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Zeus slaps his arm. “That is a mindset issue.”
“Youare a fucking mindset issue.”
“Remington.” It’s late, and I’ve been in a creepy forest and a creepy farmhouse and a county jail and a hospital tonight, but now that Zeus is in the room, it seems fine. Or like it mightbefine in the near future. “Could you show us to your brothers?”
“Everybody’s in the living room. We were just going that way. Come with.”
Hades says something to Zeus that comes across as an irritated hiss. Zeus tries to slap him again, but Hades catches his wrist and tosses his arm away before his hand touches.
I fall into step next to Remy. At the living room door, she holds up her mug. “Everyone, Hades and Zeus are here.”
It looks like even more people than she said, now that they’re all in one room. A comfortable, lived-in room with warm colors and built-in shelves and a big TV.
Jameson’s feet stick out over the arm of a sofa. The two teenagers, who must be Lydia and Nate, have taken a nearby love seat. A man I saw very briefly at the hospital—Gabriel—sits on the opposite end of the sofa. A dark-haired woman sits in an armchair next to an armchair-slash-rocker that’s occupied by a gorgeous woman with sunny blonde hair. She looks up at us from her baby and smiles like Jameson hasn’t ruined anything at all.
“You must be Lily.” She adjusts the baby in her arms. “I’m Charlotte, Mason’s wife.”
Someone brushes by behind me—Mason. He goes to Charlotte and takes the baby out of her arms.
Almost immediately, he starts crying, a raspy, heart-wrenching sound.
Remy clears her throat. “Let’s do the introductions so it’s not overwhelming.”
It’s overwhelming anyway, but she goes around the room, patting each person’s head and telling me their names. There’s a very brief commotion when Gabriel and Zeus decide to rearrange the furniture and drag in another love seat so that everyone can sit down, though Hades and Zeus choose to stand anyway, Conor curled at their feet. Finally I end up in Gabriel’s spot, Jameson’s head on my lap. His eyes are closed.
“I’m not asleep,” he says, like he can feel me looking. Then he opens one eye and peeks around the room. “That dog is fucking huge.”
“He seems nice, though.”
Mason stands in front of the turned-off TV, his baby son fussing in his arms. “Now that we’re all here—Jameson, what the fuck?”
“It’s a whole thing.” Jameson closes his eyes again. “I went after a judge.”
I didn’t expect to hear him say it so bluntly.
“What judge?” Gabriel asks.
“Thejudge,” Jameson says.
“What fucking judge?” Mason demands.
“The guy who went easy on that prick from Remy’s class. And the guy who made sure we didn’t have any fucking money.”
They all talk at once after that. I can tell they’re trying to keep it together, probably because there are a bunch of randos in here, such as the girl from the hospital with the bird, and it takes a while for the pitch of the discussion to lower again.
“I took her to my cabin,” Jameson finishes. “And then I got arrested. I got myself arrested. And she said she was my fiancée because she’s a masochist.”
Charlotte gasps.
Mason flicks his eyes toward the ceiling.
“And then I might have said it again when the other cops came to the farmhouse.”
“Someone shot at your car,” Mason says, voice flat. “Someone lured you tothisguy’s house—” He jerks his chin at Hades.
“It’s not myhouse,” he shoots back. “It’s one of my properties.”
“One of our properties,” Zeus says.
