His nostrils flare before his nose wrinkles in disgust. “You bringing patrons up here?”
“No.” I arch a brow and abandon my mouse and keyboard to cross my arms against my chest, leaning back in my chair to brace for whatever argument Ransom is about to start. “I haven’t ever done anything like that, which you are well aware of, so why you’re?—”
“What the fuck is that?”
I clench my jaw as I follow his line of sight, the goddamn Adder scowl he’s wearing laser focused directly on my alpha while my matching expression swings back to my brother.
“Excuse the fuck out of me?”
Ransom’s eyes flick toward me before refocusing on Leon. “That. It looks like the illegitimate love child of Stevie Nicks and David Bowie after someone slapped it with the stupid stickseveral times, and it is definitely where that foul odor is coming from.”
My alpha grins as he bounces a tennis ball off the wall, catching it and repeating the action without skipping a beat. “Cum, my friend. Lots and lots of cum. Mine, his. We’ve fucked at least three times tonight and I’ve yet to shower. What you’re smelling is the scent of sloppy sex dried to my cock and balls, and your baby brother’s asshole.”
I arch a brow and smirk, my gaze slowly moving back to Ransom’s face and I swear I can see every goddamn vein in his forehead pop.
He knows I’ve started seeing someone. He was the one who guessed I was and seemed relatively happy about it. As happy as my brother gets, anyway.
We’re thick as thieves, closer than any set of siblings I’ve ever met and I can honestly say he’s my best friend, but it doesn’t mean Ransom Adder is any less of a dickhead to me. I’m not exactly a peach to him, either, so it’s fine. It’s always been our dynamic and probably always will be. That’s what happens when you’re Irish as fuck and the only two children of a mob pack that wanted at least ten kids. The trauma of an emergency cesarean was scary but Mom has said she’d have thrown herself off a cliff if she had more than Ran and me. We were enough hell on wheels for forty kids and she’s always been glad I forced her hand to stop procreating with our dads.
I’ve always thought something about the way I came into this world is why Ransom and I are so close but are just as quick to knock each other on our asses. Like we’re the only ones who get to take those cheap shots but otherwise it’s us against the world because I almost didn’t come into it, and nearly took our mother out of it with me.
But my big brother was happy to see me finally put myself back out there after what happened with my last relationship.He didn’t say it but I know he was thinking it. He hated watching that fucking alpha bitch put me through the ringer, and he wanted to strangle me for letting her do it. Ransom was glad to see me with some pep in my step the last week or so, and I’m sure he was thinking it’s been a nice change of pace.
My brother is probably regretting that right now.
Leon is not someone he’d ever be able to tolerate in passing let alone want me dating. They’re polar opposites but both hard headed and blunt, and they are going to clash on an epic scale.
My alpha is going to annoy the fuck out of my brother, who is going to bitch nonstop about why I’m with him because of it, and I’m here for it.
Ransom’s feelings about who I bang or bring home to meet our parents never really mattered to me, and this relationship won’t be any different in terms of that, but it is in everything else.
This is the long haul, packing up shit with Leon. I know I’m a bit of a romantic, that I’m way more ready to settle down than most would expect, and maybe that makes it easier for me to see what I want to when I meet someone, then try to drive the relationship in that direction.
That’s exactly why I have a string of shitty exes and a history that makes our mother cry, but I refuse to believe that outlook is all bad. Especially when that outlook and my instincts had me jumping at the chance to be with Leon.
He felt different from the start but being with him as much as I have the past week, I know for a fact that this isn’t some fleeting thing.
Our time together isn’t going to end if I can help it, so my brother is going to have to suck it up. Once he does, that’s when I’ll tell him that what he thinks of the people I’m going to spend the rest of my life with actually does matter to me, and I’m glad he approves of them.
Until then, I’m going to enjoy the show.
“That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Leon uncrosses then crosses his ankles as his booted feet start moving back and forth on the arm of the couch. He tilts his head and grins wide at Ransom, still bouncing the ball off the wall to the same rhythm of his shitkickers. “And it might be worth looking into. I was told my parents died in a car accident when I was two butmaybeit was a coverup. That’s a lot of fame for one little baby to handle.” He catches the ball then pushes up on his elbows, looking my brother dead in the eye with the most serious expression he can muster. “I bet you’re right. That’s probably why I’m so goddamn attractive. And it would definitely explain why I’m such a snappy dresser.”
“Snappy dresser?” Ransom slowly turns back to me, every ounce of suppressed rage simmering under the surface. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Styx.”
I shake my head and smile. “This is Leon. We’ve been seeing each other for about a week.”
“Stop.”
“He’s all but moved into my apartment.”
“Cut it out, Styx.”
“He FaceTimed with Mom this morning,” I say as my alpha starts tossing the tennis ball again. “She loved him.”
My brother’s eye starts to twitch as he stares at me for a long few moments then he apparently collects himself enough to say, “Why is he here?”
“Because he’s my boyfriend?”
