Chapter 19
EVE
To say I was complicating my life would be a vast understatement.
I’d taken complicated and turned it into absolute chaos.
Not only had I slept with four out of the five guys I lived with in Bluebell House, but I had active feelings for five out of five guys.
Confused and conflicted feelings for some of them, true, but there was no denying the way I had started to orbit around each of them as if they were now the center of my universe.
This damn house, still somewhat falling apart, was the center of my universe. There was absolutely a fucked-up metaphor in there, but in the post-coital haze of finally breaking through the icy distance Connor had been keeping me at, I wasn’t in any sort of position to wonder what it was.
To wonder what path I’d set myself on as Connor’s newly knocked up girlfriend when I clearly already had a few boyfriends in my pocket.
“How is this my life?” The words slipped out as Connor drove us home in a SUV that I’d been informed was bulletproof to keep the next heir safe. My useless phone was back in my pocket, and I was feeling a little stressed despite the fact that we were still in deep shit.
The shadows of the early morning darkness covered Connor’s face, but I could still see the concern etched across his features as he turned to me.
Meanwhile, all I could focus on was his strong hands flexing against the wheel, the dusky color of his skin reminding me of how beautiful he’d looked wrapped around me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice low and strangely vulnerable. “Sobering up enough to have regrets now?”
A snort of laughter was my first response, and as those big hands tightened once more, I realized that might not have been the best way to start this next conversation.
“I was never that drunk, Con.” As the use of his nickname, the one that only his brothers used, his grip relaxed.
“I have no regrets. I was just thinking about how complicated my life is. How I’m effectively dating four of the five men I live with, and I have definite feelings for the fifth one.
I mean…this isn’t normal, right? Everyone is going to think I’m the biggest fucking whore. I am the biggest fucking who—”
“No,” he snapped, that one word effective enough to cut me off. “You never get to insult yourself, Evelyn. Not in front of me.”
My throat grew tight as I tried to swallow against the emotions.
“None of us in Bluebell House has ever lived a normal life,” Connor continued, his voice softening.
“Fuck, none of us were even born into a normal life, so there’s no reason to expect that it would ever be a suburban, white picket fence kind of deal for us.
Even the way we are brothers through choice rather than blood is not normal.
We would die for each other and have come close more than once. ”
This was when I finally found my voice. “How did you all come to be the way you are? You’re all from very different worlds, and while I’ve kind of asked this before and gotten roundabout responses, it’s pretty obvious that what you have goes beyond normal friendship.
No normal dude-bro friends would be so casually comfortable sharing a girl they all have, um, some sort of feelings for.
” Really praying I wasn’t overestimating what’d passed between us, because that’d crush me right now.
We were stopped at a red light, and I could feel his eyes on my face, but I still stared at his hands. My emotions were too raw. If I looked at him, I’d forget every question in my mind.
“That’s because it’s a bond forged in pain and death,” he whispered somewhat dramatically, and fuck…I had to look.
I met his stunning green eyes, a color that represented safety to me, and barely managed to keep from sucking in an audible breath at the intensity of his gaze.
His irises were so dark in this low light that they almost looked black, and if it wasn’t for the flash of green from the streetlights, I’d have thought I faced an angel of darkness.
“Forged in pain and death?” I repeated breathlessly. “Literally?”
One slow nod as the lights changed and he started driving once more.
“Yes, literally. We met when we were all around ten and Ethan was a few years older. At a summer camp for rich little assholes. They called it Developing the Leaders of Tomorrow camp. My father was trying to go legit for a while there, and he wanted me to make contacts with the best and brightest of my peers, so he could use my rich friends to make new, wider-reaching deals. Which meant a fancy private school and an even fancier summer camp.” A derisive chuckle escaped him.
“He sent Ethan too, hoping we’d form a friendship of some kind.
And in a way we did, while in other ways we’re more competitive and have more animosity between us than ever. ”
My mind flashed to the five guys as unruly little kids, but I couldn’t picture their innocent faces. None of them were remotely innocent now, and I doubted they’d been even back then. Some kids had to grow up quickly, and I imagined they were firmly in that category.
“Is that why you and Ethan are so competitive?” I asked, when the word I wanted to use was hostile. There was so much hostility between them.
“That’s another story for another day,” Connor said, his voice darker. “There’s a fuckload of history there. Ethan is the illegitimate half-brother I never wanted, and Dad never let either of us forget it.”
That tracked with what I knew of the brothers specifically, and mafia-type gangster families in general. “So you all met and hung out at camp?” I said, reverting back to our previous conversation, since I didn’t want to push an extra-sensitive topic tonight.
Connor’s laugh was low and filled with what felt like a lifetime of memories.
“We actually all hated each other to begin with. Especially Drew and me. Fuck, we clashed so hard, and I went out of my way to make that little asshole’s life hell.
Always ordering everyone around and acting like he was the king of the world. ”
I couldn’t argue with that, but he did grow on a person. “So what happened to change your feelings?”
Connor sobered, that enticing smile falling from his full lips.
“Turned out the camp director was a bit of a sick, evil fuck. He got our pretty boy Brodie into his cabin one night and was trying to get him naked. Among other shit. I have no fucking idea what would have happened if Haze hadn’t been doing his usual stalker shit.
