Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
C ole entered the apartment’s living room before Elias came to his senses and had a chance to change the show.
“Hey, E, where’d you— Are you watching Gilmore Girls ?”
Elias bit back a groan and turned his head to find Cole looking a little too knowing as he stood in the shadowed stairwell leading from the lower level.
The garage was located next to Brooks and Allie’s home, and upon their arrival, Brooks had quickly joined them. The three of them had been there for all of fifteen minutes when Alec arrived. And then Dawson. Then Finn. Hudson rolled in next, and Gage was the last, until all eight brothers filled the lower level where one side of the garage was used for work and the other for fun.
They’d kept their mouths shut about the media and Quinley—a miracle for them—and played a few rounds of pool, drank, roasted each other and surveyed the old Willy’s Jeep Brooks was currently rebuilding.
And then he noted the looks being shot his direction by four teen eyes, and since it felt like the tide was about to turn, Elias pretended to head to the bathroom and bolted upstairs to the apartment Cole used while their Aunt Rose traveled. His brother had been fixing things up while there and hoped to finish before he and Ana married and he moved into her house.
Five minutes later, Cole found him.
“That’s one of Ana’s comfort shows,” Cole said, leaving the doorway. “She and Quinley used to watch it together, I guess.”
Cole settled into the recliner closest to him, and Elias felt his entire body tense up.
“Crazy as it seems, she’s got me watching it now. Said it was a requirement if I’m going to marry her.” Cole grinned, and his voice lowered. “We made a deal that benefits both of us.”
A grunt left Elias at the statement, well able to imagine what that deal might have involved.
“You know you can talk about it,” his brother continued. “Her. If you want to.”
“If I wanted to, I’d still be downstairs,” Elias said, taking a long pull from the bottle he held. “When’s dinner?”
Elias attempted to ignore Brooks’s big head and matching body thumping up the stairs and into the living area. He grabbed the second recliner just as Dawson appeared.
Okay then, apparently they were doing this. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said loudly so that the rest of his brothers filing up the stairs could hear. “Go back to what you were doing.”
One by one, they all sprawled out, Dawson by Elias on the couch, Finn on the floor, Alec took over the lone kitchen barstool, and goofball that he was, Hudson sat on the arm of Brooks’s recliner like he used to do as a kid when they’d share a chair and play video games. And Brooks let him.
And then they all stared at him. Elias turned off the television before he exhaled the lung-gushing breath. “Nothing happened between me and Quinley.”
“Not what we heard,” Brooks shot back, the words followed by a wide grin.
Elias glared at Cole, who tried not to look guilty.
“Nothing you say goes out of this room,” Dawson said next.
“Nothing happened,” Elias said again. Then, “She jumped into the limo, then couldn’t stay at her parents’ house in Asheville, so she stayed with me at the cabin. End of story.”
“It’s on the news,” Hud said, both hands laced behind his head to keep it propped up since Brooks had the footrest kicked out and the seat leaned back. “The video and pictures of the two of you at that gas station on your way back went viral. Everyone knows you were still together a week later.”
Elias grimaced. “People are going to gossip no matter what.”
“Thinking you helped out a runaway bride is one thing,” Dawson said in a low tone. “Knowing she ran away and was still with you a week later raises a lot of other questions.”
“She had nowhere to go,” Elias growled. “No money, no ID. The cabin was safe. She was safe staying with me. Any one of you would’ve done the same thing.”
“No one’s arguing that,” Alec said.
“Yeah, we just want to know about the kissing part.”
Brooks’s words and grin made Elias want to slam his fist in his brother’s face. Fourteen eyes. Seven full-grown men staring at him. “I didn’t kiss her.”
“What do you mean you didn’t kiss her?” Brooks sat forward so fast Hudson nearly fell off the arm of the chair, arms and legs flailing until he planted a foot on the floor to hold himself in place.
“She kissed me.”
“She kissed you,” Brooks repeated. “Both times?”
Elias glared at Cole again, who simply shrugged.
“We’re family,” Cole said. “You know there’s no such thing as secrets in this family.”
“When did you become such girls,” Elias demanded.
“Stop deflecting,” Dawson drawled. “It’s only making you look guiltier.”
Brooks smirked and grinned again, and Elias lost it. He grabbed the pillow under his arm and hurtled it toward Brooks’s smug face, drawing barks of laughter from all of them.
“Fine, she kissed you. Then what happened?”
