Page 17 of Midnight Curfew

Crossing the hall, I step into the wet bar that Krisjen asked Macon to install during the expansion of the house. The scent of coffee fills the space, and I lean over the sink, flipping on the faucet and splashing water in my face. The cold opens my eyes, and I grab a towel, wiping dry.

My brother’s wife hasn’t been completely useless. This little room was a great idea. It’s nice to not have to go downstairs for coffee. Just because I’m up walking around doesn’t mean I want to go through a round of “Good mornings” with every fucking person in the house.

There’s also a fridge with water and other light snacks and a small table with four chairs. It’s fantastic. After we hydrate whoever we brought home like the gentlemen we are, we can march them straight to the front door.

Not that I do. I don’t bring sex home anymore. Macon was right about that. Strangers don’t need to be sleeping here.

Pouring a cup of coffee, I head down the hallway and quietly twist the knob of the last room on the right.

Iron lies on his stomach, a light purple sheet covering his bottom half, one of his feet dangling off the side of the bed.

I step up next to him, taking a sip of coffee as I study his new tattoos. The alligator on the bottom left of his back has been there since he was seventeen, and I glance at the faded palm tree on his right forearm, accompanied by Sanoa Bay’s latitude and longitude. I can’t see the hourglass with the snake wrapped around it on the side of his neck pressed to the bed, but it’s an old one, too. We all have that one. The symbol of Tryst Six—what everyone else calls my family when they want to refer to us as a whole rather than by name. Mine is at the top of my arm, where it meets my shoulder.

In the forty-four months my brother was in prison, though—because he couldn’t control his temper with people who pissed him off—he’d acquired several more. The Seminole flag hung down his back, the word UNCONQUERED above it like a crown. There’s also a map of Cuba trailing down his left arm, as well as several smaller ones. I caught a picture of a seaplane on the right side of his chest last night, and there was also a cigar on his neck, a tall ship on the inside of his right forearm, and Our Lady of Guadalupe on his right bicep. I cock my eyebrow, loving how my family chooses to ignore their English, French, and German heritage in favor of the Seminole and Spanish. That’s all the St. Carmen rich pricks see when they look at us, so we fight for it.

Taking another sip of coffee, I slurp extra loud, causing Iron to shoot his head up and twist his neck to look at me. His chest rises and falls fast, his green eyes alert.

I laugh, and it takes about a second, but he drops his lids, exhaling. “What the fuck?”

He flips over onto his back, and I lean my ass back onto his new desk. “You can relax,” I tell him, still amused. “You don’t have to watch your ass here.”

Not like in prison.

His black hair lies mussed and matted, shorter than mine now, and he just blinks up at the ceiling, unmoving.

I narrow my eyes for a moment. “No ‘screw you,’ ” I tease. “No morning cigarette, no lipstick on your neck or on your…”

And I reach over, jerking up the sheet to confirm there is no evidence of a party on his dick last night.

He snatches the sheet back. “Dallas, fuck off,” he grumbles, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

“There he is.” I hand him the mug of coffee. “Here.”

Lifting his head, he takes it, looking grateful. “Thanks.”

He drinks, keeping his eyes down, and I sit there, my nerves aching underneath my skin as two seconds stretch to ten.

Iron and I were always the closest. Not the closest in age, but we were on the same page about everything. The middle kids out of six, we often found ourselves on the prowl for our own fun. Liv and Trace were too little, and Army and Macon were too busy putting food on the table. When our parents died, we were too old to be raised and too young to do whatever it was the others were doing to make money. Iron didn’t need me, he didn’t bitch at me…He just wanted me around.

I’m supposed to ask him how he is or what it was like in there, but he knows me, and he knows I wouldn’t like hearing it.

I mean, if anyone fucked with him in prison or is threatening him, we’ll take care of it—happily—but I don’t want to know he’s hurting if I can’t help him.

I honestly didn’t think he would be different. I’d visited him. I’d talked to him on the phone. The first thing he should’ve done last night was dive into the party we had going at Mariette’s and then slip into the bar next door and take one—or two—of the women who were so ready to welcome him home up here to his room.

He just scarfed down two burgers and half a key lime pie and went to bed.

For the first time I can remember, I don’t know what to say to him.

“Y’all did a good job.” He lifts his head, offering a small smile as he looks around his new room. “I barely recognize the place.”

I nod, following his gaze. Our house here in the Bay has been in our family for a couple hundred years. It’s huge, but for our entire lives, little of it was livable. After Iron went to prison, the family was finished with failure—and heartbreak—and we renovated, as well as making additions. Not only do the six of us live here, but Army’s kid, Dex, and Krisjen’s siblings, Paisleigh and Mars, do as well.

Iron and I used to share a room, even when we reached adulthood. We had the same appetite for the same women, and it made it easy. That small room felt like a fucking penthouse.

I put two beds back in my room after the renovations, but Macon felt Iron needed his own, and Iron, apparently, agrees.

“I didn’t help much.” I grip the desk behind me. “I was busy, same as you.” I flash him a grin, because just because he was in prison didn’t mean he was going to escape Macon’s plans for the future. He spent some time in the books, too, while he served his sentence. I muse, “What did Trace ever do to deserve getting to run a bar instead of getting a higher education?”