Page 22 of Into the Woods

“You’re late,” he muttered.

“Traffic was a bitch.”

His gaze slowly lifted to mine. “I made it here without an issue.”

“Not all of us had time management beaten into our skulls by the Navy,” I retorted, rubbing my temples, feeling a headache building.

He set down the papers, looking way too much like Royal with his disapproving scowl. “You’re right. Some of us lived the frat-boy life and didn’t have to learn things like discipline and promptness.”

I stared at him. “What the fuck crawled up your ass?”

Sighing, he leaned back in the seat and shook his head. “Sorry, man. It’s been… It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”

I remembered what Royal had said, about thinking Rook had hooked up with Emerson. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, hesitant. I’d always kind of felt like an outsider with my brothers. Truth be told, I considered Ryan, Ash, and Linc more my brothers than those bound to me by blood.

For the majority of my childhood, I hadn’t known my dad had a whole separate family living less than six miles away. It wasn’t until I’d heard my parents arguing over King’s death that I’d started asking questions. It had been the surprise of a fucking lifetime to find out I had six—no, make that five—brothers. That my dad had been with Holly since before he’d even met my mom in college.

Growing up, I’d never realized that my parents weren’t in love. Sure, they’d fought, but not like Ryan’s parents. My mom wasn’t terrified of my dad the way Linc’s mom was of his dad. And Ash’s parents were so bland that I wasn’t even sure how he’d been conceived. By those standards, my parents were normal.

The truth was my parents had married because it had been the best move for them financially and politically. My dad had never hidden Holly from my mom, hadn’t even bothered. In fact, it was the opposite. Their marriage worked because they both knew the score, and they both knew enough to ruin the other if one fucked up the balance they’d set up.

The closest they’d come was when I’d turned thirteen.

That was the year I found out about my parents’ deep, dark secrets. That Dad was a sadistic narcissist. That my parents’ marriage was a total farce, and as soon as they knew that I knew, all bets were off.

Not that I cared. Back then I’d been a miserable fuck who had no idea how to channel all my rage and confusion into something more productive. Not until Royal got his hands on me months after I’d spiraled out of control.

The first time I ever met my brothers and Holly, I’d taken a taxi to their house. I’d watched them play in their yard and then go inside before I found the balls to knock on the front door.

Bishop had opened the door, taken one look at me, and asked what the fuck I wanted. He’d been almost sixteen at the time, and pissed at the entire goddamn world. They knew all about Jasper’s legitimate son. To them, I was the golden boy. The one who had everything while they got whatever leftovers Jasper deemed them worthy of.

Sure, they had a decent house in a middle-class suburb. One of those two-story colonial homes with four bedrooms, so they all shared their space with each other. It had a decent yard full of random sports equipment, but it wasn’t the thirteen-bedroom mansion I’d grown up in. Or the seven-thousand-square-foot summer home my parents had on a lake upstate.

It was clear from the jump that Holly wasn’t much of a parent. She was there for Jasper and seemed like a ghost whenever he wasn’t around. After losing her daughter in childbirth and then King when he was thirteen, she’d essentially shut herself off.

The first couple years of knowing my brothers had been rough. Royal had already enlisted in the army, so I hadn’t met him until later on. Rook had been eighteen and finishing his senior year. Bishop was almost three years older than me, Knight was a year younger, and Castle, the baby, was three years younger.

Watching them made something in my chest ache. They had this easy way of being together, sharing inside jokes. They were this unified wall against Dad that I wanted to be part of.

When Dad came back to their house and found me there, I expected him to be furious. Instead he took the time to point out how successful his other sons were. That Royal was on the fast-track to becoming a Green Beret. Rook was on track to graduate as valedictorian and was planning to join the U.S. Navy.

Bishop was class president.

Knight’s baseball team was the top-ranked team in North America.

Castle was a veritable genius with an insane IQ. At ten years old, he was already finishing middle school.

Dad had done everything he could to make me hate my brothers. To be jealous, and I was. But I wasn’t jealous of their accomplishments; I was jealous that I didn’t have the family they did. That I didn’t have brothers to lean on.

Rook had been the first to treat me like a brother. He’d been the oldest at home and had set the tone for the rest. After Dad and Holly disappeared upstairs, Rook asked me to come out and play football with them. He’d included me, and invited me back.

That had meant something. One by one, I’d earned their trust. Their respect. Their loyalty.

And if Rook was having a shit time now, then I would have his back, too.

Sighing, he snatched up the water bottle in front of him. He gave it a weird look. “Who drinks bottled water from a glass bottle?” His face screwed up in annoyance, but he took a long drink before screwing the top back on.

“Nice deflection,” I intoned, wondering if I was this difficult.

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