Chapter 22
ETHAN
Eve looked nervous as she stared at the four of us sitting on the enormous sofa together, even though the distance emotionally felt a lot farther.
With a whoosh, she collapsed into the armchair, as if she couldn’t hold her weight up any longer.
“Let’s call Brodie,” she gasped, fumbling for her phone.
The tension grew weightier, and my hands clenched in my lap.
Mostly to stop myself from crowding into Evelyn and wrapping every inch of her pretty skin up in my arms so we could both seek comfort.
Seeing her distressed bothered me more than I had words to express, but there were complications between us.
Discussions that did need to be had, especially with the recent… situation.
Eve looked tired as she scrolled her phone and then hit the button to video call Brodie, who was off doing reshoots and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.
She made a point not to look directly at any of us, and the guys were content to stare quietly at her, probably soaking in the peace that being around her brought.
It wasn’t anything I could quantify with facts or figures. If anything, my life had been ultimately more chaotic since this purple-haired vixen burst into our lives. But she was peace. My peace.
Brodie answered on the third ring, which was a miracle for our brother. I was fairly sure there were messages of mine he still hadn’t replied to from last year. “Evie babe,” he cooed, his face appearing on the screen, clearly made up from whatever he’d been filming. “I was just thinking about you.”
He must have noticed the distress on her face then, as his tone lowered and he leaned closer. “Are you okay, love? What happened?”
Eve cleared her throat and sat straighter on the chair, pulling the phone closer so we could no longer see Brodie. “Oh, yes. I’m totally fine. It’s just…we needed a family meeting, and we can’t have one of those without you. Right?” The pitch of her tone rose significantly on that last word.
Brodie laughed, but it wasn’t his usual warm tones. There was a new tightness in his voice that he couldn’t contain. “Absolutely. I’m the alpha in this brother-husbands thing we have going on. You have to include me.”
Somehow, Eve actually paled further, but when Connor snorted, the tension thankfully eased. Was that what had her so stressed out? Trying to navigate the dynamics of whatever was happening between all of us in Bluebell House?
“Brodie, you’re the fucking bottom and you know it,” Connor added, and I had to agree. Our most relaxed brother, who went with the flow, was never going to be the top. Alpha was not his role here.
Eve waved us off like she was absolutely done with this line of conversation. “Look, I will never refer to you five as brother-husbands, so please never say that again. But yes, we do need to chat about what’s going on. The tension is killing me.”
With that, she turned the phone around and propped Brodie up on the cushion so he could see us, and we could see the obvious signs of his private trailer interior behind him.
Eve got to her feet then as well, and moved so she was sitting beside Haze, who didn’t even adjust his positioning to get out of her space.
If anything, he shuffled a touch closer, until their arms were almost grazing.
We all turned our attention to Eve, and she took a huge breath, before wiping her hands down her jeans as if they were sweaty.
“Okay, I know things have gotten very awkward since the night with Connor, and since I’m dying with all this tension—” Her voice wavered, and I wasn’t the only one who almost lurched toward her, the sight of her distress tearing at pieces of my heart.
“It bothers me,” she continued, clearing her throat.
“To have all of you acting weird. I know I’ve fucked this up by not discussing what was happening with all of you, but I promise that I had no intentions of sleeping with Connor before tha—”
The noise that spilled from my lips was a combination of fury and shock. What the fuck?
Eve’s eyes widened as she took me in. Her mouth opened and closed a few times.
“You slept with Connor?” I managed to bite out.
The mental image of my selfish brother even touching Eve was enough to have red flickering on the edge of my vision.
I’d been fine with sharing her when I believed the other guys had her best interests at heart, when I saw their obvious love and caring for her.
But Connor? He was a fucking plague on whomever was in his life, and I refused to let him destroy her.
Her gaze shifted to his briefly, before coming right back to land on me. “You didn’t know?” she whispered, her sweet voice huskier. She shook her head. “Then why have you been so cold to me the last couple of days? I figured you were pissed that I didn’t discuss bringing him into this—”
“Brother-husbands,” Brodie called out unhelpfully, but none of us even looked his way.
I was glaring at Connor, who had gone too far this time.
