Page 40 of Xavier

What the hell had these two brought home, fucking bricks?

“Wow, you’re way taller than I expected,” one of them said. “Gage, you got a type.”

“Shut up,” he gritted through his teeth, face on fire.

“Oh really…” Sue me for being curious, but I had to know. “Do tell.”

I was never one to get jealous, but when it came to Gage, all bets were off. I’d never go out of my way to beat someone up if I caught them flirting with him, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t be marking my territory with a heated kiss or something similar.

Call me a caveman.

The twin with the shorter hair laughed. “We have stories for days. You want to hear what it was like when he had a crush on the cashier at the mini-mart down the road? Oh, or how about that time he was trying to hit on the guy at the gas station who was buying a bunch of junk food ‘cause he had the munchies and could barely understand Gage because he was so high.”

“Asher. Shut up,” Gage choked out.

Oh, this was too good. “You guys up for long? I’ve got all weekend.”

They both grinned at me.

“Hey, I like him,” the one with the longer hair said, nudging Gage in the ribs.

“Greyson,” Gage said in a monotone, gesturing to one twin and then the other. “Asher. This is Xavier.Behave.”

“It’s nice to meet you two,” I said.

“Likewise,” they both said at the same time.

“I’m so sorry ahead of time,” Gage said to me.

“I think you might be needing that sentiment more than me.”

He answered me with a groan.

“Wait, where’s your little dude?” Asher said, glanced around.

“He’s taking a breather.” Forcing my kid to be social kind of felt wrong, especially after the intense morning we’d had. If he wanted to hide for a bit while these two got settled, I wasn’t going to tell him no.

Asher nodded sagely. “Respect.”

Behind him, Gage rolled his eyes. “Okay, you two. Stop interrogating him. You’re going to scare him off.”

My face twisted into a smile. Not likely, but they could damn well try. I had a feeling we were going to get along fine. I had a few tricksters to deal with back home, so this wasn’t much different. As long as they respected Dexter, we’d be all good.

“You guys have a long flight?” I asked, leading them back into the living room.

“Not too bad,” Asher answered first. “Grey had to wait for my plane to land while I got to sleep like a baby on my flight over.”

“I hate that you can pass out on anything even remotely comfortable,” his brother said, tossing his bag down by the hallway leading back to the bedrooms.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘envy’.”

I felt an arm snake around my waist from behind, tugging me back while the boys headed for the kitchen together. Gage nuzzled his face into my neck, breathing me in while he had a tight hold of me.

“Quite the surprise,” I said once we were alone.

He kissed my neck. “You okay with this?”

“Your house, babe.”

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