“No,” he said with a frown. “Raymond is bein’ careful about it, chickens, hatchin’, all that, but he seems pretty confident he can make a good case for ya. He was telling me about it. Not everythin’, but he seemed like he was…enjoyin’ himself?”
“Huh, maybe that is a good sign,” I said with a snort. “But you’re right, don’t count those chickens while they’re still eggs. Even if it’s not the rest of my life, it could still be months, even years.”
“And I’m gonna be with ya the whole way through,” he said, taking my hands in his.
“No, Cade, I…you can’t do that. If I’m in here for the next decade, you can’t sit around and?—”
“And what? Leave one of my guys behind? Nuh, uh, I didn’t have a choice with the rest of ’em, and that about broke me. But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did it on purpose.”
“This is different.”
“No, it ain’t. Even if ya played a part in this, and I know ya didn’t do it on purpose if what they’re sayin’ is even true,” he said, leaning forward and grabbing the back of my neck. “But I ain’t lettin’ ya do this on your own. And when he figures out bail, we’ll get that paid, and you and me are gonna go…I dunno, somewhere. They probably won’t want ya to go far, so we’d have to stick around here. I’ve got a bit of money. I can get us somewhere to stay to get work or somethin’, but that first week? Just you and me, maybe naked the whole time, I dunno, probably have to go out at some point.”
“That sounds…pretty good,” I said in a thick voice as he forced me to stare at him.
“Good, then don’t you dare try to talk me out of it, alright? ’Cause I’m gonna be here, either as your brother in arms, or as the man that’s fallin’ in love with ya. Either way…what?”
I stared at him. “Say it again?”
“What? Oh,” he blinked and his cheeks turned pink. “The part about fallin’ in love with ya?”
“Are you?”
“Fallin’ in love with ya?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah,” he said as if it were the easiest thing in the world and not something that rocked me even harder than being arrested for treason. “I am.”
There was no fight left in me. The only man I had ever vaguely felt was the one who got away, even though it had never been a possibility in my mind, was falling in love with me. He was already doing so much for me, then talked about future plans for us, and topped it with a proclamation of love. There was nothing I could say in the face of that, and I felt my resistance shatter as I bowed forward, pressing our foreheads together.
“Ya okay?” he asked softly, squeezing the back of my neck.
“I am now,” I said, realizing for the first time in years that it was true.
I had him. How couldn’t I be okay?
EPILOGUE
Two yearslater
Hanging out of the apartment window, I scowled. “Dylan, quit fuckin’ around and get your ass movin’! I ain’t payin’ ya to get laid!”
My brother’s head swiveled up toward me and away from the delivery girl he was talking with. “Ya aren’t paying me, anyway!”
“I’m payin’ to get that rash on your asshole looked at,” I said, smirking when he flushed and the girl laughed, shaking her head as she walked off.
“You’re a fucker, ya know that?” he barked up at me and I flashed him the middle finger.
“Get movin’! There’s more boxes at the storage unit to grab,” I told him because he was going to get a nice meal and several drinks out of helping us move into the new apartment, so I wasn’t going to tolerate him standing around, trying to get his dick wet. “Honestly, he should’ve grown up by now.”
“Some people are perpetually horny,” came Isaac’s wry voice. “Ask your best friend.”
“Hey, leave me out of this. I didn’t do anything except fight with thisfucking bed frame,” Clay’s irritated voice called fromthe back room. “You’re lucky I love you, Big Guy, because this thing was handcrafted by Satan himself, I’m telling you.”
“My little drama queen,” Isaac said with a chuckle, setting a box down on top of the stack of others. He looked me over and smiled before retreating toward the back of the apartment where his boyfriend was muttering under his breath about things I know Clay would only dare to mutter because my parents hadn’t flown out to Tucson with us like Dylan had. My brother was a pain in the ass and a horn dog, but he was my brother, and I was grateful he helped us move.
Moving all my things from one end of the country, and Walker’s from another end, was a pain in the ass. But…as much as I wanted to be around my family, I thought maybe it was time I finally lived on my own. Well, I wasn’t alone; Walker was here with me, and that was a lot better than being alone.
