3. Tyler
CHAPTER THREE
tyler
The thing about being the fun one is that nobody ever wonders what you’re thinking.
Usually because they’ve already decided. I make that pretty easy on them.
Like tonight. I know exactly how this plays out before Mack even gets home. By now he’s probably seen the signed lease land in his inbox and knowing my brother, his head is already spinning. He’ll lecture me about responsibility, I’ll make a joke. Same roles we’ve been playing for three decades.
The problem is, I know exactly how this is going to look—I saw a pretty face and did something impulsive. Which would be a lot easier to explain if that were actually what happened.
I’ve been the fun one my whole life—high school, parties, the firehouse, every room I’ve ever walked into. Mack’s always been the responsible one. Which has always been funny to me, because apparently once you’re good at one thing, nobody stops to consider you might be good for anything else too.
I found that out the hard way about two years ago.
I was seeing a nurse from MGH named Gina. One morning we’re sitting at her kitchen table after spending the night together, coffee brewing, sunlight coming through the window over the sink. I remember thinking she looked happy. I remember feeling happy too, which should’ve been my first mistake.
“You know what I like about you? You never make things heavy.”
She had said it like it was a compliment. Maybe it was.
It was sitting in traffic in my Jeep on my way home when I realized we’d been seeing each other for two months and she thought easy was the most interesting thing about me.
Afterward, the gig with Mack started making a lot more sense.
It wasn’t just once in a while anymore; it became the standard.
Because nobody was pretending it was anything other than what it was.
No expectations beyond fun. No discovering six weeks in that somebody decided who you were without ever checking if they got it right.
I hadn’t thought about Gina in a long time.
Then Darcy Reed spent twenty minutes walking through this house looking at things like she was actually seeing them. When I handed her the key, she looked at me like I’d given her a reason to trust me.
Like what I thought mattered to her. I don’t get that too often. Mack does.
When a call goes sideways or a decision needs to get made fast, people look at Mack. They should. I’ve watched him earn every bit of that trust. Watched him stay late, work harder, carry more than anybody asked him to and then act like it was no big deal afterward.
Still.
Every now and then I wonder what that feels like. Not respect or being liked—I’ve never exactly struggled in that department. I mean that moment before somebody knows you, when they decide you’re worth betting on anyway.
The way Darcy had when she took the key from my hand.
I stir the pancetta through the hot pan and let it go. Or at least try to.
A second later, the front door opens.
I feel Mack come home before I hear him. The hinges give their usual complaint, followed by the sound of boots on hardwood, and I don’t even bother looking up. Nobody else walks through this house like that. Like the floor owes him money.
The kitchen smells like butter, garlic, and pancetta. Above the range, the spice jars I alphabetized three years ago line the open shelf in neat rows—a system Mack claimed was unnecessary right up until he started using it.
Home. Ours.
We bought the place from our grandparents and spent eight months tearing it apart and putting it back together, which mostly meant Mack refusing to let anyone touch the original bones and me eventually admitting he was right.
Dark leather sectional. Reclaimed wood coffee table.
The mezzanine railing casting shadows across the living room.
I drag the spoon through the sauce, taste it, and reach for the sea salt.
By the time Mack crosses the living room, I’ve already clocked the mood.
He’s still in station sweats, hair damp from a shower, moving through the house with the kind of purpose that usually means somebody’s about to get a lecture.
On anyone else it would read as tired. On Mack it means his patience is already running about a quarter low.
I’ve been reading that look since we were kids.
I grin before he even says anything.
“That bad?”
He doesn’t answer, just holds up his phone from the other side of the island. Darcy’s signed lease agreement glows on the screen. Sent fifty-seven minutes ago.
His voice is too calm.
“Ty.”
I wince internally.
Right on time.
“Why,” Mack says evenly, “did I just get an email with a signed lease agreement from a woman neither of us have vetted?”
“She’s nice.”
Silence. Then he blinks once, slowly, and I know that blink. That blink means I’m about thirty seconds away from a lecture and the only thing saving me is the fact that he’s standing near my chef’s knife.
“She’s nice,” Mack repeats.
“She is.”
I really mean that.
