“Maybe.”
It made an annoying kind of sense, and it wasn’t as if I hadn’t lied to Lo about my living arrangements in the past. Still wanted to flick his ear though. Would’ve if the sight of him dropping a big, overprotective hand on Nash’s sweet head hadn’t set my heart to fuckin’ burst.
“Is Saint around?” Remy broke into my thoughts. “I brought him some tools.”
I’d forgotten about the unlikely friendship Remy had struck up with Saint. Pretty sure all they talked about was wood and copper, but it seemed to work for them. And I liked the faint smile on Saint’s face as he spotted Remy across the yard. It looked good on him, and he fuckin’ deserved a friend like Remy.
Not sure what Rocco had done to deserve him though. I caught Folk’s eye across the yard as he shut Finch’s car door and waved her off.
He nodded, confirming his intentions for the quiet conversation that needed to happen. The one where Folk fuckin’ told that brother he had nothing to feel guilty about for not getting Rocco’s ashes home sooner. Scattering him on the beach, seeing Folk and Ranger cry for him, I’d never get over it. But it had happened at the right time. And now, however much it hurt, we had to move on.
Remy wandered off to find Logan, as drawn to my socially awkward big brother as everyone else was to their lovers. And Logan hadn’t strayed from Nash and Orla, which should’ve reeled me in.
But I liked watching all of them together when they didn’t know I was looking. The warmth that had grown between Lo and Nash. The easy affection Orla shared with Remy. Family, man. You couldn’t buy this shit.
“Mishka.” Alexei sidled up to me. “You look well...”
I side-eyed him, getting a lungful of his posh cologne as I narrowed my gaze at his dangling sentence. “Well,what?”
Alexei leered and handed me a folded slip of paper. “You have Decoy in this secret Santa madness.”
“And?”
Cos there was no way he’d ventured out into the yard just for that.
“And...” Alexei tilted his head. “I feel the need to tell you I do not care for your daughter’s new boyfriend. When your brother is gone, we should find some time to discuss it.”
17
LOCKE
Finding the time proved tough for all the best reasons. Logan and Remy hung around longer than I’d dared hope. Rubi cooked. There was beer. And later, when my brother really did leave and I walked him to the car that now ran like a dream, he said something that fuckin’ distracted me.
“You know, I still have two cots in the attic, in case you need spares for the flat.”
We hadnocots. Buying them or letting Saint or Cam build one felt like tempting fate. We had nothing but a couple of babygros and a pack of nappies hidden in a bag none of us dared look at. But it was my turn to tell a big fat fib. “We have a cot.”
“Just the one?” Logan’s eyes—my eyes—shone in the dark, lit up by the fuckin’ moon.
He knows?—
“Don’t.” I pressed my hand over his mouth. “Not yet.”
Logan frowned. Then heremembered,as if he could forget when he bore the scars of losing Wren on his heart too,why we were so fuckin’ scared.
He pushed my hand away and drew me into a hug. “I get it, but it’s gonna be fine, I can feel it, and Rem says that shit matters.”
“It does matter.”
“Then just know that we love you, okay?”
“I do know that. I love you all too. Text me when you’re home?”
“Yup.”
Lo turned away, and despite all I had to be thankful for, sadness wrenched my heart and I spoke my mind without meaning to. “I wish you lived here.”
My brother smiled. Well, a smile for him anyway, anytime he was talking to anyone but Remy. “Some days, so do I. Stay out of trouble, little brother.”