Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
By then, I spotted Jayden poking his head out on the porch, before he disappeared inside again and yelled.
“I think it’s your brothers, Darius!”
He was a cool little kid. I couldn’t deny that. He hadn’t had an easy life so far either, so I knew he was going to thrive with my brother and Gray.
Jayden reappeared with the rest of the family, including Justin, the four-year-old.
I heard Jayden say, “They have gifts,” and I grinned.
Darius was so fucking whipped. He’d cruised through his thirties and the beginning of his forties with a perpetual scowl on his face, but it was fading away these days.
It was good to see.
“Are we at the right place?” I asked. “I’m not seeing that many balloons.” Of course, in my brother’s view, his place probably looked like a Party City. I spotted balloons on the porch, as well as a banner wishing Jayden a happy ninth birthday.
Gray smirked and slapped Darius’s arm. “You hear that, baby? Not that many.”
Darius rolled his eyes but plastered a smile on his face, and at that point, we reached each other. Gray was the host in the family, that much was clear, because he did the whole spiel about how good it was to see us and so on. We didn’t really do that in our family. We were more those people who jumped into conversation immediately, as if no time had passed since the last visit.
Justin was quick to climb Gray like a tree, not happy until he was on Gray’s hip.
Darius looped an arm around Lias’s neck and spoke quietly for only them to hear.
“So, who’s the birthday boy?” I asked, holding up my gift.
“Me! That’s me!” Jayden smiled widely and stepped forward.
“Oh, that’s right—it’s you.” I chuckled and handed it over to him. “Happy birthday, kid.”
“Thank you so much. It’s fuckin’ huge.” He grabbed the box and ran for the porch.
I laughed.
“Jayden!” Gray hollered. “What did we remind you of earlier?”
Jayden stopped short on the porch steps. “I can’t even curse on my birthday?”
“Technically, your birthday’s tomorrow, small fry,” Darius drawled.
“Oh shit. I mean crap. Fucking dang it.” Jayden smirked and proceeded to leave the gift on a table on the porch.
“It’s a work in progress,” Gray chuckled.
No kidding. But if the kid had survived on the streets in Philadelphia, I reckoned he could curse all he wanted. Darius brought the kid with him to the gym quite a bit, and I’d started teaching him kickboxing. He was rough around the edges but sweet. He followed Darius around like a puppy too, something my brother soaked up.
“Don’t forget this one, kiddo,” Lias called, holding up his gift too. In a quieter voice, he asked, “Do they bite?”
I shot him a look.
Gray blinked.
“For chrissakes,” Darius chuckled. He smacked Lias upside the head. “They’re children, not cats. You’ve also met them before.”
“So?” Lias scowled. “Hazel magically turned into a biter at some point.”
True enough. Elise and Avery’s youngest was a quiet, innocent angel until someone got their fingers too close.
Justin leaned in to whisper in Gray’s ear. “I bite my food, Daddy.”
“And that’s a good thing, sweetheart. Otherwise, you can’t eat muffins.” Gray had fully boarded the dad train.
In the next few minutes, Jayden had gathered his first two gifts on that table, Lias had escaped inside to help Gray with something—presumably to get away from Darius and me—and I helped Darius bring out drinks and ice.
“How was he earlier?” he asked me.
“Lias?”
He nodded and set the last bucket of ice next to the porch steps.
“Not great. I’m gonna ask Ma to convince him to stay at their place tonight,” I said. “He gets worse when he’s alone.”
“Good plan. Is it really all about Evelina?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I followed him over to the grill, where he was ready to prepare our food. “My guess? He found her on social media or something. Maybe she’s happy. I don’t know.”
Darius hummed and poured lighter fluid on the charcoal. “He better figure shit out or ask for help before Ry and I get involved.”
No joke. With Darius’s background as a private military contractor and Ryan’s past in the Marines, nobody wanted shit to go that far. Lias would flip his lid if he realized they were digging into his private affairs.
“I really don’t wanna get involved,” Darius muttered.
“I’m working on it,” I replied. I pulled out my phone and wondered why I hadn’t connected to the Wi-Fi yet. “Did you change the password for the Wi-Fi?”
He knitted his brows. “You can’t go five minutes without uploading a selfie to Instagram?”
For fuck’s sake. “I wanna check my messages.” Maybe I got a little defensive.
He and Ryan were fucking always on my case.
What if Natalie had responded?
My brother smirked lazily. “If you want the password, you’re gonna have to seek out the younger generation of our household. Gray cares about that shit too.”