What I don’t say is everything I had been thinking prior to this conversation. And the fact that she’d bent over to look at the cabinet under the kitchen sink and her jeans had done something to her ass that I’d had to actively stop thinking about for the rest of the showing.
He rounds the island and the room shifts the way it always does when Mack moves into a space—carrying steadiness the way other people carry keys.
“Did you run a credit check?”
“Nope.”
“Background?”
“Nope.”
“References?”
I point the wooden spoon at him.
“She was on time.”
Mack levels me with a deadpan.
“That’s not a metric.”
“It is for me.”
He drags a hand over his beard and I can practically see the mental checklist running behind his eyes.
Liability.
Insurance.
Property damage.
Tenant law.
The complete Mason MacAllister starter pack.
“She’s moving in this weekend,” I add.
Mack closes his eyes like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff trying to decide whether murder is worth the paperwork.
“You gave a stranger keys to the third floor.”
“She’s not a stranger.”
“You met her today.”
I glance at the stove clock.
12:17 AM
“Technically, yesterday.”
That earns me a look sharp enough to cut through steel. I grin, which does not help. And suddenly I’m fifteen again, explaining why launching myself off the Russo garage roof on a snowboard to see if I could defy the laws of gravity was a sound decision.
“What happened?” he asks.
I exhale. He isn’t asking about the paperwork.
“I showed her the place.”
I shrug.
“And?”
“She liked it.”
“That is not what I’m asking.”
I glance up. And there it is—something even tighter than concern or irritation. Because Mack knows me too well. Always has.
Thirty years of shared bedrooms, shared hockey teams, shared trucks, shared mistakes. Bought a brownstone together. Tore half of it apart together. Spent eight months covered in drywall dust because neither of us trusted anybody else to get it right.
We built this place the same way we did everything else—side by side.
The women had been the same way, more or less.
It started years ago, almost by accident. A woman at a bar had taken one look at us—me halfway through some smart-ass story, Mack already three drinks in and done pretending he found me entertaining—and laughed into her drink.
“What, you two come in a package?”
I’d grinned.
“Depends. You interested?”
Mack had looked at her for exactly three seconds, then looked at me.
“You’re going to talk the whole time, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
He’d sighed like a man accepting a minor inconvenience. Then followed us upstairs.
We grabbed breakfast, made fun of each other over coffee, and went right back to being us. After that it just…happened again. And again. Then often enough that it stopped being surprising.
The rules showed up the same way most of ours did—we didn’t say them out loud, but somehow we both knew them anyway. The women we shared were separate from anyone either of us might actually date. That line had never been difficult because neither of us had ever met anyone who made it difficult.
A look across a room. A shared grin. A quiet check-in afterward.
All of it easy.
It worked because we worked. No matter what, we always ended up back here. In this kitchen. On that couch. In this house. Which was exactly why Mack was looking at me like I’d just brought a lit match into the living room.
I set the spoon down.
“She’s…” I shrug, like this is no big deal. “Interesting.”
Mack’s stare sharpens, and I wish I’d chosen any other word.
I don’t usually notice interesting.
I notice hot, funny, available. Darcy had been all three. That should have been the extent of it.
I’d seen her before she even rang the buzzer. Standing out front in that olive-green puffer, phone in one hand, shifting her weight like she was talking herself into staying. She’d looked at the flower boxes first, then the windows, then the front door. Smoothed her coat twice before she buzzed.
And instead of leaving it there, I’d handed her the key because she was gorgeous and because she’d looked at the apartment like it might let her breathe, and that second part is the part I’m not thinking about.
“You think she’s hot,” his jaw flexes.
I snort.
“Well, yeah.”
His face stays flat.
“Very,” I add.
Bright, piercing eyes that make you feel like she’s looking right through you and all your bullshit. A quick mouth that had me daydreaming about what it would feel like wrapped around my cock, and this soft curve to her that her coat had been doing its best to hide and failing miserably.
He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. The same breath he takes before going into a burning building or considering punching me in the face.
“Ty.”
“What?”
“She’s our tenant.”
I lean back against the island.
“And?”
Mack just looks at me, and I know what he’s really saying. Not just don’t hook up with her, but don’t make me regret letting you have opinions.
