“What are you doing here?” Artemis’s voice is almost accusatory.
Apollo elbows him. “Stopped by your place to invite you to brunch. Imagine my surprise when I looked up your location on the app and found you were already here at Edith Lucielle’s.”
“Without us.” Ares clutches a hand to his chest before stealing another slice of Artemis’s bacon as well. “The audacity.”
We order a few extra things, because Artemis wants me totry damn near everything on the menu. Between the four of us we will easily polish it all off. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask if he wants me to leave so I’m not getting in the way of brunch with his brothers when his foot hooks around mine under the table.
At least, I hope it’s his, because if Apollo is playing footsie with me, we have even bigger problems. My spine liquifies as his foot strokes the outside of my calf. I’m not surviving brunch. This is how I die. Rest in Peace Xavier Rafael Diego Martinez.
“I had plans.” Artemis says it as though we’ve had this date in the books for months, not just twenty minutes before it started.
“Xavier.” Apollo gives me a nod in greeting.
“Apollo.” I elbow Ares. “Ares.”
“Nice to see you again, Xavi. How’s things?” Ares takes the glass of OJ from the server’s tray and downs half of it in one go.
“Can’t complain. You?”
He nods. “Same old.”
We fall into a weird, companionable…situationof small talk, where Artemis and I eat our French toast, eggs, and whatever bacon Ares left both of us with. I sample the homemade biscuits and gravy—it’s not quite as good as Mom’s but it’s a solid runner up—and we fight over the Hickory sausage.
When Arte gets up to use the restroom—though part of me thinks he’s escaping his brothers for a breath of fresh air—Apollo pounces. “What’re your intentions with my brother, Martinez? Whatever you’re scheming… think again.”
It makes sense that he’s suspicious of me, maybe even Ares, too—despite the fact it’s down to him that we connected. Flirting with the enemy, or even worse, hanging out with the enemy isn’t a common occurrence. But my intentions are pure, even if we are from opposite sides of the ice.
There’s no point hiding it or beating about the bush. The de la Peñas have a reputation, and not for nothing. They close ranks around their siblings, and they protect each other fiercely. So, I do the only thing I can in this situation and tell the truth. “I want to date him.”
I said it out loud. I really fucking said it. To his siblings as well. I want to cram the words back inside my dry as fuck mouth. I don’t date. I don’t think I even know how to date. Seems I know how to obsessively pursue someone just fine, though.
Artemis drops into his chair with a heavy thud right as the words come out of my mouth, and when our eyes meet it’s as though a full conversation passes between us. “Which is what we were trying to do before you two fuckers gate-crashed our breakfast.”
My jaw falls open.
Ares doesn’t miss a beat and hooks his knuckle under my chin to close my mouth. “Now, now, Hermano. You know if someone dates one of us…” He waves a hand.
“They date all of us.” Apollo’s assessing stare greets me over the rim of his coffee cup, and his voice is decidedly less amused than Ares’s.
Sigh. Seems I have a ways to go before I win over more than one of the de la Peña siblings. But if I don’t get space to win the most important one over… the rest don’t matter.
And if it gets me Arte, I’ll run the gauntlet of every last de la Peña there is.
CHAPTER 13
Artemis
Fourteen days since The Brunch Incident—yes, I’m counting—when Xavier and I consumed substantially more food than is acceptable for two people—even athletic people—then hung out with my siblings for a while before Xavier pecked me on the cheek and drove back to Wisconsin.
Between school, and hockey, running the aviation company and taking over Alonso’s as well, I haven’t had much time to breathe, or think, much less try to plan arealdate with Xavier.
It all feels like a nebulous mess right now. Designing, engineering, and building the aircraft other men like my father only know how to charter. Papá never got himself bogged down in the details, but I want to run both companies differently. Better.
While I built the acquisition strategy in the dark, the reality is now a landscape of factories and fuel contracts that require constant, physical oversight. Thousands of employees answer to my board, teams of engineers, legal advisors, acquisitionstrategists, financial analysts. Claudia isn’t my only staff—she’s the one I allow close.
My leg hasn’t stopped bouncing under the table. The sugar packets beside my coffee are lined up in a perfect row—something I only do when my thoughts are chaos.
I want to date him. Xavier’s words made my stomach drop and have echoed in my mind all day, every day, since that morning over eggs with my brothers.
