“I’ll talk to Nori. And Kairo. Keep him blocked for a while.” He pauses. “How’s your injured?”
I look at Huntley. He’s watching me intently. “Well. Healing.”
“Good to hear. Keep me posted.”
The call ends, and I drop the phone for the third time. I hate talking to Kairo. We’ve just never gotten along. I’m too different from him, and we never see eye to eye.
“Are you okay?” Huntley asks.
“Yep. Everyone has one asshole brother, right?” That’s what I’ve always told myself.
“I could hear him yelling,” he says. He reaches for my shirt and pulls me back down to his chest. I press my face to his skin again, inhaling everything that is Huntley Fowler. “He shouldn’t speak to you like that. Why was he so mad?”
“My brothers and I—along with some cousins and friends—are trying to clean up the most crime-ridden cities. Kairo is in Chicago. Anaheim is my city. I told Arath—our older brother, who takes care of Philadelphia and runs this division of Van Doren—that I was going to sit out for a while to take care of you. He called Kairo to handle my squads for a while. Of course, he takes it like a personal attack and I’m getting special treatment.”
Huntley’s quiet for a minute, his fingers gently moving through my hair. It’s rhythmic and so soothing, I could probably fall asleep like this.
“Does Anaheim need more attention than Chicago?” he asks.
“Yes, and no. In the last year, Anaheim’s hate crimes have skyrocketed. I’m really working toward getting it under control before it turns into mass ugliness.”
“Do you follow hockey?”
I’m surprised at his question and sudden change in topic. “No.”
“Me neither.” Okay, that makes this change even stranger. “Are you familiar with Adak Nemaczekk?”
“His situation last year is the reason for the sudden spike,” I confirm. “Well, not his, but the father of the man he’s dating.”
“Oren. Earlier today, Oren called me. He’s one of my best friends. They left Anaheim because of this.”
Ah, I see the connection now. “Yes. Jessup put a huge target on his son’s head without understanding the consequences of his actions.”
“He really didn’t. He thought he could bully Oren to get him home and back under his control by giving the anti-LGBTQ assholes ammunition, and it would be the end of it. In reality, if he’d gotten his way and Oren had gone back, the target would have just followed him there. I’m glad Jessup’s dead, but wish he could die again for the mess he’s caused.”
“Sometimes a single death isn’t enough closure,” I agree. “And it doesn’t erase the problem they left behind.”
“It doesn’t,” he says. “What are you going to do about your brother?”
“Arath will take care of it. I’ve blocked him for now. He’s always been an ass.”
Huntley’s arms tighten. “Why?”
I shrug. “I’m different. He doesn’t understand and can’t relate to my ‘quirks.’ He has no patience for them, and I refuse to bend the way he’s always tried to get me to.”
“Good,” Huntley says. “Don’t bend. Just be authentically Oxley Van Doren.”
A smile climbs my face, and once again, I press my nose to his skin. “So… I can keep you? You want me to keep you?”
The way my heart races has my breathing stilted.
“I do,” he says. “It’s crazy, you know. We reallydon’tknow each other.”
“We do,” I disagree, pressing my lips over his heart. “You already know more of me than most people ever do.”
Huntley sighs.
“And… are you angry about no condom? You can be. You have every right to be. I didn’t even ask.” My stomach twists with this knowledge. Of all the times for the obsessions in me to slacken, that was probably one of the worst.
