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“Getting naked and jumping fences?”
“Oui.”
He blinks and breathes hot breath through his nose. He’s straight-forward and direct. I talk like I’m taking every roundabout, side-street, and detour on a map, and lately we haven’t always crossed paths. He’s trying not to be lost inside metaphors and subtext.
“Dude, it’s like a morgue in here.”
Tom.
We turn, just as Tom trots closer with buckles clinking on a black rocker jacket. Golden-brown hair artfully styled, mouth in a corkscrew smile, charm and mischief melded together.
He’s eighteen and I’ve seen him grip a microphone like a second heart. Singing with every ounce of power and feeling inside of him. Captivating a screaming, frenzied audience with such tremendous ease.
But in this moment, he’s not a lead singer of an emo-punk band.
He’s just my little brother.
One who put toothpaste and shaving cream on our dad’s pillow, thinking he wouldn’t notice. (He did.) One who was so afraid of Jurassic Park as a child, he crawled into my bed for the whole month of July.
Tom swings his head to Eliot with a laugh. “You think it’s us?” He means the dead quiet.
Eliot grins. “If it’s not, I’d be offended.” He unbuttons his expensive pea coat. If the God of War and hedonistic Dionysus birthed a child, they’d spit out my nineteen-year-old brother.
It’s best not to confront Eliot and Tom. They’ll joke around the truth like they’re batting an inflatable ball over my head, and I need answers.
So I do the sensible thing and approach Ben. “Pippy.” I use his nickname.
My sixteen-year-old brother lingers near a dirtied high-top table. He offers me a warm smile while he takes off his Dalton Academy beanie and unzips his letterman jacket, one for ice hockey. He’s grown into his height, and at six-five, he stands like a confident athlete.
I touch his arm. “Que se passe-t-il?” What’s going on?
He winces a little. “Demande à Charlie.” Ask Charlie.
I frown. “What’d he put you up to?”
“Nothing. I want to be here,” Ben says strongly. “It’s important.” I wonder why our sister isn’t with them, but it’s a question for later.
My voice is soft as I ask, “Then why do you look pained?”
“Parce que. Je ne pense que cela te plaira beaucoup.” Because. I don’t think you’ll enjoy this very much.
My stomach drops out of my butt.
I glance over at Beckett. He leans calmly on the bar and eats a carton of Wendy’s fries. Tonight is a rare night where he doesn’t have a ballet performance, and I bet that’s why they chose today.
So he could be here.
His lips are noticeably downturned and face sullen. He locks eyes with Donnelly, his former bodyguard.
I mutter under my breath, “It’s like a break-up.”
More than just me notices their silent, uncomfortable exchange. With an equally morose expression, Donnelly stuffs his cheesecake in a plastic bag and waves goodbye to Farrow and Oscar before he leaves the bar altogether.
Beckett is a heartbreaker, I’ve come to realize.
“Which mailman lost my invite this time?” Charlie asks dryly.
I locate him, just as he stands up on the bar with unkempt sandy-brown hair and mysteries behind yellow-green eyes. He has no coat, just an askew white button-down that sticks halfway out of black slacks.
The media talks about how we, Cobalts, are intelligent and witty. Poised and confident. But very few mention how deeply we feel.
How Eliot can summon tears out of cold-hearted eyes. How Beckett can make your awed gasp feel like the last breath you’ll take. How Ben can harness your empathy so you do the right thing. How Tom can wake the dead things buried inside you. How Audrey can bottle love and romance like it’s life’s greatest necessity.
And Charlie—everyone thinks he has no soul but his is just the darkest, deepest of them all.
I sidle to the bar. “It was housemates only, but if I’d known you were in town, I would’ve invited you all.”
“Where’s Luna?” Eliot asks.
Tom looks mildly worried at the lack of Luna.
I frown. “I thought she’d be with you,” I say honestly, and I look to Maximoff. He puts his phone to his ear and heads further back into the bar. Farrow follows. I trust that Luna’s older brother will find her.
I look up at Charlie. “Are you here to drink and watch a wrestling match?”
A coy smile inches up his lips. “You know I’m not.” He leans slightly on his cane. He hasn’t needed one in a while, but the cold weather has stiffened his healing leg, which he had surgery on back in May after the car crash.
