Page 26 of Love Thy Brother
Rubi stood and closed the distance between us, stopping short of touching me but swallowing enough of my personal space that he might as well have stripped us both naked. “Because I’m the sad sack of shite that gets to be this close without any fucking place in your life. Reckon it’s gonna hurt worse than never seeing you at all, and I don’t know if I’m gonna survive it.”
I swallowed thickly. “You think I’m gonna kill you?”
Rubi leaned in and rubbed his nose to mine. “One day, Riv. And I’m okay with that.”
He left before I could answer. Vapourised like he’d never been there. If I’d only had a mega-comedown to deal with, I’d have accepted the hallucination as my favourite kind of daydream. But it had been a day, so I stood, shellshocked and waiting for the deep rumble of Rubi’s bobber, as deep and visceral as its rider.
When it didn’t come, I sank to my fucking knees.
7
RUBI
The safe house was a first-floor bedsit opposite the house River shared with Oscar, the Hot Fisherman.
That was his official name. Least, it was now I’d trained myself out of referring to him as That Cunt for no other reason than he spent more time with River than I did.
They didn’t even spend that much time together.Fisherman, yo. The dude was gone one week to the next.
He was gone now.
I’d checked. It was why I was glued to the bedsit’s big bay window instead of inspecting the tiny space that would be my home for the foreseeable future.
Instead of checking in with my favourite brothers, like I usually would at this time of day. Reminding Alexei to come home for dinner, for his sake as much as Cam’s. Making sure Saint and Em were feeling good. That Mats was still as low-key delighted with his life as he’d been since last summer.
A sacred ritual, but I wasn’t feeling it tonight. My first text was always to Nash and that road was blocked right now. Instead of checking in, I checkedout. Hyper-focused on River and every microscopic detail I remembered from this clusterfuck of a day.
He’s home. It should’ve reassured me, but it didn’t. River was like me—he didn’t do well on his own. Andunlike me, he didn’t pester people to keep him company. He went looking for trouble to distract him from whatever was twisting his melon, and the dude I saw earlier had a brain like a fucking pretzel.
It was sad that I could tell by the fact he hadn’t punched me when I’d invaded his existence. That he’d leaned on me. I couldn’t recall the last time he’d done that... sunk into me with little conscious thought. Like he trusted me. Like helovedme. But as good as he’d felt in my arms, I couldn’t shift the disquiet crawling in my veins. River was a mini Cam without the responsibility and distraction of a hundred other people to worry about. Like every O’Brian, he felteverythingto his fucking core, and he lacked Orla’s ability to shut that shit down.
A light came on at the front of his house. I saw his shadow cross the room and duck into another—the kitchen. To get dinner or a beer. Milk for a cuppa. Whatever. That I was tangenting so hard let me know how tired I was. I needed Riv to get his head down and catch some Zs. I’d still watch him as long as I could, but if there was one thing I knew about River O’Brian, it was that he was up with the birds every morning. Which meant I needed to fucking sleep, and soon, before exhaustion gave me another skull-cracking migraine.
The light went off again. I watched River climb the stairs until he disappeared out of sight, but I didn’t relax. Couldn’t. Fatigue was heavy in my bones, but I was wired too tight. Couldn’t even push away from the window, and the synchrony with how I’d started my day was fucking tragic.
My phone buzzed.
A message.
Couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t hoping for Nash, but among Orla’s unread texts, it was Alexei’s name that lit up the screen.
Alexei:I am here. Saint will be later. Get some rest, old one.
Old one. Of all the uninvited nicknames he’d doled out, mine was definitely the least complimentary. But as I read the message, I didn’t care if he called me an ugly twat for the rest of my life.
Rubi:You fucking star. I’ll text him when I’m awake again.
Alexei:You think he will not know?
Rubi:I don’t like to think about what you two lizard pixies know. Makes me feel like a gerbil in a lab.
Alexei:A rodent fetish is not something I can help you with.
Dry bastard. Alexei’s sense of humour was a mystery to me. I could never tell if he was impervious to fun or ripping me to shreds the whole time. Lucky for him, I liked a challenge.
I sent him a meme of a rat in a sparkly thong.
He ignored me.
