Loud.
We were spent, nothing but shallow breaths and flailing hands. Hot skin and sore muscles.
Love.
Locke eased down beside us, kissed my cheek, and curved his body around us, his hand finding its way to Nash’s head. At some point, we all needed to move and clean up, but not yet.
Not yet.
31
NASH
I sat on the ground at the top of a hill, a van engine in pieces around me, my eight-year-old helper fetching everything I needed and plenty I didn’t.
Sam Halliwell. Locke’s nephew. Apparently he was shy and didn’t like new people, especially men, but he seemed to like me all right. Just as well as hisidenticalbrother was mad-obsessed with Orla, following her everywhere, asking a million and one questions about her tats, her hair, and her intentions with the uncle he’d worshipped since the day he was born.
“You have to be nice to Uncle Locke. My dad says he deserves it.”
Daddy Logan wasn’t wrong. Lucky for all of us, Orla was more than nice. She was the best, and I loved her as crazy-deep now as I had when I was a baby-faced killer.
I reached for a tool, stretching over the annoying as fuck cast that was still on my leg, hiding the throbbing bones from the world, vaguely aware of a ten-foot-tall man emerging from the cottage on the hill.
FireflyHill.
I’d been here before, but that night had been a world away from the cosy family visit I was enjoying now, and more like the clusterfuck that had introduced me to the giant squatting his big self down to my level.
Loganpassed me a mug of coffee. “When I asked you about the alternator, I wasn’t expecting you to rebuild the engine ten minutes later.”
“I’m not rebuilding it. You need a new cam belt. I wrote it down for you, but check the item code. I’m shit with numbers.”
Logan took the scrap of paper I held out and tucked it in his pocket, eyeing Sam as he studied the mess of tools on the ground, searching out the spanner I’d asked him for. “Doubt you’re shit at anything.”
I ignored that because it wasn’t true. Being off my feet so long had taught me that I was shite at lots of things—sitting around, quitting smoking, relying on other people to drive me places. I hated automatic cars. To me, they were the anti-Christ. But I’d lasted a week before I’d stolen Cam’s SUV, and I’d yet to give it back. Man, at this point, I even missed the HGVs, even if my last memory of one was it bearing down on top of me.
“I thought you’d be someone else.”
I glanced up from the oil-smeared metal in my hands, knowing I’d find Logan’s gaze more intense than Locke’s ever was unless he was fucking me, and this wasnothinglike that. Logan and Locke were nearly as identical as the boys, but aside from being protective motherfuckers, their personalities were poles apart. “Who were you expecting?”
Logan shrugged. “I didn’t think that night on the motorway was gonna be an accurate representation, but you were as chill then as you are now.”
“Lazy, more like.”
Logan said nothing, and if I hadn’t known Saint all these years, I’d have read something into that. Made assumptions and put words in his mouth. But I’d learned already that this Halliwell brother was quiet. Watchful. And unless he was nagging Locke, he kept most of his opinions to himself.
“Are you going to get married?”
I wiped my hands, expecting the question and knowing exactly which combination of my heart that he meant. “Me and Orls were never going to get married, even if we didn’t have Locke. It’s not a thing for us.”
“Why not?”
“My parents are hyper-religious. Living in sin with the love of my life set me fucking free.”
I didn’t add that Locke was the love of my life too. If Logan didn’t know that yet, if he didn’t see it—feelit—he would.
“What about kids?”
“That probably won’t happen either, but if we were lucky enough for a miracle, I’d only be a good dad because of everything Locke’s taught me.”