Page 109 of Love Thy Brother
Fuck, I was a mess.
I leaned forward, dumping my elbows on my knees, and let my head hang, closing my eyes.Rubi.That was my only thought, but when the couch dipped beside me, it wasn’t him.
The scent of lemon and mint washed over me. I opened my eyes to Embry staring back at me, and it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. And better than that, he didn’t speak. Just grinned and sank back into the cushions, already half asleep.
I let him be, noting he hadn’t appeared alone. Alexei was back too, watching me with a gaze I had no hope of deciphering.
Sighing, I sat up, stretching the kinks from my spine. “You have something to say?”
“Nothing you do not already know.”
“I’m not going to hurt Cam.”
“I did not think that you would.”
“Or Saint.”
Alexei raised a brow. “You think it is only Cam and Saint that concern me?”
I paused in the action of picking a thread from my old T-shirt. “You’re worried about Rubi?”
Alexei shrugged and moved closer to sit on the coffee table. “Perhaps. I will spare you another painful conversation, though. You are more astute than you want to be.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Beside me, Embry snorted, but his laughter was cut short by the kitchen door banging open.
I jumped a mile. Only Embry’s gentle restraint stopped me lurching to my feet.
“Easy. They’re not coming for you.”
An offkey chorus of Happy Birthday backed him up. Then Mateo’s daughter and her little blonde sidekick danced in with party poppers and swarmed Alexei, throwing their slender arms around him as if he wasn’t a lethal hitman that terrified the underworld.
They climbed all over him, Ivy on his lap, Liliana up his back. They had presents and cards.
Love and laughter.
I’d seen a lot of shit that blew my mind, but this was top ten.
And maybe for Alexei too.
He rose, taking Ivy and Liliana with him, clinging to his slim frame like limpets. Where he planned to go, I had no idea, but the room filled with brothers before he had the chance, and he sat back down to more presents.
More laughter, mostly at his bemused expense.
Ivy tied a plaited bracelet around his wrist. It was the same as Rubi’s, but without the hot pink. Alexei traced the gunmetal-silver with his fingertip. “Why did you choose this colour for me?”
Ivy finished her rough, loose knot. “It’s like your socks with the silver unicorns. Everything else is black or white.”
“Hmm. So the most interesting thing about me is my socks?”
“No, silly. You know lots of weird things too.”
“All right.” Rubi waded between them and plucked Ivy from Alexei’s lap. “Nash, give him his real present.”
Nash. Damn. Hadn’t noticed him loitering as far from Rubi as it was possible to get. Couldn’t miss the sudden tension in the room, though. Or the lack of eye contact between him and Rubi as he stepped forward, a newspaper-wrapped gift in his tattooed hands. “You’re a leap year baby. And you’re, like, Russian and shit. I couldn’t find a Daily Star to fit you, so I used the one we saved for Saint’s birthday instead.”
Alexei took the present and examined the print on the newspaper gift wrap. “That is where English people keep their vegetables?”
