Maverick blinked, turning his bleary eyes toward Grayson. “Sleep and Advil weren’t helping, so I thought I’d give this a try.”
“Yeah,” Grayson said sarcastically. “Looks like it’s really working for you.”
Maverick replied not with words but with a single middle finger.
Grayson shook his head, just as he had yesterday when he’d driven to town to pick up Maverick at Roni’s place. “Roni Gray,” he muttered.
If it wouldn’t send sharp shards of pain through his head, Maverick would have rolled his eyes. “We made out, then passed out. Nothing more. I told you that yesterday. Move on.”
Grayson crossed his arms. “I have no problem moving on. It’s Roni who’s going to be the immovable force. That girl has been pulling out all the stops on snagging her romantic Storm moment, and I assure you, she’s probably sitting at home rightnow, planning your wedding and making a list of names for y’all’s kids.”
“I told her I wasn’t interested. She seemed to get it.” Maverick had wanted to assure his brother of that yesterday on the drive back to the farm, but he’d been too distracted with drawing in slow, gentle breaths, while trying not to move his pounding head too much to talk.
“Seemedbeing the operative word,” Grayson said, his tone pure smart-ass. “That woman hears only what she wants to. Period. End of sentence. Twenty bucks says she starts blowing up your phone with texts and calls before stalking you around here when you ghost her. Roni is tenacious as fuck when she wants something, and she wants a Storm.”
He knew that. Which was why sober Maverick had always stayed far, far away from Roni.
Then, because he didn’t feel shitty enough, his phone buzzed with an incoming text. He glanced at the screen and groaned—because Grayson would take way too much pleasure in being right.
His brother chuckled as he held out his hand. “I’ll take that twenty now.”
“I didn’t make a fucking wager,” Maverick pointed out. “And she’s just letting me know that I left my tie there, asshole.”
“She probably hid it from you so she’d have an excuse to text.” Grayson’s mirth faded quickly, and when he slipped into the metal folding chair on the opposite side of the desk, Maverick knew his brother clearly had a lot more to say.
“Grayson,” he started, hoping to ask for a reprieve.
His brother held up his hand, cutting him off. “I know you feel like hell, but, bro, something’s gotta give. I’ve spent too many years watching this revolving door of women. You fuck and run like you’ve got something to prove. When we were younger, I figured it was just you sowing your wild oats, havingsome fun. But, Mav, you’re thirty-two years old, and while I know you say you’re happy…I don’t think you are. Actually, I don’t think you’ve been happy in a very long time.”
Maverick sighed, equal parts annoyed and appreciative of his brother’s comments. He and Grayson were polar opposites as far as personalities went. Maverick was the life of the party, while Grayson skipped the entire thing and stayed home. Maverick had a boisterous laugh and tended to be one of the loudest people in the room—after Remi and Theo. Grayson, on the other hand, was quiet, introspective, rarely speaking.
His family had tried to figure out how he and Grayson managed to work so well together, given their differences, but Maverick had stopped pondering that question years ago. Not because he’d found the answer but because he didn’t care how it worked. It just did.
In fact, it worked so well that Grayson wasn’t just his brother, he was Maverick’s best friend. There weren’t too many secrets his brother didn’t know about him.
Actually, strike that. There was onlyonesecret Grayson didn’t know.
One secret no one knew.
And it was the reason why Maverick kept spinning in that revolving door of one-night stands or first dates that never led to a second rather than getting off and looking for love like the rest of his family.
“I appreciate your concern,” Maverick said.
Grayson snorted. “No, you don’t.”
Maverick managed a weak grin. “You’re right. I don’t. But…” He shrugged. “There’s some truth to what you’ve said. I guess I’m not as happy as I like to pretend.”
“What would make you happy?” Grayson asked.
Maverick closed his eyes and shook his head. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
“I guess it is.” The way Grayson responded told Maverick he wasn’t the only one struggling to find happiness these days. However, it was the first time his brother had alluded to being dissatisfied, and Maverick should have suspected and seen that.
“Things have changed a lot the past couple of years,” Maverick said, well aware of his brother’s preference for routine and familiarity.
“I liked the way things were.” Grayson was a creature of habit, and while he wasn’t resistant to change, it took him a little longer to accept new norms. He and Grayson shared one of the three farmhouses on Stormy Weather Farm with Everett, Sam, and Jace. His parents lived in the second farmhouse, operating it as a B&B, and the third was currently occupied by his female cousins, Mila, Nora, and Remi, as Lucy had moved to Philadelphia with her boyfriends.
Up until Theo and Levi had moved in with their true loves, there had been seven brothers living in the same house. Given the fact they were all Storms—a name that was synonymous with headstrong—there were obviously the occasional “living together” fights over someone not doing the dishes or eating someone else’s leftovers, but mercifully, none of them held grudges. Arguments might flash hot and loud and contain more than their fair share of four-letter words, but the anger never lasted long.