“What game are you playing?” I asked, working to keep my voice even.
I always knew he wasn’t really into Lacey, and whatever they did to each other was none of my business, but if he brought his bullshit into Eve’s life I would eviscerate him and stomp on the entrails.
“You were practically engaged all of a damn week ago.”
Connor’s expression was cold, and as always, he gave nothing away until he was ready for you to know it. “No games,” he muttered. “For once, there are no games.”
Eve relaxed minutely, as if she found reassurance in those brief statements. Meanwhile, I was losing control and barely stopped myself from throwing a punch. I didn’t trust my brother, and I especially didn’t trust him with Eve.
“Ethan,” Eve said, her voice slightly harder. Shelving my fury the best I could, I forced my focus back to the woman who held my damn heart in her hands. “If this isn’t about Connor, is it about Andrew, then? I just assumed that was okay since no one said anything.”
My head spun, and I blinked at Drew, trying to figure out how I’d fucking missed these new revelations. Brodie let out a cackle of laughter that washed through the room. “I knew we were brother-husbands. I fucking knew it. And I claim the alpha position.”
“You’re the fucking bottom,” Connor repeated, and I snarled at the same time, wishing I’d just punched my brother to relieve some of the confusion in my system.
I noted that neither of us denied the brother-husbands claim though, and I knew there wasn’t another woman in the world I’d even consider this situation with other than Eve.
As much as I wanted to possess every part of her, body and soul, sharing her with them didn’t bother me in the way I expected.
I’d shared so much with these men, that this just felt almost like a natural progression in our lives. Connor was my only concern. He was a cold bastard, and I didn’t trust him with our gentle Eve.
Evelyn collapsed on the couch once more, her head in her hands.
“Okay, so let me get this straight. None of you knew I slept with Andrew and Connor, and I just blurted it out in the most embarrassing, awkward way, which means…” Her brow wrinkled as she jerked her head up and looked between all of us.
“Why are you all icing me out, then? Did you all just simultaneously decide, without even conferring as a group, that you were done with me?”
I wasn’t the only one to voice a protest at that, with four other voices chiming in to refute any chance of ever being done with our girl.
“Baby, that will never happen,” Brodie crooned from the phone. “We were tied together by fate, the gods, and a lunatic with a gun. You’re mine for life. Brother-husbands unite!”
Connor leaned over and snatched up the phone. “You know I can reach you in a couple of hours, right? Don’t fucking make me fly there and beat your pretty face in. Not even the best makeup artists will fix you once I’m finished.”
I caught the edge of Brodie’s smirk. “Aw, I was talking about Harold, not you, although you are also a lunatic, and I say that with a true brother-husband love. Bring it in, guys.”
Connor threw the phone in disgust, but I saw Eve’s lips twitch, before she managed to hide her response. “Who’s Harold?” she asked instead.
All of us stilled, realizing we had figured that part of the equation out, and hadn’t filled Eve in on it.
“Uh, he’s the gunman,” Haze said, shifting awkwardly, though I caught the way he reached for her momentarily before pulling his hand back.
“I managed to track that much about him but still haven’t found his connection to your father. ”
Eve was silent, her expression blank as she processed this new information. When she shook her head, a wonky smile lifted her lips. “You know, I wouldn’t have picked him as a Harold.”
For some reason that broke the tension, and all of us sat once more, settling in so that we weren’t towering over Eve.
Haze was the first to speak: “For the record, I was aware of everything that had happened between you and the guys,” he said to Eve.
“And no one is angry at you for that. We would never share you outside of this house, and I’ve already warned a few of your classmates who got a little too friendly, but with us five, there’s no jealousy. ”
He side-eyed me. “Almost no jealousy,” he added.
“I’m not even going to touch that statement about warning classmates,” Eve said, trying to laugh but her eyes were shiny.
I was once again clenching my fists not to wrap her up in my arms. Haze apparently lost that fight, as he reached his long-ass arms out and hauled her right into his lap.
My heart fell right the hell out of my chest as I stared at the big man cuddling our girl, her body plastered to his, and he was clutching her tightly.
“Like witnessing a modern-day miracle,” Andrew breathed, not even blinking as he stared at them.