Page 80 of Diamond In The Rough

“Would it be the end of us?” Her voice cracks with emotion, catching me by surprise, when she typically makes such a good show of aloofness. “Because I kinda want to spend time with you still. In private. At my apartment.”

“It wouldn’t be the end.” I lower to my elbows, hovering over my phone on the counter, and comb my fingers into my hair. “I’m not done with you yet, either. But if you’re worried about Tim’s legacy… you’re safe, okay?”

“Hey, Micah!”

I shove up at Felix’s shout and turn toward the greenhouse door. Tiia obviously hears him too, because her breath comes to a stop, and our call goes completely, deathly silent.

“Where are you?”

“In here!” I grab my phone and take it off speaker, then bringing it to my ear, I turn toward the door. “I’ll be out front of your apartment at six. If you feel brave, come out, and I’ll show you my world. But if you don’t…” I open the greenhouse door and spy my brother twenty feet away.

Our eyes meet, but then his move to the phone pressed to my ear, and he closes his lips and silences.

“If you don’t,” I continue, “then I won’t be mad. I’m not done spending time with you, Tiia. Where we do it is entirely up to you.”

“You have to hang up now, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” I wave Felix inside and circle back to the steel counter so I can finish rehoming the monstera before it truly dies. “I have things to do.”

“Illegal things?”

I snicker and, tilting my head, hold the phone between my ear and shoulder so I can work. “I never do illegal things. And I especially never discuss illegal things on the phone.”

I glance across when Lix comes to a stop beside me, leaning against the counter and folding his arms.

“I’ve gotta go. But I’ll see you at six.”

She exhales a soft sigh and nods, though I’m not there to see her head move. “Alright. See you later. Oh, and Micah?”

“Yeah?” I meet Felix’s eyes and know he’ll wait. Patiently. Respectfully. “What’s up?”

“I want it on record that I never asked for any of this. I told you to go away and leave me alone.”

“Good thing I rarely listen. I’d hate to have missed out on this.”

Pulling the phone from my ear and killing our call before she can convince me to cast my entire life and family aside and exist only within her apartment walls, I slip the device into my pocket and give my brother all of my attention. “What?”

“You like her.” His smile turns sweet. Almost angelic, if the devil was ever capable of such a thing. “Shit, Micah. You’ve actually caught feelings for someone, huh?”

“I’m not discussing it with you.” Even with my father dead, hard lessons are nearly impossible to cast aside. And the Malone curse, it seems, is to lose anything good that has ever happened to you. I’m not ready for Tiia Hale to be struck down just yet. “What did you want?”

“I want you to stop being an unfeeling machine, acting as though you’re another soldier like Stovic and Michaels, and instead, remember you’re my brother.” He steals back his coffee and sips. “As your brother, I’m asking you to talk to me about that girl. Because I’ve never, in my thirty-four years, seen you bring someone home.”

“I haven’t brought her home.” But I might. Tonight. Maybe. “She’s literally never been here.”

“She’s already here!” He throws his free hand up. “She’s in every thought you have. In the phone calls you make. The texts you send. You’ve got half a greenhouse dedicated to her dying ivy, and a fuck-ton of bad attitude to toss around this morning, though I know your night was fan-fucking-tastic. The look in your eyes says she’s important, and the love in my heart says I wanna know about it.”

He presses his hand to my shoulder, squeezing as I look at it. “If it matters to you, then it matters to me. And if you’ve caught feelings for her, then fuck, Micah, I’ve caught feelings for her. We’ve spent our entire lives fighting a war within our own home. But our Stalin is dead now, so if Tiia Hale is gonna be part of this family, then I want to know her too. Now. Not in a year, or ten years.”

“You’re skipping way ahead.” I brush his hand off and turn back to my work. “She’s a woman I’m hanging out with, but you’re jumping to family and forever and all sorts of serious shit.”

“We lost Arch and Tim for half our lives. They’re our family, but we let them go, knowing it was for their own good. But that was sixteen years we’ll never get back. Sixteen years of not knowing the men they had become. Of not having their backs. We risked losing them forever, because we were too far away to do any damn thing if shit went bad. And we missed out on the good shit, too—like getting to spend time with the women they’d fallen in love with.”

He grabs my prepped pot just as I lift the monstera to place it inside, drawing my eyes and my ire as he pulls it out of my reach. “If Tiia matters, then I’m not losing sixteen years of hanging out with her. And if she doesn’t,” he places the pot behind his back, childish and annoying, “then say the words, ‘Tiia Hale is nothing but tasty pussy, and I don’t have feelings for her.’”

My teeth snap closed and my hands ball into dangerous fists.

“Say it,” he taunts. “Tell me she’s just sex. If she’s not important, I’ll let it go. But if she’s gonna be family someday, then she’s family today. I don’t intend to waste more time.”

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