One
Rowan
His brothers were lying to him. He knew they were, and he didn’t bloody care if they said everything was okay. Rowan didn’t believe them.
Axel was his best friend. He loved Alfie and Wes, but he and Ax had been thick as thieves for as long as Ro could remember.
So he knew when there was something that his brothers were not telling him… and now Alfie was with Axel, and he was staying wherever they were after falling for Axel’s fiancé’s brother. Like really what were the odds of that happening?
Axel and Alfie had called Ro and told him that Alfie decided to cut his trip short. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it if it had just been Alfie on the phone, but the fact that Axel was there meant his youngest brother was trying to get Axel to cover for him for some reason.
He’d tried pushing to find out what was going on, but apparently, those two had finally learned hownotto share everything.
That would have come in handy when they were younger and sharing a room, not now when he knew stuff was happening that they weren’t telling him.
Clearly, he’d been a horrid big brother—he knew nothing about his brothers’ lives anymore. They’d probably got themselves into shit and needed his help to get them out of whatever it was this time.
So, here he was.
Rowan had signed into Axel’s find my phone app—one of the perks of being super close to your siblings, or at least he’d thought so—and that was what led him to the middle of nowhere he’d currently pulled up to.
“How the fuck did you guys end up here?” Rowan muttered to himself as he put his Mini in park. Thankfully, he’d gotten the Mini Countryman; if Rowan had gone for his first choice, the Mini convertible, he would have been screwed on the unpaved roads he’d just driven through.
Rowan got out of the car and then picked up his phone from the GPS stand he’d been using. He also grabbed his coat since this late in the year, the weather was very much on the chilly side.
“Okay, where are we going?” Ro looked at the map on his phone that had Axel’s name beside it and turned in the direction it showed Axel's phone was. As he began walking, he couldn’t help looking around.
Where on earth had he ended up? It wasn’t even on any map. If he hadn’t been tracking Axel’s phone, he would never have found this place.
He followed the directions on the app until he was standing outside a building draped in hundreds of bright holiday lights and a decorated wreath hanging on the door marked ‘surgery.’
“Bloody hell, Alf, Ax what’ve you got yourselves into now?” Rowan couldn’t help cursing out his brothers. But the question remained why hadn’t Axel rang if one of them was ill?
Rowan walked straight in and was surprised to see that a surgery in the middle of nowhere was nicer than his G.P’s back home. He frowned at the massive Christmas tree just to the left side of the door decorated in red and silver ornaments, candy canes, and little wolf figurines dressed as Santa Claus or elves.
“Axel, Alfie,” He called out.
Ro walked towards the first door and opened it, but it was an empty office.
“Alfie, Axel,” Rowan called his brothers’ names again, louder this time. “I know my brothers are here. If you don’t bring them out, I will dial the final nine.”
Rowan looked around, taking in the space he stood in. It had the layout of a typical surgery. Although there was no reception desk.
Axel had said that Alfie was a little under the weather, and his youngest brother had stopped video calling him a few weeks ago. It was all so suspicious.
Rowan walked to the end of the hall following the sound of hushed voices. He didn’t bother knocking, but simply opened the door he’d stopped in front of. He took in the scene before him—his youngest brother in bed looking like he’d been put through the wringer or something—and his eye immediately sought out and landed on Axel who was cradling a baby in his arms.
“Oh shit.” Ro heard his youngest brother’s voice and immediately went over to a now alert Alfie, not bothering with the other people in the room. When he stood by Alfie‘s bed, he studied him while at the same time gently stroking his face. He hadn’t been in the same room with his baby brother in way too long, and now that he was, it was in a hospital room.
Hold the fuck up. Why on earth would a GP surgery have a hospital suite? Before Ro could ask that question, his brother spoke.
Alfie’s eyes on him were wide in surprise. “Ro, what are you doing here?” His brother’s voice was weak to his ears like the patients he took care of at the hospital.
“What do you mean what amIdoing here? You and Axel move to the middle of nowhere and apparently end up engaged in the space of a couple of weeks.” Ro rolled his eyes. “You don’t come home to get your stuff, you stop calling me on video call three weeks ago, and Axel can’t look me in the eye when he talks about you. Of course I came to check up on the two of you. What the hell is going on, Alfie?”
Rowan looked up to see Axel had moved so he stood across the bed from him. He rocked back and forth, patting softly on the back of the baby in his arms.
“Nothing is going on, Ro.” Axel wouldn’t meet his eyes. His brother was legit the worst liar.