I zone in on the ornate head of the cane: a gold lion eating a snake. I whisper up at him, “Why does this have to be a war?”
“It’s only a war if you make it one.”
“Then what is this, Charlie?”
He sighs out an annoyed breath. “You know what this is, Jane.”
A test of loyalty. Interlopers beware. The Cobalt brothers will not let you through. Farrow endured a lukewarm version. Beckett took it upon himself to grill Farrow at every turn.
I hiss, “He’s proven enough. He sacrificed his job for me.” I’m trying desperately to open up the window for my boyfriend.
Charlie is slamming it shut. “Hundreds of men would follow suit if it meant they could date you. He’s not special.”
“He is when his career is his entire purpose and reason for being,” I combat. “Let’s just all go out to dinner and talk.” For once, I would like my family to shelve the dramatics.
Charlie squats and rests his forearms on his knees, our eyes parallel. I’m just as smart, just as capable, just as strong as my dear brother.
I don’t back down. “We don’t need to do this, Charlie.”
“Yes we do.” He leans forward. “Just remember we love you.”
Heat builds in my body, and I whisper back, “I hate you right now.”
He smiles. “It’ll diminish in time.” He rises.
Eliot is the one to clamp a hand on Thatcher’s back. “Follow us, boyfriend-in-law.”
Thatcher seems unruffled and ready for any hell. He swivels a knob on his radio and glances over at his brother.
Banks upnods to him. “Get some.”
I recognize the military lingo, but not all my brothers do. They send each other wary looks, and it creates a new tension. A new divide between them and Thatcher.
As though we belong to two vastly different worlds, and it’ll take blood and sweat to pull him into ours.
We can do this. I try to bolster courage as I come up beside my boyfriend.
Thatcher clasps my hand and threads our fingers.
We can jump over fences naked together.
Don’t be afraid, Jane.
9
THATCHER MORETTI
Cobalts are a tornadic force you don’t want to fuck with. Out of the three famous families, they have the most power and can wield it with the snap of a finger.
Should I be afraid?
I think if I were someone else, I might shrink at the eye-popping, slack-jawed sight: all five Cobalt brothers strewn across a U-shaped booth like they’re Apollo, Zeus—godly figures—posing for an oil painting to be immortalized.
Among tabloids and fans, Xander Hale is considered the “prettiest” boy. Maximoff Hale is in a league of his own. And
the Cobalt brothers—they’re cited as the “sexiest,” oozing some kind of ancient, sensual allure.
But as I lower on a chair next to Jane and face her brothers, I can’t flinch. Or shy. It’s not in me. I’ve seen and lived through the worst hell, and whatever conditions they set, I can survive.
I just can’t make an enemy out of them, and lately I’ve been way too good at making those.
My objective: don’t piss off my girlfriend’s brothers.
And behind that objective lies another: take care of them.
Her brothers are in their teens and early twenties, and I’m still a bodyguard—I’m not here to cause harm. I want to defend and protect them, and the sooner I’m on their side, the easier this’ll be.
But Christ, I have no idea what they want me to do. So I’m in recon-mode. Attentive. Frosty. I assess each guy in every passing beat. Trying to determine which one will be the flat-out hardest to please.
Charlie Cobalt? He’s a wild card. Could be helpful, could be antagonistic. Could be something that I’ve never confronted before.
He lounges like he’s about to be fed grapes: his foot on the cracked leather cushion, elbow on his knee. His yellow-green eyes puncture me. “You were fucking our sister during the fake-dating ploy.”
I don’t blink.
“Charlie.” Jane’s face is beet-red.
I’ve listened to men talk crasser about so much fucking worse. Hearing this should be like popping a jellybean in my mouth. Too easy. But a sharp taste sears my throat, and I rake a hand over my hardened jaw.
“I was respecting your sister.” I will always respect Jane.
Eliot hoists himself on top of the booth frame. He uncorks a bottle of wine between his legs. It pops. “Did you hear that, brothers? Thatcher, here, was respectfully fucking our sister.”
Starting off just great.
I stare blankly.
“Dear God,” Jane mutters under her breath, wide-eyed like a freight train just smacked into her face.
Concern flexes my muscles. I watch Jane out of the corner of my eye but keep fixed on her brothers. “I didn’t say that.”