My grin slips.
“She’s not like that.”
Mack lets out a humorless breath.
“You’ve known her for twelve hours.”
“More like…fourteen.”
“That’s not any better.”
“She’s cool.” I can hear myself.
I sound like an idiot, but I continue anyway.
“She noticed the flower boxes.”
That gets him, and probably because I’m talking about her like a person instead of a problem or a hookup. Mack’s mouth tightens at the corner with the expression that means he’s stopped dismissing whatever I’m saying and started decoding it instead.
I point.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“You’re…intrigued.”
“Wrong, I’m concerned that you let a stranger move into our house because she appreciated landscaping and you somehow find that hot.”
“Relax—” I lift both hands.
“I’m not planning to fuck her.”
That one even I almost believe.
Mack glares.
“You mean that,” he says.
I consider it for half a minute then shrug.
“Probably.”
Mack closes his eyes, and I can’t help but chuckle.
“Come on.”
He looks serious now.
“This house is the one thing in my life I don’t have to worry about. You know that.”
The humor goes out of me fast. Because I do know. The firehouse is chaos. The job is risk. The city takes and takes. This house is the one thing he never has to brace for.
“She’s not gonna ruin anything. In spite of what most people think, I do have some self-control.”
Mack studies me.
“And if she does?”
My mind goes right back upstairs. To Darcy standing in the middle of the living room sunlight, looking around like she forgot I was there. For a second she’d let herself have it—that look on her face, all amazement and relief. Then she’d caught herself and packed it back up.
“She won’t.”
His jaw shifts.
“You sound sure.”
“I’m sure she pays rent.”
Mack stares for a second longer, then lets out a breath that almost turns into a laugh.
“Oh, that’s cute. You’re thawing.”
“Shut up.”
“That’s my big brother.”
He walks to the stove and steals a forkful of chicken from the pan. I swat his hand away.
“Get your own.”
Mack chews, still unconvinced but no longer dismissing it outright, which with Mack is basically the first stage of acceptance.
We finish dinner the way we finish most things around here—without making a big deal out of it.
Mack rinses the plates while I pack up the leftovers, then we drift toward the living room. Highlights from last night’s Bruins game are already playing on the TV. I drop onto one end of the couch and stretch out. Mack takes the other, beer in hand, remote abandoned somewhere between us.
This part’s always easy. When the shift’s finally letting go of your shoulders. The city’s settling down outside. The game’s on low enough that neither of us is really watching it but we’d both notice if somebody turned it off.
“Kowalski put me up for the Chauffeur slot.”
For a second I honestly think I misheard him.
The Bruins commentator is talking about a power play. Mack’s staring at the screen. The radiator knocks somewhere down the hall.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Mack.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
His mouth twitches. It’s the closest thing he has to showing off.
I laugh and tip my beer toward him.
“You deserve it.”
“We’ll see.”
The man could get handed a medal and react like somebody told him it’s going to rain tomorrow.
I lean my head back against the couch and watch a replay of a goal neither of us saw the first time.
The thing about Mack is that he’s been collecting responsibility by accident for as long as I’ve known him. Somebody needs a captain, a team lead, a guy to make the call, and eventually everybody just sort of drifts in his direction.
“Kowalski said something else.”
I glance over.
“He wants Marco working with you. RIT certification.”
For a second I just stare at him. I take a drink before answering.
“Kowalski said that?”
“Yeah.”
I stare at a truck ad and feel my chest loosen anyway. Marco’s one of the best rescue guys in the department. People don’t volunteer him unless they think you’re worth the investment.
I rub a hand across my jaw and try not to grin like an idiot.
“Good.”
Mack raises an eyebrow.
“Good?”
“Yeah.”
I pick my beer back up.
“Marco’s gonna make my life miserable.”
“Probably.”
I grin into the bottle.
“Can’t wait.”
Mack huffs a laugh through his nose and turns back to the game. Neither of us says anything for a minute. Then, without looking away from the screen:
“You’re better than they give you credit for.”
I stare at him as he keeps his eyes on the game. I feel my mouth pull into a smile before I can stop it.
“I know.”
He nods once and the conversation is over.
That’s another thing we’re good at.