Rubi

  “We need a sock amnesty.”

  Nash leaned back in his chair, craning his neck so he could see into the utility room attached to the chapel’s kitchen. It was a shithole—ancient plumbing, a washing machine that sounded like a disgruntled earthquake, and a tumble dryer so dusty and old it was bound to be a fire hazard. “Why are you knee-deep in laundry when we have a thousand other things to worry about?”

  Two reasons.

  One: I had a thunderbolt headache banging against my temple and sorting through unpaired socks was less painful than anything else I could think of.

  Two: Someone had to do it. Brothers needed clean clothes and no other fucker was around to care.

  I gave Nash the second reason. His cute little face was strained enough without worrying about me. Pale too. I wondered if he was lying about the effects of getting gassed wearing off already.

  Him, Mateo, Saint. I hadn’t witnessed them face down in the dirt, but somehow I couldn’t unsee it, and given that Saint and Mateo weren’t here, Nash was my only point of reference.

  Also, focusing on him was a welcome distraction. “You feeling okay, Nashie?”

  “Are you?”

  “Right as rain, mate.” Busted, I returned my attention to the pile of unruly socks and tried to match them with their likely owners.

  They weren’t Cam’s. He didn’t wash his clothes here. Neither did I, which left Nash, Mateo, Embry, and Saint, and I disregarded Saint immediately. He was wild enough that it was hard to think of him in domestic terms, but the flip side of his strange and beautiful personality was that he possessed so little he rarely lost anything.

  I’d bet he only owned three pairs and he knew exactly where they all were.

  On Cam’s bedroom floor?

  Wow. That was a weird thought. Not that he’d be in Cam’s bedroom—that shit had happened a million times before Alexei had come along and cast his spell or whatever. But the sex vibe was new. “Do you think they’re all fucking each other?”

  This time, Nash spun around in his chair, giving me his full attention. “Who?”

  “The elders.”

  “Saint’s younger than both of us. So’s Alexei.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “By looking at him.”

  “Really?” I picked up a sock so riddled with holes it wouldn’t suit an octopus and launched it out of the open back door. “I reckon he’s got one of those faces that never changes. He’s gonna look twenty-five for-fucking-ever.”

  “Lucky him. Are my eyes still red?”

  I forced myself off the floor to go peer in Nash’s face. At his dreamy baby blues. “Yup. You look like you died, mate.”

  Nash shuddered. “Don’t say that. It might still happen.”

  He didn’t mean himself. He meant Cam.

  He meant Embry.

  Fuck. The throbbing in my skull kicked up a gear and my stomach gave an ominous churn. I’d known Cam for longer than I could remember being alive. My heart told me he’d be okay, in the physical sense, at least. But Embry, man…shitting hell. If I closed my eyes, the bloody puddle where he’d been shanked filled my brain. An indelible stain, no matter how many hours I spent hacking up paving slabs and digging over the earth.

  We could still lose him.

  I found a chair and sank onto it, rubbing my temples in an unconscious motion that did absolutely nothing to ease the pain. My pulse buzzed, and my gut rolled again. Was I gonna puke?

  These days it was hard to tell.

  “Here.” Nash pressed a cold water bottle into my hands. “Drink. It’ll help.”

  “Help what?”

  “The migraine you’re pretending you don’t have.”

  “I’m not pretending anything.” I uncapped the bottle anyway and tipped the water down my throat. Swallowing strained my stiff jaw, but Nash’s spiked concern hurt worse. “I’m fine. It’ll pass.”

  “Till the next one.” Nash sat back in his chair, scrubbing a hand through the blond scruff on his chin that had just the right amount of auburn mottled through it for me to be excited about the ginger squidlets him and Orla would have one day.

  Someone on the council had to reproduce soon, before we all went fucking feral.

  “Rubes.”

  “What?”

  Nash eyed me for a long moment. Then sighed, letting go of whatever he wanted to say. “You think they’re okay?”

  “Who?”

  “All of them. Is it weird that I’m worried about Saint and Mateo the most?”

  I dumped my elbows on the table and gave myself permission to rest my aching head on my arms. The socks could fucking wait. “It’s not weird. Saint doesn’t know how to give a shit about himself so we have to do it for him. And Mats has a screw loose when it comes to Embry.”

  “That’s who I thought you meant when you asked if they were fucking.”

  “Mats and Em?”

  Nash dug in his pockets for a cigarette box. Found it and pulled out a sweet, sweet blunt. “Yeah. Orla says they’re not, but I can’t work them out. Can’t remember the last time Mateo didn’t sleep in Embry’s bed.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with fucking. I sleep with the good chaplain too.”

