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“Look, man?—”
El cut me off, stepping out from behind my arm, where I’d tucked her behind me. “I asked him to keep it quiet. If things weren’t going to be serious, I didn’t see a point in riling up the family or putting him in the position to be ostracized by our siblings if things didn’t work out. I didn’t want him losing that home away from home.”
Rhyett quirked his head, a fierce scowl carving his features as he glared down at her. “What the fuck, El?”
“His friendship with you meant too much,” she added, shaking her head and straightening her spine.
“So fucking lying was the solution?” Jameson asked in blatant disbelief, glaring back at her.
“We never lied,” she argued.
“Bullshit,” Jameson muttered, running a palm over his hair.
“A lie of omission is still a lie,” Rhyett countered coolly. Jesus, hadn’t she told me that once?
“So, what happened? You just jumped at your first chance to get her alone? It is Vegas. Could’ve just sprung for a hooker. But you took advantage of a woman we’ve all watched pine for you for years.” Axel’s rapidly hurled accusations earned the first visceral reaction in my body—heart ratcheting up, hair on end, muscles bristling, vision zeroing in on his pissed-off face. It was the glassiness of his eyes and pink in his ears that told me he’d had one too fucking many. The feral smirk curling one side of his mouth said he wasn’t just drunk, but looking for a fight, and knew he’d hit his mark.
“Listen up, kid. I love you, so I’m going to tell you this once,” I said, my voice low as I squeezed her arm where I held onto her beside me. “Watch how you speak about my future wife, or I won’t hesitate to knock that smile off your face—trashed or not.” My snarled words had the desired effect. El straightened against me, her fingers tightening on mine. Noel’s head snapped to me so fast she popped her neck. Jameson stopped his feral prowl as Axel straightened off the wall, anger and confusion muddling their faces.
Rhyett’s brows winged so far up they nearly merged with his hairline. “Uh, I’m gonna need you to say that again.”
“El! We gotta get going,” Paxton came sauntering around the corner, his pace slowing as he surveyed the testosterone filled space. “Sooomebody gonna tell me what’s going on?”
“Brod’s been?—”
Before Axel could say something especially stupid, Jameson clamped his hand over that angry smirk, yanking him against his chest and growling, “Ax, shut the fuck up and go walk it off,” before shoving him down the hallway. Axel glared over his shoulder, but complied, muttering epithets as he vanished into a bedroom.
“That’s enough.” Milo’s resonant timbre brought everyone’s attention to him as he stepped out of his bedroom. “For Christ’s sake, I raised you boys better than all of this.”
Rhyett started, “Hey dad, we’re just?—”
“Go sit down,” he barked, pointing toward the living room. Milo was just a grayer, older compilation of his boys. Like he really had whittled a layer off his metaphorical block for each of them. But his voice was just an aged version of Jameson’s. “All of you. Now.” As El and I inhaled in unison, making to follow Rhyett and James as they led the march to what would be an inevitably uncomfortable conversation, Milo’s hand came down on my shoulder. “I think we both could use a drink for this, don’t you?”
With tempers quieted and seats taken, everyone gathered in a tense silence in the living room. Axel was still absent, but I couldn’t say I was mad about it. He’d always been an angry drunk. He’d feel like shit tomorrow. Come around with his tail between his legs. Always did.
“Mr. Allen,” Milo started, leaning back in his armchair to cross an ankle over a knee, resting his glass on his leg as he rotated it. Thirty-five years old, and I felt like a teenager all over again. “I believe you were trying to share something with the family before my boys started behaving like Neanderthals.”
I cleared my throat and gave El’s hand a little squeeze. “Elora and I had planned to talk to you all during the holiday but didn’t quite get the chance. We started dating while at the conference in Las Vegas.”
“It wasn’t planned, but it wasn’t… unexpected, either,” El added. “I’ve had feelings for Brod for years.”
“I don’t understand. This feels like it came out of nowhere,” Rhyett argued, while Jameson remained silent, his eyes on his hands where they hung between his knees.
“Oh please,” a chorus of feminine voices echoed from the kitchen where Brex, Noel, Juniper, the twins, and Quinn were all staring at us.
“Even I knew that,” Brex said, rolling her eyes. I couldn’t help but smile.
“Look, I love you both, but are you really that dense?” Noel’s eyes were pleading, but Jameson didn’t bother to look up and meet them. “I picked up on the sparks between these two idiots my first week on the island.”
“Hey,” El protested, but I was smirking.
“Don’t hey me, Miss, straighten my hair and skirt when he enters a building,” Noel quipped back, pouring herself a generous glass of wine. Rhodes gatherings were always chaos, but this one was…insane. Dogs were barking in the yard. Juniper was watching me with pain in her eyes as she came to sit with Milo. Pax was nervously glancing between El and his watch, where he still leaned against the arch of the hallway. Mav perched on the back of the couch with headphones on, although I suspected they were silent. Every pair of eyes was rotating to us and then whoever was talking. And I found it very, very hard to breathe.
“Look, I hate to do this,” Pax cut in. “But El and I booked the last flight into Manhattan tonight, and odds of anybody getting off the ground tomorrow are slim to none.”
“You’re leaving!?” Rhyett asked, whipping his head to El.
“I didn’t exactly have family intervention on the calendar tonight,” she explained.
