Page 40 of Love Thy Brother
“I’m gonna go,” he said suddenly.
At least, it was sudden to me. I released his hands. Stepped back and swept my keys from the cold ground. “Are you going home?”
Rubi shrugged and his gaze slid sideways, that tell that he was bullshitting me for the sake of the club. But for once, I didn’t feel like getting angry about it. Honestly, I didn’t care where he went as long as he was okay.
Ask him to stay.
God, I wanted to. But then what? We couldn’t fuck again, not like this. We were too broken to survive it. Both of us. I saw that now, after months and months of selfish rage. Trouble was, I had no idea how to fix anything, and I had the kind of brain that needed time and space to figure it out.
“What are you thinking?”
His murmured question felt left field and I didn’t have an answer.
I turned it back on him. “Not much. Wanna tell me what’s rattling around that big brain of yours?”
Rubi ventured closer and took my keys. He unlocked the door and steered me through it, keeping himself on the outside. “I was thinking about what you said earlier about standing on your dick.”
“Nice. Where did that take you?”
“To the only conclusion there is.”
I leaned on the doorframe, silently inviting him to elaborate.
Rubi’s grin was brief and wicked. “The truth,” he said. “That if you ever have your dick out around me again, it’ll be in my mouth.”
9
RUBI
I took River’s phone with me. Skulked back to the safehouse and fell asleep, safe in the knowledge Alexei and Saint had my back.
In the morning, I woke up on the sofa bed in the safehouse, legs hanging off the end, neck cricked and sore from the double whammy of bad posture and stress.
It was early, still dark and misty outside, but I was too wired to go back to sleep. Too damn uncomfortable too. I rolled to my feet and into the bathroom, stepping over the wet clothes I’d dumped on the floor when I’d stumbled into a cold shower last night to calm the fuck down.
You’re turning into Alexei. He likes cold things.
He didn’t. It was more he was still learning how to enjoy being warm, but that was a philosophical ponder for another day.
I took a hot shower and hung my wet clothes up. Found my phone and winced at the message I’d sent Saint last night.
Rubi:I feel like I have eight personalities.
His advice?
Saint:pick one
Cheers, bro.
The pointless exchange reminded me I still held River’s phone hostage. And that I didn’t entirely remember why I’d taken it, aside from stopping him scoring a ten bag of ket.
Wouldn’t have stopped him.
Truth. I rubbed my face, stress splintering the pre-dawn calm. The naivety we all woke with before reality crashed down on us.“... every week for months now.”
I shivered.
Fuck that. And fuck the mess last night had descended into. I was used to complex conversations. To nights that spun upside down and back again too fast to keep up. But I was out of practice at spending time with River. At being so close to him and flaying myself open, knowing he saw me in ways no one else ever had.
