Page 68 of Ward Willing
“And she likes you, too?” Chase asks.
“Yes,” Orion answers. I scowl at him, but he chuckles and sips his water. “It’s so fucking obvious. It has been for months, if not years. I thought you knew.”
I take two large sips of beer. “It’s possible I knew she had a little crush,” I admit. “But she was—sheis—so fucking young.”
“Listen,” Chase starts, leaning closer. “Juliet is six years younger than me.”
“And Stella is eight years younger than Miles,” Orion adds.
“That’s nothing,” I mutter, taking another sip of beer. At this rate, the club will run out of beer before I’m done spilling my guts to my brothers. “Zoe is twenty years younger than me. I held her in the hospital right after she was born. I was already a full-fledged adult by then,” I add. The usual guilt and loathing claw at my stomach as I say the words out loud.
“I thought you might say that,” Chase says quickly, pulling his phone out. “I compiled a list of why this might be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
Orion snorts. “You’re turning more into Juliet every day,” he tells Chase.
Chase frowns as he looks down at his phone. “There’s a time and a place for lists. This is one of them. First, did you know that couples with a large age gap communicate better?”
My lips twitch as I realize Orion is right. Chase is morphing into his wife with every passing day. Soon, they’ll be one homogenous blob of flesh.
“Second, relationships that carry a stigma tend to have higher levels of commitment than relationships that are more traditional. Third, people with a large age gap tend to live longer than other couples?—”
“Alright, I get it,” I grumble. “And I might actually consider it if she weren’t Elias’s daughter.”
Chase looks at Orion, and they share a look. Iknowthat look.
Pity.
Both Zoe and I got a lot of those fucking looks four years ago. It hits me then that despite my brothers having empathy for our situation and helping out with Zoe whenever they were needed, they didn’tactuallyknow. Theycouldn’tknow. What Zoe and I went through, whatshewent through… they weren’t there when she would come home for holidays and act like a zombie, or plaster on a fake smile. They weren’t there when I couldn’t get out of bed, even though I know they tried their best. For a while I could barely breathe from the grief and the weight of responsibility bearing down on me.
Though I have my depression and anxiety under control now, the way with which Zoe came into my life—and my home, permanently—couldn’t be overlooked.
“Juliet is my best friend’s sister,” Chase says after a minute of having a silent conversation with Orion. “Miles and Estelle were an arranged marriage…”
“Technically I’d call it a marriage of convenience,” Orion interjects, grinning.
“I get it,” I tell them honestly.
“Look, you’re sort of past the point of no return,” Orion replies. “She’s pining after you, and you’re pining after her. I saw the way you two were eye fucking in the pub a few weeks ago.”
“Uh, that was not eye fucking.”
“Definite eye fucking,” Orion grumbles, leaning back. “It’s done now. You’ve crossed the line. From now on, it’s a matter ofhowyou’re going to cross the finish line.”
“I don’t know how to start.”
“First of all, safe words. Zoe is adamant about consent and limits.”
My eyes widen with horror. “I’d sure hope so.”
“It’s something you’ll want to discuss together. Most of your time is going to be spent communicating, so both of you knowing the safe words is pivotal,” Chase adds. “As for aftercare, it depends. You should ask her what she prefers, because she’s been active in the lifestyle for about a year, so she knows what she’s doing.”
I grab Chase’s whiskey, much to his chagrin, and slam the rest of it down. “Okay.”
“Zoe likes to brat out sometimes, so don’t be afraid to punish her,” Orion says.
I could’ve told him she was a brat. Not only has she been testing me for months by walking around in skimpy towels and making miscellaneous charges on her emergency credit card, she’s also been mouthier and more argumentative as of late. Her last poetry assignment, which I hadn’t graded but had looked over, was an erotic retelling of Romeo and Juliet in sonnet form.
She’d titled itCatalina.
