don’t need the recap.” The words tasted like poison on his tongue.
“She kisses me back, Grey. It’s not pity or Dad’s will or anything else you want to blame. There’s something between us, and if you honestly cared about Wren, you’d back off for once and let us figure it out.”
“I won’t let you hurt her like that.” The accusation ricocheted between them like a bullet.
“Get the fuck out of my house.”
“I’m not leaving until you admit it’s over.”
“Fuck you, Greyson. You think I’d ever hurt her? You’re the one who won’t let her live her damn life. Look at you, man. You can’t stand the fact that some things are simply out of your control. Go back to your tree fort in the woods and let the grown-ups do their thing.”
He stood and took a threatening step toward the stairs. “Come down here and say that to my face.”
Soren rolled his eyes from the safety of the landing and tapped his phone again. One huff of frustration and Greyson knew she hadn’t responded. “Did you threaten her?”
The tin taste of uncertainty made him swallow. Why wasn’t she getting back to him?