  “Why?”

  I sat up slowly, giving my heavy head time to adjust to the change in altitude. Also, buying myself some time to formulate an answer that wouldn’t make much sense, not even to me. “I don’t think he likes being alone and I’m not a fan of it either. It’s not sexual with me and him, you know that. But I find it hard to leave him sometimes, you know? He reminds me of Lark.”

  Shared pain flashed in Nash’s face. He’d loved my kid brother as much as I had, and he’d lived through his death at my side. “They look nothing alike, but I get it. Lark was just as serious, wasn’t he? You think he’d have gone to uni or some shit?”

  “‘Course he would. That kid woulda ruled the world by now.” I blew out a sigh and kneaded the knot from my chest. “Back to the young‘uns, though. They’re not fucking. Embry needs more than that and Mats is like you, still clinging to the straight train as if it stops him being as sexually fluid as the rest of us.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Make me.” I found a leer and sent it Nash’s way.

  He lit the joint and held it out of my reach. “Take that shit back or I’ll smoke it all myself.”

  “Take what back?”

  “The straight train bullshit. I don’t do that. If I did, I wouldn’t have fucked you, would I?”

  I stood and plucked the joint from his fingers, jamming it in my mouth before I sank back down. “Your argument is flawed. We fucked each other ten years ago as a drunk, social experiment and you didn’t like it.”

  “I liked some of it. Just not with you.”

  “Ouch. Stick a dagger in my heart, why don’t you?”

  Nash scowled. “Don’t be like that. You didn’t get off on my dick either. You were watching porn over my shoulder the entire time.”

  I’d have laughed if we weren’t so weighed down with worry for our fallen brothers. “Can’t deny. I was right, though, wasn’t I?”

  “About what?”

  “About experimenting with people you trust being the best way to figure stuff out. I did it with Cam too.”

  Nash’s fair brows disappeared into his hairline. “You fucked Cam? When?”

  As funny as it would’ve been to let that notion play through Nash’s brain, I couldn’t lie. Not to him. Despite the fact that my point about the straight train still stood. Me and Cam, we bounced happily along the bi spectrum not giving a shiny shit about anatomy.

  Everyone else was fucking weird.

  Nash included.

  Tell him the truth. “We never fucked. We shared some dodgy handjobs when we were green hooligans. He never told you?”

  “We don’t talk about sex much,” Nash said dryly.

  “Because he doesn’t want to hear about his only sister being your ultimate fantasy?”

  “Fuck off.”

  I didn’t. But I let the subject drop and let my mind wander as the weed buzz took the edge off the crunching sensation in my skull. I thought about Mateo and Embry and the complex knot of unspoken truths their friendship had become. I thought about Nash, his soul-deep love for Cam’s sister, and the uncharted territory they’d have to navigate if they ever got it together.

  He’s not straight and she loves that shit too much to let it go.

  I didn’t think about my own heart. What was the point? It had been squashed under the heel of Cam’s boot years ago, and it would stay there until he let me up.

  If he ever ever lets me up.

  There were no guarantees.

  You know why.

  I did. But that didn’t make it easier. It made it worse. Cam was my oldest friend. My brother in every way except literal blood. We’d done everything together since we were kids. He knew me—knew how much he hurt me every damn day he kept me prisoner in this fucking purgatory.

  But as long as our world kept turning the way it was, he’d never fucking stop.

  He couldn’t.

  And masochist that I was, I loved him for it.

  Almost as much as I loved his brother.

  “Oi.” Nash kicked my foot. “Don’t pass out.”

  I jerked upright, nausea rolling hard. Nash shook his head, but there was no time to call him a cunt. The Pot Noodle we’d forced each other to eat was about to make a reappearance and I had point-two seconds to get to the sink.

  Vomming made me want to die. But somehow, despite the deep pressure still thrumming in my temple, it cleared my head a little.

  I cleaned myself up and slid down the cabinets, resting my arms on my knees and hunching over, blocking the world out, just for a moment.

  Nash dropped down beside me. Nice fucker that he was, he rubbed my back. “You need to see someone about this shit.”

  “I did. You grassed me up to Cam and he dumped me at the hospital for two days.”

  “Dude, you couldn’t open your eyes.”

  “Yeah yeah.” Truth be told, I didn’t remember Nash’s version of events from that night. And so much had happened since, that I didn’t really care. It was only the whispered curses and aggressive affection I wanted to keep, and that had nothing to do with Nash.

