Cute wasn’t a word that had ever come up in the many,manythoughts I’d had about Folk. Considering it now made my head spin. Folk wasn’t the only good-looking bloke around here, but to me, everything about him sucked me in.
“It’s how you feel, right? Like this...” He dragged his fingertips along my arm again. “I felt that as soon as I saw you, and it had nothing to do with your appearance.”
Hot damn. The goosebumps were back, and it had nothing to do with the sun slipping behind the only wisp of a cloud in the sky.
“Put it this way,” Rubi said when I failed to answer. “I could’ve hooked you up with Plain Bear McStupid.”
I snapped him a glare sharp enough that he set his paintbrush down, absorbing far more of my true feelings than I wanted him to, though I doubted it occurred to him that it wasn’t just disliking Bear folding my face in half. It was the mereideaof losing a fictitious relationship.
“Daddy?” Ivy wedged herself between my knees and slid into my lap. “Can Lili have tea at our house?”
“Um...” I glanced around. Mateo wasn’t here, and neither was Juana. With Embry nowhere in sight either, that wasn’t a decision I could make.
Rubi saved me. “Nah. You two have to have tea with me. I’m all lonely without River.”
His sad face was ridiculous enough that Ivy instantly forgot she’d ever asked, and I was beyond grateful for that. I loved Liliana like she was my own, but I wasn’t cut out for cooking for two bird-sized humans who turned their noses up at everything on their plates.
Rubi was, though. And he’d planned ahead. “Hot dogs,” he announced. “I bought a thousand sausages this morning and I need your help to eat ’em.”
He tweaked Ivy’s nose, adding hot pink paint to the multitude of colours already staining her face.
She laughed.
I laughed.
Life was good.
Bikes rumbled. Not an unusual sound on the compound. I forced myself not to glance up, but Rubi’s grin told me everything.
River was home.
And... he wasn’t alone.
I couldn’t tell that from Rubi’s face, but I knew without looking that Folk had arrived.
The goosebumps had never gone away. I rubbed at my arms and tugged Ivy closer, as if my tiny daughter could shield me from the slow tattoo my pulse became whenever Folk was within a ten-mile radius of my heart. A consuming thump that was twelve times louder than it had been a week ago, before hekissedme.
Should’ve kissed him back.
It hadn’t dawned on me till later that I hadn’t. That after years of telling myself I’d never feel them again, his soft lips had shocked me too much.
The bike engines cut off. A moment later, River vaulted the wall shielding us from most of the yard and landed in a neat pile of limbs in front of Rubi.
Happiness filled the small space. I spent a lot of time with brothers who loved each other, but these two were something else. They weren’t as physical as Mateo and Embry or as intense as Cam, Saint, and Alexei, but the easy joy in their bond was everything.
“Why’s your hair wet?” Rubi tucked River’s messy locks behind his ears. “Please tell me you didn’t jump off that cliff?”
River chuckled. “Ididn’t.”
“Folk did?”
River shrugged as if anything about their exchange was normal. “Course he did. I went off the rocks lower down like he showed me, and get that stroppy look off your face. I like it, man. It’s freeing.”
“Till you brain yourself on the seabed,” Rubi grumbled. “This beautiful friendship you share has serious fucking flaws.”
“You’d rather Embry was my sponsor?”
“Fuck no. I’m just saying Folksie ain’t right in the head either if he thinks voluntary drowning cures addiction.”
