“I didn’t get a picture from you!” Remy called out from the dining room when I slammed the front door behind me.
I glowered at him when I walked in.
“You can’t just be antisocial,” Mace said.
Seriously, I needed new brothers.
“Don’t forget you have to cook lunch tomorrow,” Garrett said.
“I know,” I snapped.
“He’s so weird,” Archer said.
I tuned them out and went upstairs to my bedroom. I was wound up tight. I paced around the room then pulled out my phone. I’d saved the conversation Ellis and Billy had had with Sadie. I scrolled through it as I had several times before, snickering at the dorky jokes Sadie had made and studying her picture.
I wish she had sent a topless photo.
But that really would have been a problem.
Maybe there was something wrong with me. Did she sense whatever twisted sickness my father had in him? Maybe I was corrupted? Maybe Remy didn’t get me out of the cult soon enough.
I went out for a run then lifted weights. It wasn’t enough to take the edge off. I wanted to sprint down to her apartment and…what? Kiss her.
Make her mine.
It was daylight outside when I finally fell asleep. My fitful dreams were disrupted when Garrett banged on my bedroom door.
“You’re scheduled for lunch.”
“I know!” I yelled at him when he opened the door.
“Do you?” he asked icily. “Because it’s eleven thirty, and the kids are hungry.”
Fuck.
“Mace is out with Josie, and Archer’s in Manhattan. Hunter is doing god knows what, but I’m locking the door after I leave. You don’t have to let him back in.”
He turned abruptly and left.
I dragged myself out of bed. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and I had a serious case of blue balls.
A cold shower later, I felt marginally more human, and I went downstairs. My two dozen younger brothers were milling around in the kitchen.
“Can you make chicken biscuits?” Henry asked. He was the second youngest, and he barely came up to my thighs.
As much as I despised my older brothers, I loved my younger ones, and I’d do anything for them. Did that include fried chicken and biscuits?
“Probably not. I don’t think I’ve ever made biscuits.”
“We found a recipe,” Andy insisted.
I looked at the tablet. It seemed easy enough—butter, flour, buttermilk, salt, and baking soda.
“You know what?” I said. “Biscuits it is.”
My little brothers cheered.
Biscuits proved to be more difficult than I had thought originally. The dough was too dry at first. Then I added more buttermilk, and it was too sticky. It got all over everything when I tried to fold it. When the biscuits were finally cut out and in the oven, they didn’t even rise.
