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“Not this time,” he insisted. “This thing is already broken.”
“Then get through the next few days and move on,” Eli said, slicing his hand through the air. “End of story.”
“Right,” he said, nodding.
“Right,” Eli echoed, looking at him skeptically. “See? You’re doing the overthinking thing, I can tell.”
“No. Well, I’m visualizing clearing my head.”
“Right,” Eli said.
“It’s easier said than done,” he defended.
“Not really, but you do you, brother.” Eli laughed and pushed the accelerator to the floor, slamming on the brakes in front of the elevator so Montgomery had to hang on. “Tit for tat, asshole.” Eli chuckled, then yelped when Montgomery punched him in the arm. “Ow!”
“You’re a shit,” Montgomery stated as they climbed out of the cart.
“Maybe I learned it from you,” Eli said.
“You were full grown when our parents married,” he said, shaking his head. When the elevator doors opened and they stepped on, a seriousness came over him.
“If you ever need advice—” Montgomery began.
But Eli laughed. “I sure ashellwon’t ask you for any. Particularly baby advice, which is what I need now more than anything else.”
Montgomery smiled. “That’s right, papa. That reallyisgreat. And I have no advice on that topic. We both know who my father is, and how I turned out. I’m the last one who should offer ideas about raising a little human.”
Eli chuckled. “You’re actually not that bad, brother. Just because you were raised by a selfish, controlling asshole doesn’t mean you’d be the same with a child of your own.”
The words struck him like a punch to the chest.A child of his own. The wordsI’ll never have kidsformed on his lips. Which made little sense. He was going to be divorced, but that didn’t exclude kids from his future. But somehow…he felt like it did.
A punch to his arm jarred him out of his thoughts.
“I said, don’t let what I said go to your head,” Eli said, looking at him oddly. “Where did you go?”
“I saw you changing a shit-filled diaper, and I got caught up trying to reconcile that with the hard-partying Eli I know,” he lied, punching him back harder.
“Ow,” Eli muttered, rubbing his arm. “That hurts on several levels.”
Montgomery laughed, feeling a small sense of relief. He’d gone a lot of years feeling betrayed by family. He might be leaving a broken marriage behind, but at least now he had a real brother.
“Holy fuck,” Eli breathed, and Montgomery thought he saw actual fear on his face. “You’re right. I’m going to have to change shitty diapers.”
CHAPTER16
Hartley huffed out a sigh, leaning against the rough wall of the upper hallway of the Medieval Castle. The stone was still cold, despite having soaked in the weak December sun for most of the day. In another hour, it would get dark and the replica castle would quickly shift to something sinister. If they weren’t looking for a killer, it would be the perfect setting to play vampire.
“This place is going to get creepy soon,” Monty noted, pulling out a tablet. “And fucking cold.”
“Stop reading my mind,” she said with a grimace, pulling out her hair tie and combing her fingers through her hair. There had to be at least one spider in it. “I didn’t think this would be easy, but I also didn’t think I’d get this sweaty. Or that it would include crawling through mouse shit in cobwebbed attics.”
He shifted his gaze away from the mini tablet to look at her. “What exactly did you think searching attics would be like?”
“That I’d hand you a flashlight as you went up to do it,” she replied, stepping closer to look at his screen as she redid her ponytail. If he was sweating at all, it smelled like Tom Ford cologne.
“As usual, you’re delusional,” he told her, stiffening as he looked back at his tablet and took a step away from her.
She wanted to sigh. Despite her resolve to be a dragon lady around him, she’d been almost chatty. She’d told a joke as they checked all the condos at the compound. Those attics, at least, had been well-lit and free of any rodent evidence.
