“Nope. I’m calling you. Figured you’d be up, but I can get a room at the airport if you’re, uh, otherwise engaged.”
“I’m not. Jax is away,” I blurt before I catch myself.
Gabriel laughs again. “So you’ll pick me up?”
“Of course.”
“Awesome. I’ll be outside with my cigarettes.”
My brother hangs up. I check my messages and find that he’s been texting me all day.
Gabi:catching a flight out of houston today. can u pick me up?
Gabi:delayed. bad weather. might be late. that cool?
Gabi:connection delayed too. call u when i land.
Gabi:answer your damn phone
Oops. I turn my car around and point it in the direction of the airport. It isn’t the first time my brother has come home out of the blue, but I’m still flummoxed by his sudden appearance. Or, more accurately, by my ability to forget the fact that he’d told me his job was coming to an end earlier than he’d anticipated. Maybe I hadn’t believed him. He’s been wrong about that shit before.
But whatever. He’s home, and I’m glad of it. I’ve missed him, and with Jax in my life now too, worrying about him has spread my mother hen disposition too fucking thin.
I hit the gas, driving as fast as I can without attracting the cops. I’ve seen enough of them in recent weeks, and luckily for me and anyone else on the roads, the airport isn’t that far. Even better, true to his word, Gabi is waiting outside, a cigarette jammed in his mouth and a bag on his back.
For a moment, he looks so like me that I think his broad grin is mine. Or maybe it is, and he’s returning whatever he sees on my face. I stop the car and jump out. He drops his bag and hugs me, and the long months he’s been gone fade away.
I lean back to check him out. He’s bearded and needs a haircut, but his eyes are bright. Whatever he’s been doing has panned out, and more than that, he’s happy to be home. “How long?” I ask him. “Are you here till after Christmas now?”
“Maybe. I need to talk to Eve first.”
“That sounds…promising?”
“Maybe,” he repeats. “Can you give me a ride to yoga town?”
I let it go. Gabi is a man who talks when he’s good and ready, unlike me who swallows it all down until it bursts out after the hottest sex of my life. Damn, even thinking about that night in a negative light makes my blood heat, my heart turn over, and blows all thoughts of my long-lost brother from my mind.
Gabriel shakes me. “Earth to Tanner? Did you light up before you got here?”
“What?”
“You left me, and not in the bad way you used to. What are you thinking about that’s got you grinning like an idiot?”
I’m close to my brother, but not that close. I shake him off and take his bag from his back. “Nothing. Let’s go.”
He doesn’t believe me, I can tell, but I couldn’t give less of a fuck. As I drive us back into Burlington, the rain fades away. The sky is bright and clear and full of stars, and maybe for the first time in as long as I can remember, they’re starting to align.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tanner
Eve’s house is dark and quiet. It dawns on me that she’s not expecting Gabi either, and I’m glad I’m here. I want to see her face when she opens the door to him.
But my brother has other plans, apparently. Plans for me. And him. A brotherly bonding session on a damp porch over his horrible cigarettes and a can of Pepsi I find in the back of my car.
I don’t even drink soda. And I don’t fucking smoke, but here we are.
Gabriel sits his ass down on a soggy wooden step and motions for me to do the same.