Finn’s question brought the room back to order, and Elias glared at his twin. Finn usually had his back but apparently not today.
“I think the most important question,” Alec said, “is what’s going on now? Elias, you had to know being seen together would amp things up. Was that on purpose?”
He slid his eldest brother a glance and shook his head, the guilt he felt over causing Quinley even more problems real and smothering. “No, it wasn’t. I didn’t think it through. She didn’t want to ride with the bodyguards, and I agreed since they might not take her where she wanted to go because they work for her ex, so—I told her she could ride with me. The gas station stop was…a bad call.”
“And the kissing?” Hud asked.
Elias pinched the bridge of his nose and ignored the fact Hud seemed to be taking more after Brooks than the rest of them. “Another bad call for allowing it to happen. Quinley is Ana’s best friend. That makes her off-limits.”
“She’s a beautiful, single woman,” Cole said. “She ended things when she took off the ring and left the note. And Ana likes you; you know that. She wouldn’t object to you dating Quinley.”
“Quinley’s a hot mess,” Elias countered with a hard shake of his head, even as he felt bad for making the statement. “Don’t get me wrong. She is nice and smart and beautiful, but she’s not for me.”
“You don’t like nice, smart and beautiful?” Dawson asked, a frown pulling his eyebrows low.
“I think she’d make a hot sugar mama. Think she’ll invite me in for a drink when I’m there mowing her lawn?” Hudson asked Dawson.
Elias glared at his kid brother. “ Stay out of her house and stick to girls your own age.”
“Careful, brother. You’re sounding jealous,” Cole said.
“I’m not jealous,” Elias countered, hearing how defensive he sounded. But he wasn’t jealous. Was he? He stared at Hudson’s too-handsome face and bright blue eyes and frowned. He’d heard all about Hudson’s recent and ill-advised tryst with a cougar. Given Hud’s welcoming response, Elias would say his brother was willing to venture into that type of relationship again if it was available because he claimed girls his age played too many games.
“Then I can go inside if she invites me in?” Hudson dodged an elbow from Brooks, grin in place.
Elias dropped his head against the cushion behind him and groaned. “The reporters outside my house would be easier to handle than the seven of you idiots.”
“We’re just trying to figure out why you’re acting like you’re not interested in her,” Finn said.
“I’m not acting like anything. I’m trying to be smart about this. Do I really need to list the cons of dating Ana’s best friend? Awkward family gatherings? Uncomfortable kid programs later on when you two have kids?”
“That’s a pretty negative attitude,” Alec said. “Why are you assuming it wouldn’t work out?”
“She was getting married ,” Elias countered. “To the wrong guy, obviously, but she thought she was ready for marriage and then bailed.”
“Because he was the wrong guy,” Cole stressed. “That doesn’t necessarily make her a flight risk. It means she’s ready for commitment and knows her mind enough to know exactly what she wants. At least she was honest enough to not go through with it. A lot of women would have, just for a payout.”
“Fine, she knows her mind. Good for her. But that doesn’t matter when I have zero interest in marriage or a serious relationship,” Elias said. “And given her connection to Ana and what you’ve just said, Quinley would require one or the other.”
“What’s wrong with that? Why not date her? See where it would go?” Brooks asked.
“Is any one listening to what I’m saying?” Elias asked the room.
“You can’t still be on that trip about being a bachelor forever,” Finn said.
Every head turned toward him, and Elias felt the intensity of their stares like knives. “My reasons for not wanting to get married are my own.”
“I give up.” Dawson got to his feet and waved a hand in Elias’s direction. “I’m going to check on the food and kiss my wife. Unlike Elias, I love knowing Sophia is waiting for me. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
Brooks stood as well and then hauled Hudson up by a grip on his elbow. “We should go, too.”
“Why do I have to go?” Hudson asked.
“Because we need to have another talk if you’re going to continue playing with cougars,” Brooks growled in his best dad voice as he tugged Hudson toward the stairwell.
“I’m out too,” Alec said, getting to his feet. “I think I need to be in on that conversation.”
Gage laughed at Alec’s statement and stood as well. “I don’t know Quinley other than what I’ve seen on television, but I know you, Elias. If you’re not ready or interested, it would never work. You’re right to steer clear. Besides, if she’s as great as you say she is, she won’t be single long.”
The words hit him like a fist. Elias felt his entire body tense and then bit back a curse when Cole and Finn both seemed to notice. And smirk.