“Mats. Don’t be a cunt.”
“Why not?”
I kept walking, hoping he’d take the hint. But he either missed it or didn’t give a shit, and I’d have bet on the second if I’d had time to think about it.
True to form, Rubi trailed his tenacious dickhead self after me and all the way upstairs to the bedroom he’d given me when I’d first patched in as a council member.Hisbedroom. Because I’d been a desperate, sad sack of shit with nowhere else to go.
He leaned his hulking frame in the doorway and watched me throw boxers, cigarettes, and weed into a bag before I remembered I’d be driving a heavy goods vehicle.
His uncharacteristic silence unnerved me.
I snapped. “Fuck’s sake, what do youwant?”
Rubi threaded his arms across his chest, filling the doorway. “I want to know if this shattitude you’re copping is about Embry, or if there’s something else up your arse that I can fix before Cam gets his knickers in a twist.”
“Shattitude?”
“Don’t be obtuse, bro.”
It annoyed me that he used words that Embry had thrown in my face a million times before. Then again, everything annoyed me about Rubi right now. Because he was right here in front of me in a moment where I desperately needed to be alone.
A wise man had once told me that the truth was the quickest route to salvation. I was a long way from that kind of redemption, but I took the advice all the same. “It pisses me off that you sleep with him.”
There. I’d fucking said it.
And being the reasonable fucker he was, Rubi relaxed. “I stay with him when you’re not around. He doesn’t like being alone.”
“I know that.”
“You know why?”
Yes.“No.”
“Neither do I.” Rubi crossed his feet at the ankles. “But if it helps, I can tell you it ain’t my name crosses his lips when he’s asleep.”
“He doesn’t talk in his sleep.”
“Does when you’re not there.”
I stopped hurling shit in my bag and made myself face Rubi head-on. “What does he say?”
“Just your name. And that he’s sorry, but that’s a new one.”
Fresh horror hit me. I sat on the edge of the bed, trying not to puke. Me and Rubi, we weren’t best mates, but we were brothers. I’d die for him and he’d die for me. It was how club life worked. And he loved Embry. Everyone did. If he knew...
Nah, it’d kill him. Rubi had a soft heart. I’d seen him well up a week ago when Ivy had shown us her school uniform.
Me? I’d gone outside and punched a crater in the wall. Because feelings hurt and I didn’t want to have them anymore.
“Can I tell you something?” Rubi said when I didn’t speak.
I gave him a wary look. If I was gonna get mortal-fucking drunk and gibbering in the corner with a brother, it was usually Nash. Or Saint, without the gibbering. “Is it that you’re fucking River?”
Cos I was a horrible bastard, I took pleasure in the pain that flashed in Rubi’s eyes at the mere mention of Cam’s younger brother.
“He has a housemate,” Rubi said, blanking the cruel question. “Oscar. Big bastard, all ink and facial hair, barnet like a fucking lion.”
“Like you, then?”
