Page 43 of Possessive Ink

When I glance over at Lemon, I’m happy to see that although she’s looking at Felix, she’s not ogling him. Her gaze is fixed on his face the same way he looks at her. Thank fuck, because I won’t give her up, and I can’t force my brother to wear a shirt in his own home.

“Bro, do you want to help me lay the table?” I ask Felix, opening the oven and pulling the steaming pan of cornbread out.

Nodding, Felix methodically opens each drawer in the cabinets until he finds the bowls, silverware, and place mats, then he carefully lays each setting the exact same way he’s been doing since we were kids and our mom was making chicken fingers, fries, and corn.

“Grab the wine, Princess,” I tell Lemon, carrying the pot of chili over to the table and placing it on the heatproof board I set in the middle.

Moving in easy synchronization, Tori slices the hot bread into chunks, then transfers them onto a platter while I fetch wine glasses and a bottle of water for Felix. Once I’ve opened the wine with a corkscrew, I pour some into Lemon’s, Tori’s, and then my own glass before I set the bottle down in the middle of the table. Reaching for the ladle, I spoon chili into all of our bowls, then finally take a seat beside Lemon, spreading my hand over her thigh as I shuffle my chair a little closer to hers.

“I’m so glad you guys are here. Happy new house,” Tori says, lifting her glass in a toast.

“The light,” Felix says, sighing happily. “Moving here was a great idea.”

Tapping his bottle of water against Tori’s glass, he does the same to Lemon’s, then finally mine.

“I’m glad we’re here too, Little Bit. And it won’t be long before Jude and August are here as well, and all five of us will be back together again,” I say.

“Are you going to give Nero your blessing anytime soon?” Tori asks with a smirk before she turns to Lemon. “My boyfriend wants us to get married, but I told him he had to get the guys’ blessing before I’d say yes.”

“Don’t you want to marry him?” Lemon asks.

“Oh no, I definitely want to marry him,” Tori says, lifting a spoonful of steaming chili to her mouth.

“Then…” Lemon trails off.

“We need to make sure he’s good enough for her first,” I tell her.

“None of you ever think anyone is good enough for me,” Tori says, but she’s clearly amused rather than annoyed.

“You don’t like your sister’s boyfriend?” Lemon asks me.

“From what I know about him, I like him well enough. But now that we’re in town, we’ll be able to find out who he actually is, and if he’s someone we want to call family,” I tell her.

“Family is important,” Felix says, not looking at any of us as he spoons chili into his mouth.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Tori asks Lemon.

My princess shakes her head. “No, it’s just me.”

“Are you close with your parents?”

“My mom was my best friend, but she passed away a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Tori says.

Lemon’s smile is brittle, but before I can pull her into my arms, Felix circles the table, crouches down in front of my woman and hugs her. When I lift my head to look at my sister, her expression is as shocked as I feel.

Felix is tactile with me, Tori, Jude, and August, but rarely with anyone else. So to see him hugging Lemon for a second time of his own volition is surprising. When he did it this morning, I assumed he was just feeding off my behavior toward her. I figured he was sensing my desire for her and showing me he understood. But this hug feels different. This hug isn’t about me. It’s about my twin and my girl sharing something, and I don’t know how to feel about that.

When Felix pulls away, his eyes are warm and soft. He likes her. I don’t know if he likes her because he senses she’s mine, or if he just recognizes something in her and likes it. I’m not sure if I care why he’s drawn to her. I’m just grateful that he is. If he hated her, I’m not sure Lemon and I could have a future. But knowing that he already feels comfortable enough with my woman to want to hug her makes the tightness I hadn’t realized I was holding in my chest unwind.

Lemon sniffles, and when I move my gaze to her, she’s subtly wiping under her eyes, like she doesn’t want anyone to realize she’s so emotional.

“You’re not alone anymore. You have Atticus and three brothers and a sister now,” Felix says without any preamble as he sits back down on his chair and takes a bite of his cornbread.

The rest of the evening is comfortably easy, like we’ve eaten together a million times and not at all like I only met Lemon this morning. We finish our chili, then eat the dessert Tori brought over. Once the second bottle of wine we opened is finished, Tori announces that it’s time for her to go.

“Thanks for dinner,” she says, hugging Felix first, then me, before she turns to Lemon. “I’ll see you on Monday. Will you be okay to start at seven thirty a.m.? It’ll give me a chance to walk you through the basics before we start to get busy.”