Page 55 of Storm Bound
“Believe it or not, she’s the sanest of the bunch.”
“I do. I’ve got three younger brothers, remember? I know what siblings are like,” I said.
“Oh yeah. And you said they’re all single, right?” Charlie and I walked side by side down the street.
“Yup.”
“Any other gays in the family? Maybe we can hook Luke up,” he said.
I laughed.
“Well, let’s see. One is a divorced lawyer with a two-year-old. The other is a marine who’s busy with the war overseas, and the third one is a party animal loose in a college somewhere in the Midwest.”
“Okay. And you say your mom is only harassingyouabout getting married?”
“I’m not the only one. But I’m the oldest one. So, in a way… you know. She thinks my time’s running out to find someone. The divorced brother is off the hook for now because he’s dealing with... his divorce, and the other ones are still her babies. Like, I think they’re still breastfeeding if I’m honest.”
Charlie laughed, and his laughter was infectious so I couldn’t help myself either.
“I hope I can meet them one day,” he said.
I took his hand in mine and stared into his beautiful green eyes. “You will.”
He offered me a soft kiss on the lips and then pulled me by the hand as we crossed the road and came up to his brother’s boarded-up bar. There were a couple of guys outside smoking, and the third I recognized as Luke. “Look what the cat dragged in,” he said as soon as he saw his brother.
“Charming as always, bro,” Charlie said, punching him in the arm.
“You know it. Hey, Adam. I see my brother let you out of his dungeon, finally,” Luke said, and I almost choked on nothing.
Did he say dungeon? Did he know about Charlie’s kink? Why would he know? That was weird.
“Oh shut up, Luke. I’ve not been hiding him. We’ve just been busy. What’s with all my siblings today?” Charlie responded, but I still wasn’t clear whether Luke knew or not.
“Wh-what are yuh guys doing here? I thought the place was being renovated,” I said, more to distract my worried head than anything.
“It is. But we promised Kyle and Andy we’d help them in exchange for booze, so here we are,” Luke said and introduced me to the other two guys, who both turned out to be chefs in the bar.
When the guys finished smoking, Luke took us all in. The place was spacious, but it was a construction site at the moment. There were booth frames in progress around the outer wall and a bar on the other end, but it didn’t have a top.
A tall man was helping a younger, thin ginger guy nail something on the wall and when they were done, they turned around.
“Oh, we’ve got guests,” the younger guy said and rushed to meet us. “Hi Charlie. Hi, you must be Dr. Kravitz.” He turned to me and shook my hand. “I’m Kyle. So nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you. So tell me what did you do to steal this one’s heart? What happened during the tropical storm? Did you really bump uglies?”
“Erm, Andy? Can you collect your boyfriend? He’s gone haywire again,” Charlie said to the bigger man.
“I have no more control over him than you do, little bro,” the hunk of a man said.
He wasn’t just tall, he had muscles for days and dark eyes. He was the definition of Greek American. I was still not sure who Charlie had taken from to come out blonde with green eyes.
“Well, at least gag him so he doesn’t ask so many questions,” Charlie said.
“Oh, that he does,” Kyle said with a cheeky smirk that told me all I needed to know about their relationship and who was in control.
“My brothers, ladies and gentlemen. The queens of TMI,” Luke said, spreading his arms to his sides like wings with a proud smile.
Everyone laughed, and Charlie eventually kissed Kyle’s cheek.
“So what are you drinking?” Kyle asked. “We’ve got everything but cocktails. As you can see, we don’t have a bar, so no space for the kit.”
