AllFreeNovel
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I grabbed a pan and some other stuff to scramble up some eggs and make toast.
“How’s the apprenticeship going?” Win asked, settling against the counter.
“Good. I’ll be done by spring. Would be sooner if I didn’t have classes.”
“Ah, yes, that damn college education,” he mused.
I grunted. Honestly, I could give two flying fucks about college. Not going would have been a nice double middle finger to the biologics. I mean, could you imagine the absolute horror of having a son who didn’t go to college?
But Mom and Dad would have wanted me to go. They’d set money aside for all three of us for college, money that was not part of our individual inheritance. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—disrespect the fact they did that for me by refusing to go.
So I was getting a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts, and I was currently completing an apprenticeship as a tattoo artist. Turned out that was almost as embarrassing for the biologics as me not going to college at all.
After I graduated the following year, I planned on opening up my own shop and answering to no one but myself.
“You really need to come to Sweden. The Stockholm metro is covered in art. It’s over sixty-eight miles. They say it’s the world’s longest art exhibit. Might give you some ideas for tattoos.”
I liked art. I liked abstract design. I liked the idea of releasing emotion or telling a story in a less literal sense. Pictures and abstract designs were more like emotions, ideas that were felt or interpreted rather than read or even heard. It appealed to the darkness in me. That was probably why I preferred tattoos in black with no color. It was like shaping all those shadows and secret thoughts into something that said so much without words.
“You’re home. No reason for me to go now,” I said, keeping my back turned as I finished up the eggs. The toast in the toaster popped up, and I gestured with my chin. “Butter that.”
“I have to go back,” Win said, grabbing a knife from the drawer. It was as though he’d never even left.
I craned my head. “What?”
“For finals. My professors are letting me finish up my classes and assignments online, but I have to take my finals in person.”
I digested that or, rather, thought about how it would just be me and Wes again in a few weeks.
“Win?” Wes’s voice bulldozed my thoughts.
Everything under my skin reacted to his voice. To the sleepy but surprised notes with which he spoke. My hand flexed around the handle of the pan, and I dragged in a deep breath. I didn’t know how to look at him without remembering last night. Without wanting to kiss him again. Without hearing the hurt in his voice in the bathroom. Without regretting fucking everything.
“Baby bro!” Win announced, dropping the toast on the counter to go toward the stairs.
“What are you doing here?” Wes asked, clearly surprised.
Win just scoffed. “You think you can wrap your car around a tree and menotcome home?”
A thump followed by a clatter and a curse made me abandon what I was doing and spin. Wes was standing partway down the stairs, Win stood at the bottom, and the crutch Wes had been using was lying haphazardly between them.
“Damn crutches,” Wes muttered.
Win held out his arms, an onery grin lifting his lips. “Jump.”
Wes laughed, and jealousy slid up my spine. He never laughed like that for me.
“I’d take you down, asshole.”
Win slapped his arms. “I’ve been working out.”
He did look a little more built than before.
“Come on,” he encouraged, motioning with his hands.
“Don’t even think about it,” I snapped, striding across the room and up the stairs. Before Wes could do anything, I scooped him up and carried him the rest of the way down the stairs. “Get his crutch,” I told Win when he stood there and stared.
Wes gave me a look, and I dared him with a slash of my eyes to say one fucking word. Thankfully, the brat said nothing, and I pulled out one of the counter stools with my foot and deposited him on it.
