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My lips part as I stare at him in astonishment.
“That’s enough,” he mutters to my brother.
“This doesn’t involve you, Dean,” Adam growls in return.
“If you plan on laying your hands on him, it does.”
It feels like the floor gives out beneath me. Even my brother’s face morphs into surprise. He stares at Dean with confusion as he takes a step back.
I replay the words that just came out of Dean’s mouth to gauge if they’re as protective and intimate as I think they are. Or maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe I’m hearing things the way I want to hear them.
Adam doesn’t ask questions or demand to know why my tenant is suddenly so defensive of me. He lets the anger drain from his face as his gaze dances back and forth from Dean to me and back again.
His rage doesn’t dissipate entirely, but he gets control of it as he mutters at me ruefully, “Promise me you won’t help that man, brother.”
I stare at Adam with assurance. “I wouldneverhelp him.”
As Dean steps aside, giving my brother and me some breathing room, the three of us take a moment to compose ourselves. And when I expect questions or someone to address the elephant in the room, no one does.
Instead, Adam opens the door and vehemently storms downstairs. Left alone with Dean, I glance in his direction before he has the chance to leave. When his eyes meet mine, it feels like the underwear situation all over again.
A thousand words and possibilities exist in the long moments of silence when the things we should express get left unsaid.
And just like that, he walks away and heads downstairs.
Twenty-Seven
Dean
This family is so fucking weird. Granted, I don’t have a lot to compare it to. It was just me and my dad growing up, and we never didfamilyshit.
So I have no clue if this is how normal families behave. Yelling at each other in private rooms one minute, then saying grace and talking about the weather around the table the next.
This is how they were when we were kids, and I see nothing has changed.
Abby asked to sit next to me, which made Sage grumpy because, apparently, she always likes to sit next toher.
“She has a new favorite,” I brag across the table, to which my pink-haired boss just sticks her tongue out at me.
Abby giggles and leans in closer to me.
After that outburst in the office, everything is mostly normal. There is still a thick tension in the air, but I think most of that is just from the situation of their patriarch being a slimy, villainous creep.
I like Adam, I do. But the way he yelled at Caleb got under my skin fast. Maybe it was what happened the other night with Briar, but I feel closer to Caleb now.
I’m still mad at him for what happened, but as I get to know him more and see just how complex his life has become, I think I understand him a bit more than I did when I was fourteen.
IthinkI’d consider him a friend, although friend doesn’t seem the right word. He’s something to me now. I just wish I knew what.
At the end of the table is Caleb’s twin brother, Lucas—although they’re not identical. Caleb is so much broader and taller, whereas Lucas is built more like me. He’s slender and quiet. I notice the way he watches the room as if he’s studying us but doesn’t bother to weigh in much.
I wonder if he and Caleb are close. When Lucas arrived, he seemed to be able to tell immediately that Caleb was worked up. One look and he was approaching his brother with concern. For that, I stepped away, letting Caleb have a little privacy with his twin.
But now, as we sit at dinner, I feel Adam’s eyes on me every few minutes, but he doesn’t look as angry as before. He looks curious, which I can understand. I was acting like Caleb’s boyfriend in there, practically pounding my chest like some overprotective gorilla.
That shit is just not like me.
“I hope none of you have forgotten about the charity gala next week,” Caleb’s mother, Melanie, says from the head of the table.
