“Move… please.”
“No. I’m not letting you leave until we talk.”
“Okay, that's enough. You're upsetting Annabelle, and as she got married yesterday, it's fair to say she's still got that whole jittery bride thing going on.”
Brad looked over his brother's shoulder and into the cool eyes of Paul Newman. Gone was the placid, laid-back man Brad had recently met. This one meant business.
“You okay, baby?” Ethan said the words to Annabelle but kept his eyes on Brad.
“Of course I am. It’s Newman who’s upset. He can’t handle raised voices, you know that.”
Annabelle was in fact still sitting, drinking her coffee calmly, as if two men arguing on her deck was a daily occurrence.
“No one’s throwing a punch, Newman, so relax,” Ethan then said.
Newman didn’t move, standing a few feet behind Ethan, a gesture that to Brad said, “I have his back.”
“I don’t want you to leave until we talk this through, Brad.”
“Ethan—”
“If you leave, I’m following. I’ll get in my bird and track you.”
“What? Why the hell would you do that?”
“Because you’re my brother and I love you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You think I left because I didn’t love you?”
Brad didn’t nod, but he wanted to. Instead he made himself breathe slowly. Inhale, exhale. He unclenched his fists and dropped his shoulders. Anger was not going to help anything, and he was done with that these days. He’d been constantly angry once, but never again.
“Look, let’s just leave this, okay. Opening this particular vein isn’t going to make anyone happy, least of all us.”
“I don’t want you to leave Howling. So what will it take to keep you here?”
“I have things to do.” Brad fell back on excuses.
“What things?”
Ethan folded his arms in a gesture that told Brad he wasn’t going anywhere without an answer.
“Business interests that need my attention.”
“If you give me a few days of your time, I promise that if you want to leave and have no contact with me after, I won’t stop you.”
Brad was fairly sure he was looking into a mirror at the moment, because Ethan’s expression was calm but his blue eyes were anything but.
“You couldn’t stop me if I wanted to leave now.”
“Actually I could. One call and I’d have Cubby arrest you.”
Brad snorted at those ridiculous words.
“You don’t believe me?”
They stared at each other for long, tense seconds, and then Annabelle moved around her husband to stand directly in front of Brad, so close he could see a handful of tiny freckles on her nose.
