“Let me,” North says, a little too quickly. Fuck, he is going to give us away. Luckily, my brother is about as observant as a potato sometimes, and he just nods and steps to the side while North reaches down, and once more, I’m scooped into a bridal carry.
“I’m really starting to hate this,” I growl as he takes a step toward the porch stairs.
Hurt flickers over his face. “Sorry.”
I really dislike myself sometimes. “It’s not you. I just miss being on my feet. I don’t like being a burden.”
His grip on me tightens for a brief second, and then he lets out a small sigh. “Leo, you are not a burden. You never have been.”
I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of hearing the way he says my name. TheLcurls around the middle of his tongue, like he’s making sure the sound lingers. Like he wants my short, pointless name to mean something.
I say nothing as he brings me inside, the floors creaking ominously, though I have no doubt they’ll hold us. There’s a bunch of blankets and pillows on the couch, and I realize he’s put together a little makeshift leg rest for me.
He arranges my knees and ankles so there’s not a lot of pressure on the burns, and I feel an unnamed, unfamiliar emotion in my chest. I want to grab him by the waistband of his jeans and yank him into my lap so I can kiss the shit out of him.
I want to get fucked silly and brainless, then curl up in his arms and ask him ridiculous, inane questions like what his favorite ice cream flavor is, and if it changes when it’s summeror winter. Or if he puts his socks on left then right, or right then left.
Or if he ever makes silly shapes with his hair when it’s covered in shampoo bubbles, and if he puts cream then sugar or sugar then cream when he makes his morning coffee.
“You okay?” He perches on the coffee table and brushes a few locks of hair out of my eyes.
In the exact same moment, Easton comes in, but even as I pull back from North’s touch, I can tell my brother isn’t paying attention.
“I think I need some water,” I say.
North is on his feet, pulling away from me, the physical distance between us growing as he heads for the kitchen. I hate the feeling of it, but maybe it’s something I should get used to.
This could be something between us—something good. Definitely intense. Something I won’t ever forget.
But will it be a forever sort of thing?
I don’t have a lot of faith in myself, even if I trust North to know what he wants. The reality is, he doesn’t know me as well as he should. He knows the bits and pieces of me I’ve been accidentally vulnerable enough to show him, but nothing else.
He doesn’t know all those dry, dull pieces that make up the rest of who I am.
“I gotta take off.” Easton’s voice cuts into my thought spiral. He walks over and drops down to a knee beside my legs and immediately begins checking my dressings.
“They’re fine,” I remind him. My legs look a lot less angry today. The blisters are awful, but I know for a fact that my brother has seen much worse.
He frowns as he looks up at me. “If you need anything?—”
“I know.”
His eyes close in a slow blink. “I’m serious, Leo. None of this martyr, ‘I can handle the pain, I don’t want to bother you’ bullshit.”
I know I deserve this. “I’ll call. I promise.”
He relaxes a little, though I can tell from his face that he doesn’t believe me. He used to look at me like that when we were younger. The disapproving older brother who was more like a parent because ours never gave a shit.
Leaning over, he pulls me into a very hard, slightly painful hug before letting go. “If you need to get out of here,” he murmurs quietly so North can’t overhear from the kitchen, “call me. I don’t care if I’m on the fucking moon.”
“Easton.” I pull back and roll my eyes.
“I mean it.”
Luckily, North interrupts the moment, appearing with a very tall glass of water. There’s no ice, which I hate, but there’s condensation on the sides, which means it’s cold. He doesn’t offer it to me right away. Instead, he takes my brother’s hand and pulls him up and into a hug.
“You have a key. Come by whenever.”
