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He was better.
He was so much better than me, and in that moment, I let him be that way.
An arch hit Dorian’s eyebrow. He obviously wasn’t convinced things were good, but I doubted he had the patience to deal with more shit.
I certainly didn’t.
Instead, he nodded, his hands slipping into his pockets. “Well, I guess I came to say don’t plan on doing anything tonight. Making plans or anything like that.”
“Why?” the kid asked, and Dorian just stamped his boots in front of me. He liked to wear these old military boots. The dude was richer than Midas but liked to thrift to accomplish his style. He had since high school.
“Because thanks to this one,” he stated, pointing at me, “the dads are making us go to the fucking ballet.”
Holy fuck.
“The Nutcracker is in town,” he said, his dark eyes narrowed, charged. I was definitely putting my friend through the wringer right now, all of them. The only reason the Legacy fathers would make us all go to the ballet was because one of us guys fucked up. In a nutshell, our dads scheduled ballet outings to humble us. Their logic was it made us better men to see the delicate ways male leads handled female ballerinas on stage. It was a reminder for us to step up our own games. Ballet outings were reserved for offenses against a woman, and it didn’t matter who caused the offense.
We all went.
It’d been a while since I was the screwup, and I guess my dad’s punishment was starting. My gaze hit the floor. “Sorry.”
“Yeah.” D left my ass, and I started to leave as well, but the kid got my arm.
“Kid,” I warned, so much warning there. Now wasn’t the time.
I could still hear her showering.
I needed to leave now before I did something about that, but my brother’s hand didn’t leave my arm. “Ares—”
I worked my arm away, a feat in itself.
It hadn’t been abrasive.
I controlled myself, and I was doing so now as I made myself walk away from him and the situation. I was choosing to believe the best-case scenario here, that being that my parents had set up Fawn in Bru’s room intentionally. That they’d done that because she was an added guest and would need a roommate placement. This made sense to me, the only scenario here.
I refused to entertain any kind of alternative.
CHAPTER TEN
Bru
“You’re lucky we love your idiot ass.”
I glanced up from my cell phone. Thatcher had let into Wolf shortly after Wells had regarding the whole ballet thing.
It saved me from having to do the job.
I had more on my mind at the moment, my thoughts lingering on a certain confrontation during which my brother lost his shit and freaked me the hell out. I was still freaked the hell out, confused.
Not that my brother would look at me.
He had his eyes on the road, Dorian Prinze at his side. They’d both been very quiet, but Thatcher and Wells had enough words for all of us.
Thatcher grunted. “I should be resting off my fucking jet lag, but here I am in this tight-ass tux suffering for your fuckup.”
I knew the feeling, my own tux tight as fuck. It appeared all our parents had managed to hide away our tuxedos, the surprise of this ballet field trip sprung on us.
I’d be lying if I said all this wasn’t familiar, though. When one of us messed up, our dads took us to the ballet. That was just how things were. They wanted us to treat women better, and I got that even though I’d never been the reason for the outing.
