“I don’t know what you mean,” Thomas lied.
“You know this happens every time you see him one on one yet you just keep doing it. How long are you going to continue to punish yourself?”
Forever. It’s what I deserve.“I’m not punishing myself. I’m doing what needs to be done. Everything is finally coming together on all fronts and as long as Aiden continues to kill for this family, I will have to interact with him, whether either of us want to or not.”
“But you do want to,” Calliope insisted. “He does too. What is the deal with you and this whole Romeo and Romeo thing? What happened between you that you can’t even be in the same room together? I just don’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Where are my children?”
Nails danced over keyboard keys as Calliope pulled up the information he sought. “Um, they’re all standing in your living room.”
“What? Why?” Thomas barked.
“It’s your living room, how the fuck should I know?” Calliope snapped back. “Go take your bad mood out on them.”
With that, she was gone. Thomas groaned. He was just winning friends everywhere today.
Calliope was right, as always. Well, sort of. His children and their partners were in his home, though they were not in the living room as Calliope suggested, but lounging around the East pool, Jericho at the grill.
He did a quick headcount. The only people missing were Lucas and Cricket, which meant they were likely in the nursery. Thomas’s stomach took flight at the knowledge his girls were under his roof once again.
August was the first person he encountered as he stepped onto the terrazzo tiles. “What are you all doing here?” he said, his tone surly. “Don’t you have jobs? It’s a weekday.”
August arched an imperious brow, his blank expression morphing into one of amusement. “You know, you’re lucky you said that to me, one of your children without the feelings. If you’d said that to Noah or Zane they’d have burst into tears.”
August was right, but Thomas refused to give him the satisfaction. It wasn’t that he didn’t love all of them, even his newest additions, who treated him more as a father than his own children did. He had just made peace with the idea of spending his afternoon swimming in a whiskey bottle and they’d just blown that plan straight to hell.
“That doesn’t negate the question,” Thomas said, ignoring his son’s guilt trip.
It was Archer who spoke. “We’re here because Atticus mentioned that you had a conference call with Aiden scheduled.” Thomas’s irritation flared, but then his lips twitched when he realized Archer was dressed in jeans, biker boots and a black jacket despite the heat and the summer attire the others wore. He had glasses over his eyes as if fighting a hangover.
His son was dedicated to his role, he’d give him that.
Thomas tried to maintain some semblance of calm. “And?”
August gave him a patient look, like he was an adult and Thomas just a child. “And whenever you have a conference call with our dearly departed former brother, you start day drinking and breaking things. You also have a tendency to forget about hygiene for one or more days which isn’t pleasant for any of us.”
“One time. It happened one time,” Thomas muttered. “And it wasn’t because of your bro—Aiden. It was the stress of the press getting a hold of the story. That’s it.” He was met with a sea of disbelieving stares. “So you’re all here to babysit me?” Thomas said loud enough for the others to hear him. “Well, I don’t need it. You should all go home.”
Adam pulled himself from the pool, water pouring off his black and hot pink swim trunks as he trudged forward, putting his hands on his hips, expression mutinous. “What? No fucking way. Do you know how hard it was to deal with the dietary restrictions of the people in this family? Felix won’t eat gluten and Noah’s decided we’re vegan—don’t even get me startedon that—and Lucas is allergic to onion all of a sudden. Noah dragged me to three—three!—separate markets where I had to interact with the unwashed masses to buy the food for this impromptu little barbecue so if you don’t want to eat all this food fine but I’m not leaving until I’m so full I could puke.”
“Unwashed masses? Felix asked, horrified. “Where did you take him?”
“Whole foods,” Noah said with an eye roll. To Adam, he said, “You’re being melodramatic, again, baby.”
“You made me go grocery shopping,” Adam said again, stubbornly. “You know I hate doing…poor people things.”
“Eating is poor people things?” Zane asked Asa, his hand going to his chest like he was clutching invisible pearls. “I thought eating was just, like, a being alive thing?”
Asa snickered. “Adam doesn’t like doing anything that requires more effort than painting his nails. And he’s not even very good at that.”
Adam looked down at his chipped black nail polish, then glowered at Asa.
“Oh,” Zane said, sounding like he still didn’t get it.
“Ignore him, Lois. He’s just a brat,” Asa assured Zane, smirking at his youngest brother.
Adam gave him the finger. “I thought you liked brats.”
