Page 1 of Mine to Keep

CHAPTER ONE

One Month Ago

Matt

“I’m sohappy you finally agreed to come out with us.” Joan’s violet-painted lips were wide, her eyes glassy. She’d been drinking a lot since we arrived…which had been only an hour ago.

“Sorry. I wanted to hang sooner, but this new client, he was in bad shape. I had to be more hands-on than normal. The first month was a lot of recovery, but they still needed me there. By the end of every day, I was beat.”

She nodded. “Camie gave you that assault victim.” She snapped her fingers. “J something.”

“He’s a great guy—he’s come a long way. I know Camie gave him to me, thinking I’d quit when I found out it was in-house physical therapy, but it’s cool. Pay is amazing, and the house is gorgeous.”

“This the house with all those guys living there…brothers, right?” Lewis, who worked with me and Joan, came to the table with a cold beer.

“Saint brothers. Yep, that’s them.” I pursed my lips as I thought about those men.

It was a huge house, and they were all foster brothers except for the twins. Those two were blood related. I hadn’t seen a lot of them—mostly just my patient, JJ, and his boyfriend, Shepard. I’d been there every day, even the weekends, until recently. JJ was doing a lot better. Another month and he’d cut down to maybe two days a week.

Joan fanned herself. “That’s some serious hotness. They run that bakery, Saintly Sweets. Delicious food—even yummier owners.”

I rolled my eyes. “Joan, go dance and work off some of that…” I made a figure eight with my hand. “Whatever that is.”

She laughed, pulled Lewis up, and dragged him to the dance floor. The Alibi was our favorite club. I loved its diversity and while loud at times, there was never any drama, fights, or major issues.

“All alone?”

I looked up to see Darnell holding two drinks. “Joan forced Lewis to dance.”

Darnell sat and pushed one of the drinks over to me, then sipped his own. “They need to just fuck and be done with it.”

I guffawed. “Lord, no. That can’t happen.”

Darnell hummed. “She’d eat him alive.”

“True facts, my friend.”

Darnell, Joan, Lewis, and I worked at Rybelt Physical Therapy and Sports Management. Once a month, we’d get together at The Alibi and decompress. This was the first time I’d been able to join them since I’d started working with JJ.

“I gotta ask.” Darnell leaned forward. “What’s it really like being in a house with all those guys?” He jerked his head toward Joan and Lewis. “I heard them talking to you about it.”

I had to be careful. While Darnell was my closest friend at work—hell, we’d dated for a few months a while back—I still had to maintain privacy.

“It’s different. I hadn’t done live-in therapy before, so if I’m being honest, it took me more time to adjust to that than to get to know any of them.”

“Well, what’s a typical day for you?”

I sipped my drink, wondering what I could say to appease him. “Get up, eat, then usually meet JJ. We do morning routines, break, and after that do afternoon ones. In the evening, it’s mostly massage and relaxation—things like that. Then I pass out.”

He nodded. “Was that why Tony and you broke up, you not being around?”

I snorted, thinking about that asshole. “No. I mean, it wasn’t the final straw for him, but Tony and I were never going to work. He was demanding, a serious control freak, and closed-minded.”

“How so?” Darnell cocked his head.

“About two weeks before I’d started working for JJ, I came out of the shower and he was looking at one of my photo albums. And not just any—the one Trinity made me.”

“You just had that laying out there?”

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