Page 129 of I Replaced His Husband
I bit my lip and looked away. I was strangely reluctant to publicly back Storm in front of everyone, but… truth was, he had told me Kay was my TM before I even had confirmation.
Maybe Skye really should listen?
"Don’t embarrass yourself, Storm. We’ve got guests," Sun added, clearly happy to have an excuse to jab at our least favorite brother.
Storm muttered something under his breath and turned away.
It was a last chance.
I could’ve said something, could’ve told them maybe Storm had a point. I was the one who actuallyhad proofin my phone that Storm really had some kind of odd intuition. But… I didn’t. My own pettiness got in the way. It wasn’t my business, right? And I was kind of being a jerk.
We all headed to the cars, eager to leave the awkward moment behind. We had a reservation at a nearby restaurant.
As I got into our car, I caught Storm glaring at me, his eyebrows drawn together. Oh, he knew why I’d left him to fend for himself. If I had shown them the text message he’d sent me before I even got the test results at Malden, I bet their jaws would have dropped, because it was… truly unexplainable.
But I just smirked, and he flipped me off.
Whatever. I guess getting mauled by him as a teen still had some lingering impact. I wasn’t exactly in a forgiving mood.
As we drove, it kept bothering me, and I wasn’t totally happy with how I’d acted, especially since Skye might have really needed to hear that. I promised myself I’d message him later via DMs. As for Storm, well, that moment had passed anyway.
We got to the restaurant, but the family gathering wasn’t exactly cheerful, even though we were supposed to be celebrating Skye’s impressive graduation results.
Skye sat there, almost frozen, staring blankly at the wall. He barely answered any questions and seemed completely numb. Storm wasn’t much better, just sitting there looking moody. Snow was his usual silent, unreadable self, and Sun was glued to his phone.
Only Bay tried to make conversation, mostly chatting with our cousins Veyron and Raven, and occasionally engaging with our parents about his upcoming concert.
Nathaniel was doing his best to entertain Winter since they were both programmers, but Winter mostly ignored him. He was the head of the programming department at a company that developed software for games and apps, called DevApp, and he clearly looked down on Nathaniel’s small startup, especially since Nate only hired alphas, and Winter had strong opinions about alphas working in tech.
At one point, Kay leaned toward me and whispered, "Skye looks like he’s in shock. Something serious must’ve happened. I know that look. It’s like physical trauma."
"You’re right. He’s almost catatonic. But I don’t think he wants to talk about it. And saying anything in front of my brothers would just make it worse. It’s not the right time to push. I’ll message him later."
Kay nodded, getting it.
The gathering ended pretty quickly since all my brothers and cousins had stuff to do. Soon, we were all saying our goodbyes. I gave Skye a firm hug and whispered to him to call me if he needed anything, but he barely reacted.
I could see my dad was really worried too. His turquoise eyes were locked on Skye for most of the dinner.
Afterward, Skye packed his things into my parents’ van, and we all congratulated him one last time. My parents, of course, invited us to visit again soon, but I didn’t want to promiseanything, since a long trip could be too much for Kay at this stage of the pregnancy.
On the way home, I was lost in thought, and Kay slept the whole drive. Just as I pulled up to Adam’s place, I got a text from my dad. He’d managed to get Skye to open up, at least a little.
Turns out itwasabout the pierced guy, no surprise there. But Skye refused to give any details. He just said it was over,definitelyover, and not worth revisiting. He asked Nathaniel to give him as much programming work as possible and got to it the moment he stepped into the house.
Naturally, Nate wasn’t about to complain about suddenly having a full-time developer. And I was honestly surprised: Skye’s skills had really improved! I didn’t have to spend nearly as much time reviewing his code anymore, which was a huge relief.
When I reached out via DM later, trying to bring it up again, he shut down anything that had to do with the pierced guy.
There was just one time I got a small reaction. I messaged,"That guy was seriously hot. I’m not usually into the whole bad boy thing, but his face? Damn. He could be Kay’s cousin or something."I figured I had to say something like this, hoping it would hook his attention.
I saw the typing bubbles pop up and disappear a few times—like he kept starting and stopping—before he finally sent just one reply:"Yeah, he is very beautiful, but also toxic as fuck. It’s over anyway. I’m not talking about it."
"Look, I hate to say it, but Storm thinks you should talk to him. And he’s got a point."
"The fuck? Since when do you listen to Storm and his bullshit?"
"He kinda guessed about me and Kay. His instincts might not be so off. I think maybe you should give it a shot."
