“Not anymore. Recently divorced from the city life, actually.”
“No shit?” He shook his head at me, downing the rest of his glass. “Can’t imagine why you’d do something like that. Oh, wait...”
The smug narrowing of his eyes had me nearly bridging the distance between us to give his shin a swift kick. Lovingly, of course. No matter how much time passed, Jonah still knew how to push my buttons at an expert level and apparently still loved doing so.
I liked to imagine he was giving me the older brother treatment I never received as a kid—a rite of passage, as it were. However, now that we were adults, I was allowed to give it right back to him and feel fine doing so.
“Speak of the devil.” He grinned, his eyes shifting to something over my shoulder.
Craning my neck around, I spotted Brandon laughing as he headed our way, another one of his brothers, Reece, in tow. The two of them were peas in a pod—similar builds, the same wavy, dark hair, and twin smiles that could melt even the coldest of hearts.
Together, they were a deadly combo save for one simple fact: their complete opposite personalities.
As soon as they were within shouting distance, Reece broke away from his brother’s side in order to beeline straight toward me. I only had around three and a half seconds to try and brace myself before a pair of beefy arms were being wrangled around my neck and a set of knuckles were thrust down against the top of my skull in a rather haphazard noogie.
“Avery McAllister!” I couldhearthe devious grin in his voice. Bastard. “As I live and breathe!”
“Reece!” Brandon scolded.
Flashbacks of being fourteen again and Reece wrestling me to the ground to pin me like we were in some official WWE match while Jonah and Jace egged him on in the background were suddenly thrust into the forefront of my mind.
A charming time back then but not at all one I wanted a repeat of two decades later.
Twisting my arm around, I jabbed my fingers up into Reece’s armpit and dug them in deep, hard enough to be felt through the thick fabric of his suit jacket. He yelped, quickly disentangling himself from me while cupping his hands under his armpits.
“Low blow, McAllister,” he chided.
Jonah barked out a laugh. “You left yourself wide open, man. What did you expect?”
“You both are ridiculous.” Brandon stuck his hand out toward me, wiggling his fingers until I took it. He hauled me up from my seat, still shaking his head. “I’d blame it on the drinks but I know for a fact you two have already blown through your free tickets.”
Reece moved past me to steal my seat. “Yeah. Now we’re onto stealing all of the auntie’s tickets when they’re not looking.”
I had to hand it to him, I could appreciate the mischievousness. At least Brandon’s brothers were making their own kind of fun and keeping out of their sister’s hair while she was celebrated for the rest of the evening.
“The least you two could do is be nice to Avery. Remember how we were allbeggingfor him to come home? Don’t make him regret his life choices.”
I held in a laugh and threw my arm around his shoulders. No amount of hazing from the Carmichael brothers could ever get me to reconsider staying in Ellington Heights. That decision had been single handedly the easiest one I’d ever had to make. Choosing Brandon, and choosing my life with him, was always a no-brainer.
Anyone who thought otherwise was playing ignorant.
“Oh, come on, Bran. You know how it goes. You bring a boyfriend around, we get to pick on him. It’s all a part of the ritual.” Jonah nudged me with his foot, shooting me a wink at that last part.
Funny, considering I’d already been through this process long before Brandon and I were even past puberty, let alone at the point where we were dating officially. Though, I supposed with my absence, I had a bit of catching up to do.
“Animals,” Brandon muttered, gripping my hand tight in his while he turned and tugged me away from their table.
He weaved us through the crowd expertly, the music from the party soon growing soft while we wandered away from it.
The venue was on a beautiful property up in the stix. With little to no light pollution and the sun having set hours ago, the stars were out in full force, shimmering like diamonds against the dark night sky.
I watched them while I let Brandon guide me, trusting him to not let me fall as he navigated down to a small, private dock that overlooked the lake. The air was peaceful and quiet, a stark charge from the energetic celebration raging on a few hundred yards away.
Brandon breathed out a sigh, his body finally relaxing once we were alone. “I’m sorry about them. They’re?—”
I wrapped him up into a hug, squeezing him. “Just being annoying older brothers,” I said, finishing for him.
He sagged into me, nodding with his chest pressed to my chest. “They’ll calm down. Eventually.”