We were the only ones nearby, all in the same cabin, with Ethan as our counselor, and we managed to bust through and get Brodie out. ”
My throat tightened. I wanted to cry or scream or punch the window at how unfair life was at times.
No matter how capable and deadly my guys were, there’d been a time they were innocent.
The thought of some asshole trying to steal that away from them had me wanting to kill a person.
“What happened then?” Please tell me he died, I begged silently.
“We got Brodie out, and weirdly he let us go,” Connor said without inflection.
“He must have thought we’d let our guard down, but Haze was ready for him.
When the sick fuck separated us from the group on a wilderness hike the next day, the big guy managed to slide his blade between the director’s ribs.
The five of us dragged him for miles and then threw him off a cliff.
We concocted a story about being chased by a bear, telling the rest of camp that the director led the beast in the opposite direction so we could get away. ”
His jaw grew tighter as I mourned the fact that Haze had been a child forced to murder a man to save himself and his friends.
“That sick fuck was hailed a hero, and they never found his body. That was the worst fucking part, knowing that Brodie wouldn’t have been the first boy he’d dragged into his cabin and trapped there, and yet he was being mourned.”
My breath came out in a shuddering huff. “At least you made sure he was the last,” I managed to say.
Connor nodded, as if that had been the thought that got him through dark days.
“From there on, it was like we had an actual physical bond between us. A connection that could never be broken. We stayed in touch through the year, and every summer we all went to the same camp. We’ve been brothers ever since, and through so much shit that we are truly family. ”
My hand crept across the middle console so I could wrap my palm over his jean-clad thigh, wanting to offer comfort, even though he didn’t appear to need it. Maybe I was the one who needed it.
My gut and chest were tight, and even though it happened long ago, there was a part of me that wished I’d been there with them too.
In a way, Andrew had been my friend back then.
Maybe that was why it felt so personal. Or more likely it was the fact that I was half, if not wholly, in love with these boys of Bluebell House.
Connor glanced down as I went to pull away, wondering if I’d overstepped, but he dropped one of his hands on top of mine, holding me in place.
The warmth of his palm was shocking, and I didn’t realize how cold I’d been until I was encased in his heat.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you all,” I said, wanting to fill the silence so I didn’t squirm in my seat at the sensation of him holding me against his rock-hard thigh.
“There are too many fucked-up people in the world, and too many of them work with kids.”
“Yep,” he said shortly. “We kept an eye on shit at the camp after that though, and there was never another issue. Even as they still held a vigil for that sick bastard every fucking summer. In a way, we secretly smirked through it, knowing he was burning in hell.”
The rest of the drive was done in a comfortable silence, my hand still covered by his. As we pulled into Meadowridge College, I found my voice once more. “What are we going to do about your dad?”
I’d been avoiding the whole pregnant girlfriend conversation, and in a way I’m glad we did, as I had a much better insight into the boys now and the reasons for their unwavering loyalty to each other.
“We’re going to keep the story going for as long as we can, then you’re going to tragically lose the baby.”
My mind shied away from the concept. I had to remind myself that not only was I not pregnant, I had no intention of being pregnant for a very, very long time. Maybe never. How would a baby even work with five boyfriends? At least there’d be plenty of hands to go around during sleepless nights.
No. Fuck. No babies. We were a million lifetimes away from anything to do with procreation.
“Okay, I can work with that,” I said, realizing my silence had extended on a little too long, and Connor was watching me again, in that unnerving, dissecting way he had about him. “Women miscarry all the time.”
His hand flexed against mine, and I found myself clinging on to him as if I really were losing a part of us that we’d created together.
“It’s going to be okay, Eve,” he said, his rumble low and reassuring, despite the circumstances.
“I’ll make sure it’s okay. I have a doctor who can give me everything I need to prove our story. You’ve got nothing to worry about now.”
Somehow, I doubted that would be the case, since there was always something to worry about. “Why did you pull a gun on that guy in the club anyway?” I found myself asking. “I mean, he was a little pushy, but nothing extreme enough to warrant a gun.”
For the first time since Connor had absolutely fucked me into submission, his expression grew icy and hard.
I didn’t like it. It reminded me of how he’d looked at me for the first weeks in Bluebell House.
This time, though, it wasn’t directed at me.
“He touched you,” he bit out. “He touched what was mine, and I just saw red.”
My throat tightened until I was barely breathing, just staring wide-eyed at the psychopath in the seat beside me. A psychopath I was growing to love, and despite how fucked-up he was at times, I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything other than protected and safe with him.
At the same time, though, he’d done that before we slept together. So his claim was a little out of left field, all things considered.
“Yours?” I whispered. “You think I’m yours? You know you have to share me with your brothers…right?” I forced a little laugh in an attempt to lighten the crushing tension, but it was ineffective.
Connor shook his head, eyes thankfully still on the road instead of staring into my soul. “That’s different and you know it, brat. But if anyone else touches you, I’ll remove their fucking hands.”
It was different.
As Connor had established, they were a team and had been since they were ten.
I just wasn’t sure Ethan would feel the same way.
He’d been the one the most resistant to the sharing in the beginning, and while he’d managed to come around with Brodie, this was a whole other dynamic, one I wasn’t sure he’d be cool with.
When Connor pulled up at the front of our house, I opened the door to find four hulking shadows waiting for us, and I wondered if this was the moment everything changed.