Oh, that was the least of their issues.
Apparently.
“Yeah, to sober you up, dumbass. I also had to make you puke, so you didn’t die. Are you competing with the sperm donor for the dumbest mistakes on a twenty-square-mile parcel of land? Like knocking up Kaya Cheek? Timothy will skin your ass when he finds out about this.”
Callen rested his head on his arms on the toilet.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Ethan wasn’t done.
It appeared Callen didn’t recall what he said to him, so he wasNOTbringing it up.
EVER.
No matter what secret they shared with each other, it could never happen.
“I want something in return for saving your ass.”
He looked up.
“What?”
Ethan shared.
“I want you to stay here and sober up. Take the day. Then, I want you to go to Timothy’s. You cannot be alone with Kaya Cheek wandering around looking for revenge. She’s going to be on the warpath. I threw her out, naked and angry.”
He laughed a little.
“Did you take pictures?”
That made him laugh, too.
“No. I was too busy worried that she’d be my fucking sister-in-law when she forced you to marry her. This family has enough issues. We doNOTneed to procreate.”
He looked ill over the mere thought he’d have to tie the knot to that nightmare.
“Yeah, so no, no pictures. I need you to not do stupid shit, Callen James, because I won’t be here to save you.”
That hung there.
“You’re leaving and not coming back?” he asked, and there was sadness in his voice.
Oh, Ethan had been wrong. SomeoneDIDremember what he’d said, but in true Blackhawk fashion, denial was key.
Ethan nodded.
“You know why I can’t,” he said. “Do we really need to say it out loud and open that level of Hell?”
Oh, shit.
The jig was up.
“I ran my mouth, didn’t I?” he asked. “I said some shit while I was drunk.”
Again, he nodded.
“Yeah, you said some shit, CJ. Big shit with larger implications. You blew a hole in the side of that one.”
