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“Deal. But I don’t cook on weekends,” I argue, making the other three men chuckle. There’s a moment of silence after that, and I swallow down more of my beer.
“So do you cook on Thursdays?” Griff eventually asks, breaking the tension and making me snort a laugh. Griff looks like a Canadian lumberjack. Tan skin, thick but short blond hair, and a face full of beard of the same color. His light blue eyes look like the ocean in summer. Bunch of cuties in this house. If only I weren’t horribly obsessed with three very off-limits men.
“I guess.”
There are worse ways I could be spending today than cooking dinner for sexy frat boys.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift
NASH
“It won’t be that bad,” Holden says, knowing damn well it will be. I lift my brow, shooting him a look that I hope screams, ‘Keep telling yourself that, dumbass.’
“Ho, do you not remember senior year, at all?” Ren asks, and I snort at Holden’s glare. “Because I fucking do. Rosie was in tears half the year because of how mean the three of us were to her, just so we could keep you away from her.” Ren shakes his head. “I’m not doing that to her again.”
“Neither am I. The only tears I want to see running down a woman's face are the ones she gets while choking on my cock,” I declare, making Holden roll his eyes. Point stands.
Those two years we spent driving Rose away were hard on all of us. I’m not a mean guy. I’m a lover not a fighter for fuck's sake!
“Fine, whatever, as long as you don’t…don’t scare her off,” Holden says, making me glare this time.
“Why?” I ask, watching him closely. When he shrugs, looking away, I point a finger at him. “Fuck, no, Holden! You are not fucking her! She’s your sister!” I argue, but the look in his blue eyes is one of defeat. He’s finally lost the battle against himself.
“Stepsister,” he corrects, but does that really matter? “She’s here. Isn’t that a sign?”
“A sign that you went and picked her up! This is such a bad idea. Nix would kill you,” Ren reminds him, but Holden has hearts in his eyes.
“Nix ran off with Milly and left Rose standing alone outside an apartment complex. He can fuck off,” he sighs but doesn’t look any less like he’s going to do exactly what I wish he wouldn’t. “And I was adopted when I was fourteen, and my dad didn’t marry their mom until we were sixteen. No one is under the impression Rose and I are actually siblings.”
“Except her fucking twin! Phoenix,” I point out, lifting a brow. “He wouldn’t leave Ren and me alone with her once we hit puberty…unless her new big brother was home,” I remind him, making him wince. “And Rose. Or are you under the delusion that she feels the same as you? She was sixteen. Do you think she sees you differently than she sees Nix?” I pause. “Besides the fact that you’re her knight in lust-filled armor, where Nix is the brother that constantly abandons her.” I lift my brow at him.
“It’s not entirely his fault that he’s so…” Holden trails off, looking away. No, I suppose in a way Nix isn’t entirely to blame for his condition. He wasn’t driving the car that resulted in…well. All this. “And, no, I don’t think she sees me that way. She had a crush on me long before our parents got married,” he adds, and I sigh heavily.
“She had a crush on all of us, you fuck,” I remind him of that, too, but he just smirks, shrugging one shoulder.
“You’re a kinky fuck,” Ren randomly says, shaking his head. “I know you call her little sister…” My nose wrinkles as I stare my best friend down. I’d kill for the man sitting across from me, but he makes me question my self-control. What was the point of torturing Rose for two years, if he was just going to pursue her three years later? Like, honestly, my guy. We could have saved ourselves so much trouble. Could have been balls deep for years–no, not going there.
“It makes her uncomfortable. I just do it to–” but he trails off. I scoff at him as I toss random shit into a box, so we can clear the guest room out for Rose.
“You do it to see if she thinks of you as a brother yet. You like seeing her fidget. You’re a sick fucker, HoldenRays…” I emphasize his last name. The one he shares with Rose and Phoenix after having it changed. I leave off the Dunn because that’s his adoptive father’s last name, and neither Nix nor Rose took it on. I take a deep breath, looking over at the man I’ve come to love like a brother. “You’re playing a dangerous fucking game.”
“Scott would still be livid if he knew the son he adopted and the girl he calls stepdaughter were fucking right under his nose!” Ren hisses. Well, when you say it like that.
When we met, Holden was still a typical kid, but only a fool would have missed his longing for things he couldn’t have. He’s always been like that. I guess growing up the way he did will do that to you. Then his foster mother…really fucking scrambled his brain. Ruined his childhood. Bitch is still rotting.
I can’t help but drop my gaze to the scars on his wrist. Those cuts were made with the intention to cause pain, not do permanent damage, but I sometimes wonder what Holden sees when he looks at them now.
Do they remind him of the kid he was all those years ago? Traumatized and petrified of physical touch? Man, I’ll never forget the moment I realized how fucked up his situation was. I clapped my hand on his back and leaned in for a hug, and Holden froze. His face lost all color until he was white as a ghost and fucking trembling. Nix saw it too. Did what I didn’t even think to do. What none of us knew Holden needed. A moment I try not to think about often because of the guilt I still feel for not acting sooner.
I knew right then that Holden might have been a fucking demon on the ice, but he was broken inside and out. He had scars I couldn’t see, and they ran fucking deep. Deeper than the lines across his wrist.
“Goddammit, Ho!” I hiss, tossing a box full of shirts on top of a stack of boxes we need to find new homes for. He flinches slightly, making guilt slide up my spine like a disease, but I shove the feeling aside.
It’s been eight years since someone put hands on Holden without his consent, but he still flinches when any of us loses our cool. But I’m stressed the fuck out right now because I know, I just fucking know, deep in my goddamn soul, that we’ve already lost the fight to keep Holden away from Rose.
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to put up a fucking fight, though.
