Page 6 of Xavier

Just as I was about to hit her back with another comment about Ellie, my pocket buzzed. Digging my phone out, I was expected to see Xavier’s name pop up, but to my surprise, it was Greyson’s.

Excusing myself from our conversation, I ducked out the left door of the firehouse and out the back alley where it was much more quiet.

“Hey, you, long time no talk.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Greyson said. “Wanted to call in and check on you.”

“Worried I took a nasty fall and couldn’t get up?”

I could hear the grin in his voice as he said, “You caught me, old man.”

I rolled my eyes.

Little shit.

My brotherslovedpicking on my age despite them being not so far behind me. Now that they were both nineteen, they were going to get a nice little dose of reality once they got up to be my age andtheirbones were beginning to creak every time they rolled out of bed.

“Ha, ha. Very funny.”

“I know. Poor, Ash. I got the smarts and the humor.”

Smirking, I quipped back. “But not the beauty.”

He let out an offended gasp. “Rude. I’m taking you off my Christmas card list.”

“Hey, now. Don’t be saying that. You’re coming home for Christmas, mister.”

There was a weird pause on the other end of the line. One that I didn’t like at all. “Well…”

Uh-uh, no way. This wasnothappening. My baby brothers were both going to come home to me for the holidays because I wasn’t going to be taking any other excuse other than an act of god. They’d been away from home long enough to give me grays everytime I looked in the damn mirror by being out in the world without me.

If I was about to spend a holiday by myself—my first holidaywithoutthem—I was going to fucking lose it. Xavier was going to have to commit me to the nearest psych ward.

“Grey, don’t you dare,” I warned.

“It’s just… my boss is kind of being a hardass and wants me to stay through the holidays.”

I wanted to groan. This fucking boss of his was not only messing with me reuniting with my brother after him being gone for almost an entire fucking year, but was slowly worming his way into Grey’s life in more ways than what I was comfortable with.

To me, it was becoming increasingly obvious that my little brother’s crush on the man was going from juvenile puppy love to something that was full-blown. How deep it really was, I had no idea. Greyson wasn’t exactly chatty on the subject. But the unspoken shit said plenty as it was.

“Grey, you’re coming home.” My tone was firm. There was no option of him telling me ‘no’. I’d fly out to Texas and drag his sorry ass back home kicking and screaming if I had to.

“We’ll see,” was all he said to that.

“I mean it, Grey. You and Ash are coming home for the holidays.”

“Do we get to meet this infamous Xavier if we do?”

“Seriously?”

“What?” Greyson’s voice flipped from challenging to all innocent. “Come on. You talk about him enough whenever we call. Isn’t Christmas the perfect time to introduce us?”

I had a funny feeling that was the original reason for my brother calling. If Asher hadn’t put him up to it first, then they definitely conspired together. I’d been slowly working my way into introducing Xavier into their lives with small mentions here and there about him whenever they called me.

It wasn’t much, sure, but I wasn’t completely leaving them in the dark about it, either. I wanted my brothers to get to know my boyfriend, even if he was across the damn country. At some point, Iwouldactually like for us all to meet and hang out, mostly so I could get a read on whether my brothers approved or not.

It sounded silly to want that from two nineteen year olds when I was well into my adulthood and didn’t need their approval in the slightest. However, it would also mean a lot to me, too. My history of dating had never been stellar in the past, with me hardly bringing anyone home on top of that.

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