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Chapter Seventeen
Cade
Gabe, Spencer, andColton were already here. Only Jake and Natalie were missing.
"Meredith," Spencer exclaimed. "Good to see you."
My brother winked at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking:"You've got balls, brother, bringing her here."
He didn't know the half of it.
"Oh, Gabe. I remember you, too. Great to see you after all this time." Meredith smiled at him.
Gabe was looking at us with a shit-eating grin.
“Glad you do.” My smartass brother was checking my girl out in a way that was beginning to annoy me.
“We haven’t met, but I’ve heard a lot about you through the grapevine,” Colton said as he and Meredith shook hands.
He seemed amused. I took that as a win. In the past few years, nothing seemed to affect my oldest brother. He'd had a one-track mind in his lab, working on what he called his "breakthrough discovery." He'd explained it to me once, but biology had never been my forte, so I'd only half listened. I was good with numbers and sales, but I knew jack shit about developing medicine.
"Spencer, are you still covering up for this guy?" Meredith asked, pointing her thumb at me.
"Always."
"Hey now. None of that. I take care of myself these days," I teased.
Spencer clapped his hands once and then nodded. "Dude, your shit is becoming more complex. I’m learning from you these days, bro."
Meredith laughed. It was bizarre how at ease my brothers were around her. We weren't used to any of us showing up at family events with a woman on our arm. The first one who did that was Jake, and we ruthlessly mocked him. Then again, this was different. My brothers thought Meredith and I were keeping up a ruse for grandmother's sake.
Meredith focused on Gabe again. "And you’re still getting away with everything because you're the youngest?"
Gabe laughed. My girl was giving it to them like a pro. "Oh, my older brothers usually stirred up so much shit themselves that all the focus was on them. Not my fault I got away with my shenanigans. And yet that continues to be true."
Everyone laughed at that, and a few of us contradicted and challenged him with verbal jabs.
"And the eternally brooding Colton," Meredith said with a smile. God, she was beautiful.
Colton jerked his head back. "Wait, that's a thing?" He looked around the group. "You all call me that?"
Meredith pressed her lips together, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. "Was that supposed to be a secret? I thought it was common knowledge."
"It is," I said, walking up to her and putting an arm around her shoulders.
Spencer narrowed his eyes, zeroing in on my hand. My grandparents weren't in the room, so there was no reason to pretend.
Cat’s out of the bag.
