Page 28 of What About Us
“Where the hell do you find these women?” My brother hasn’t been in a committed relationship in years, but it doesn’t seem to keep him from getting laid. Often.
He reaches down to finish zipping his pants and buckling his belt. “They find me.” Extending his arms to stretch his chest, he flashes me a cocky grin.
He’s just back from a two-week road trip up the coast, and he’s tanned and relaxed. Not that I’ve ever seen Hutch anything other than relaxed. Even when he’s working his ass off, he has this unshakable air about him. He’s the complete opposite of our older brother, Hank, who has spent his entire life with a golden boy stick up his ass and almost everything pisses him off.
“No Paige today?” Hutch asks, rounding the back of his van. He opens the back door, fishing around just inside. He pulls out a faded henley and throws it on over his head, pushing the sleeves up his forearms. Then, he runs a hand through his slightly longer than shoulder-length hair before tying it up in a thick loop on the back of his head.
Hutch is a big motherfucker. He’s a good four inches taller than me, broad as hell, and covered in tattoos. He’s always been big—Mom’s biggest baby, even. He weighed something like, 10.5 lb. when he was born.
“She started camp today,” I say, turning to get the coffee that I picked up at my sister’s shop. “I saw Erin,” I say with a snicker.
“Took her long enough,” he says with an amused smirk, taking his coffee from me and walking back toward the firepit next to his van. “She bring you a cookie and try to jump you in the parking lot?”
I chuck my keys into the console of the truck and follow him to the chairs around the firepit. It’s where we all congregate out here, since he doesn’t have an actual living room. Well, that, and by the lake when we’re all swimming.
When I don’t respond, he barks out a laugh. “She did, didn’t she?”
“I didn’t give her a chance. But she almost broke her neck trying to get my attention, waving like crazy, and making a beeline for the truck. Thank fuck, I got out of there before she could make it over to me.”
“Mom told her you were single again,” Hutch says after a sip of his coffee.
I huff out a chuckle and take off the lid on my cup. “Of course, she did.”
He looks me over, his appraising gaze one of distaste. “Bro, what the fuck are you wearing?”
I look down at my cargo pants, T-shirt, and boots. “Fucking clothes, dipshit.”
He bursts out laughing. “You look like a scrawny-ass carbon copy of Hank. The fuck you do, raid his closet?”
“Eat a dick.” I scowl. Like Hank would. Goddammit. I smooth out my expression. “You think I’m gonna wear a three-hundred-dollar pair of slacks to help your stupid ass?” He laughs like the asshole he is, but I can’t help but crack a smile.
“So, back to Erin.” He tips his cup up and drinks. “You should take her out,” he says.
I shake my head and sip my coffee. “Nah.”
“Why not? She’s decent looking.”
As if that’s all that matters. I shrug. We sit in silence for a couple of minutes, drinking our coffee and listening to the birds in the trees.
Hutch clears his throat, drawing my attention. “How’s it going at Finn’s?”
I sit back, prop my ankle over my knee, straightening the hem of the cargo pants I’m never wearing again over the top of my boot, and sigh. I meet his eyes over the rim of my paper cup. “It’s all right.”
He watches me and takes a drink before saying, “Just all right?”
“Paige loves her new room. She spends hours in there reading her books and playing with her babies.”
“It’s not awkward at all?” he asks, brows working up his forehead.
His question catches me off guard, and I narrow my eyes at him. “Why would it be awkward?”
He lifts a shoulder, but doesn’t say anything, just keeps his gaze on mine. It’s like a Jedi mind trick, though, because the longer he stares at me, the more uncomfortable I become. I never told him about kissing Finn, butafter last summer, I’d confided in him, telling him how I felt about her. He didn’t say much. Kind of like right now. It pisses me off. But it doesn’t stop me from talking.
“If I could get her to actually take care of herself, that’d be great.”
He waits for me to elaborate. I swear he does this shit on purpose. He’s always been this way; he doesn’t even have to say anything, and people just talk.
“I don’t think she’s taking her insulin when she should, and she constantly forgets to eat. She’s been having dizzy spells. Last night, her CGM went off, and she was so weak that she couldn’t even make it to the bathroom by herself.”
