True words, but the pessimism they came from hurt. It always had, and I knew Logan saw it.
“Sorry.” He pressed a fist to my shoulder, easier with his physical affection than he often was verbally. “I’m an over thinker, and I love my brother to death.”
“He loves you that much too.”
“I know.” Logan fell quiet again, watching me work on Remy’s van, balancing on legs that never wavered, not like mine.
It’s temporary. A few more months and it’ll be like it never happened.
If I was lucky, but the rest of my life was so good right now, I was starting to worry I’d used up all my good fortune falling in love with the best humans God had ever made.
One of my favourites stepped outside, another giant, but with blond hair instead of dark, the scruff on his jaw thicker. Locke looked good in Logan’s clothes though. Who knew flannel shirts were so fucking hot?
Locke crossed the driveway to the van and inspected the organised chaos around me. “It’s fuckin’ cold out here.”
“Maybe I should get one of those shirts too.”
Locke grinned. Easy. Happy.Healthy, now his body had healed from multiple stab wounds and the perforated eardrum that had bothered him so much.“Nah, there’s enough mini Logans running around. But seriously, get off that freezing dirt. You’ll get stiff.”
So. Many. Jokes. But with Logan’s boy close, I kept them to myself, examining the hammer he brought me. “This ain’t a spanner, kiddo.” I ruffled his hair. “Try again.”
Sam was every inch his father. With a deep frown, he shuffled off to search through the tools I’d laid out for him again. Eventually, he came back with the spanner and I swapped it for the Skittles that Ivy and Liliana had failed to find in my pockets that morning.
Logan laughed, a first that I could remember. “Don’t share those with Billy. I don’t want him tickling the bricks when Mum picks you up.”
Father and son shared a conspiratorial wink before Logan went back inside, leaving Sam to run and hide, stuffing sweets in his cheeks like a hamster. Goddamn, he was cute. “I could take him home,” I admitted to no one in particular.
Locke took Logan’s place. “Not Billy and his motormouth?”
“Orls can have him. I like this one.” Not that I didn’t like Billy. But I didn’t have the legs to run after him right now, and watching Orla do it was too funny to give up.
Twat. Her voice in my head made me search her out, looking beyond Locke to where Orla, Billy, and Remy were hanging out under a big tree. They were playing with LED festival poi, spinning them through the air the way Remy did with actual fire when he was performing. Billy was good. Orla... passable.
Remy was magic. “He’s so fucking pretty.”
Locke grunted his agreement, rising with me, passing over the crutches I’d left propped against the van. “You’re not a hardship to stare at, babe.”
Babe.Jesus. I loved it when we tossed that endearment between us. When he called mebabywhen he fucked me. Which was a lot right now. I hadn’t topped him since before the accident, maybe because I’d needed him to take care of me. Tosuperviseme when the inevitable happened and my horny self forgot that I couldn’t stand on my own two feet, let alone handle the avalanche of physicality that came with fucking a man the sheer size of Locke Halliwell.
Soon, though...
“I didn’t tell him.” Locke drew me from my dirty thoughts, his deep voice carrying more weight than it had since we’d got here, to this place where he so obviously loved to be. “Logan,” he elaborated when I failed to respond.
“Okay.” I rolled my lips together, containing the feelings I had about a dilemma Locke had been wrestling with for a while. “How’s that sitting with you?”
Locke sighed, nose flaring, the conflict in his gaze hiding the easy demeanour I’d become used to in recent months. “I never told him about the deal I made with Frank Crow cos I couldn’t. I always figured if that ever changed, it would come easy. He’s not hard to talk to, not for me.”
I took a moment, weighing my words. Channelling my inner Embry. Changing my mind and searching for my inner Folk. Fuck, even Alexei would do at this point. Any fuckhead who was wiser than me.
“Hey.” Locke propped a knuckle under my chin, taking me hostage with his consuming stare. “You don’t have to be diplomatic about this. If you’re worried I’d tell him too much, I wouldn’t. I just want him to know I didn’t waste those years because I didn’t give a fuck.”
“Does he think that, though?” I didn’t believe it. The Halliwell brothers circled each other like twin moons. Felt each other’s pain. Heard each other speak before either one of them opened their damn mouth. I couldn’t marry that with a world where Logan ever thought Locke didn’t care.
Locke shrugged. “I don’t fuckin’ know. When it first happened, he was on my case all the time. Then he had the boys and it was like he just vaulted that shit cos he didn’t have the energy to worry about it anymore. For a while, I thought he’d given up on me.”
“That’s even more ridiculous than the last thing you said.”
“Ridiculous, eh? Ridiculousthis.” Locke moved fast and caught my mouth in a scalding kiss, one that swayed me on myfoot, these stupid fucking crutches powerless to the effect he had on me. “Now tell me how you really feel.”