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I had never, not once, put myself in their shoes. Things were different when we'd grown up. Couples having children together and not being married weren't common. I didn't even stop and think how their childhood might have been with everyone in Maine knowing their parents weren't married. And then to find out that your father actually had another family? They probably felt exactly like we did.
Maddox popped open the champagne bottle. We each took a glass.
"I think the worst part was seeing Mom fall completely apart," Maddox said.
I froze in the act of holding up my glass.
"I don't even know how she managed to pull herself out of it," Nick went on.
I'd refused to put myself in their shoes, but now I wanted to. In certain ways, we had the same life.
"It was a horrible situation for everyone involved," I said.
Maddox looked straight at me. "Yes, it was."
I held up my glass along with... all my brothers. “To Whitley Industries belonging only to the Whitley brothers,” I toasted.
"Hear, hear."
After we'd all emptied our glasses, Cade gave me an approving nod. "You know, we really should give Grandmother all the credit there is for you and for Zoey. I know she just gave you a nudge, but man, you ran away with it."
"I did," I replied.
"This is a treat, especially because we knowexactlyhow this day would have gone before Zoey.” That came from Spencer. "First of all, you probably wouldn’t have even shown up.”
“And if you did show up, you wouldn’t be in the mood to celebrate,” Cade added, playing right off him.
"Speaking of Zoey," Gabe cut in, "she sounded concerned when I spoke to her earlier."
I frowned. "When did you talk to her?"
"How do you think we knew you were in the lab?"
"Oh, right," I said.
"She kept asking if you do this often or if you're mad. I had an inkling what she wanted to actually ask was if you were mad at her."
"I'm not. Did she say I was? Why would she think that?" I glanced around the room.
"Hey, don't look at us for answers. I didn't know about this conversation until he just brought it up," Maddox said.
Obviously, Gabe was the best source of information right now.
"Has she said anything about why she thinks that?" I asked.
"No, I think she was just concerned that you'd been locked up in the lab for, what—I think she said she last saw you fourteen hours ago. It sounded like she was counting."
"Fuck." I played back my last conversation with Zoey. "I know what this is about."
"What's wrong?" This came from Nick. Cade and Spencer also looked at me curiously.
"Oh, now you want to chime in," I said.
"Dude, they're the ones with the women in the group. If anyone's going to be of any help, it's them," Nick pointed out.
“Recently, I went to see Browning. I took Zoey because I wanted to introduce them. The guy basically told me that he thinks I've lost my focus because I'm not sleeping at the office anymore."
Gabe shook his head. “I know. Zoey told me. That’s fucked. He’s in no position to say that shit.”