  It had nothing to do with anyone except the one person I couldn’t let myself think about. Not while Cam and Embry were so fucked up. There’s no fucking time.

  I shivered, cold now I’d yacked up my supper.

  Nash got up.

  He came back with a blanket and dropped it on me, before reclaiming his place and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “There are so many better places to take a nap around here, but if this is where it’s gotta be, I’m here for you.”

  Course he was. Nash was a rock. Always had been. It’s why he was Cam’s VP instead of me. Because he never fucked up.

  Plus, he gobbed off less than me, which was always going to win points with Cam.

  You didn’t want to be VP, remember?

  I closed my eyes against Cam’s growly voice and leaned on Nash, soaking up his fraternal warmth. If I tried real hard, I could conjure up that drunken night so long ago, but it didn’t make my blood rush south or my heart pump. It made me laugh, and fuck if we didn’t need to laugh right now.

  With his free hand, Nash mussed my messier than messy hair. “What are you giggling about?”

  Again, I went with the truth, because with Nash, I always did. “I’m just hoping Embry and Mats, when they finally get round to it, have better sex than we did.”

  “You think it’s gonna happen?”

  I hummed an affirmative. “They’ve got a lot to learn about each other first, but I think so.”

  “They’ve been glued at the hip for three fucking years. What else it there to learn?”

  “Dunno. Look at Cam and Saint, though. You think they were ready for this two years ago?”

  “I don’t know.” Nash was a thinker. I knew from experience he’d ruminate on this for days and days, then come at me with an answer when I’d long forgotten the particulars of our last deep and meaningful conversation.

  Probably the same answer as he’d just given. But on this, I didn’t blame him. Cam and Saint. Saint and Cam. Throw in their mysterious Russian third and it was a whole pile of convoluted feelings me and Nash were too simple to comprehend. As long as they’re happy.

  Or, in this life, I just hoped they got the chance to be. Cam deserved it. So did Saint.

  And Alexei?

  I didn’t know the dude, but he had eyes like Saint had when he’d first rocked up so many years ago.

  Cold and distant if you didn’t look properly.

  Fucking haunted if you did.

  Goddamn.

  Nash knocked his chin on the top of my head. “Did Embry’s blood trigger your migraine? I puked my guts up after I mopped up Cam’s.”

  The discordant symphony had quieted enough that I could think back to the moment the latest meteor strike had hit my skull. Fuck. Yeah. Maybe Nash was right. Unless it was God’s way of showing me his sense of humour, because I distinctly remembered thinking that while pouring bleach on Embry’s life force was the the worst job in the world, at least I didn’t have a fucking headache. “This is shit,” I ground out. “At least it was Cam who got shot, though. He’d have lost his mind if it was one of us.”

  “That’s a fucked up thought, but I feel you.”

  I hummed again. Nash offered me more water, but I waved it away. My stomach was so empty it felt like it was eating itself, but I didn’t trust it. Not yet. I needed to sleep, preferably in an actual bed. Trouble was, I didn’t have one at the compound. Back in the day, I’d donated it to Mateo and bought my own house, but I couldn’t go home.

  Not yet.

  And I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in a bed that smelled of the brothers who weren’t here.

  Sleep with Nash then. I did sometimes, but his bed was a crowded place these days. Full of friends taking advantage of his cosy room and big, warm arms. Lordy Lord. I pictured Cam’s face if he made a miraculous recovery and rocked up to find his sister in bed with Nash and me. It was more funny than I could handle right now, but I took it.

  Another almost laugh twisted my diaphragm. Then I felt a shudder pass through Nash and my humour died. “What is it?”

  “Just thinking,” he said around a sigh.

  “Don’t pull a muscle.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Three times in ten minutes? Swallow a thesaurus, would ya?”

  Nash elbowed me, but it was halfhearted and I felt the shadow of his distress. “Can you imagine Cam if Saint got hurt?”

  I didn’t want to. Not even a little bit. I leaned harder against my old friend—my brother-in-arms—and closed my eyes again. “It’d kill him long before any bullet, so let’s hope it never happens.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Right now, Instagram is the best way to keep up with Garrett. Click on the icon below to follow, or search @garrett_leigh

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  Garrett is also an award winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at https://www.blackjazzdesign.com

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  ALSO BY GARRETT LEIGH

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  Garrett Leigh, Forgive Me Father: Rebel Kings MC: Embry & Mateo

 

 

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