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“Are you guys really helping Brooklyn move out?
“Yes,” Atlas says, walking past me carrying her favorite chair.
I head up to my suite, and sure enough, all of her things are gone, and the space looks and feels empty. No matter how much I may want to stop her from going, this is what is probably for the best. I told her I couldn’t be more than what I am, and that is no longer good enough, so I am going to have to learn how to live without her. I spend the rest of the day putting my space back the way it was before Brooklyn took it over. By the time I am done, there is no trace of her ever being here. Although a big reason for that is the fact that she took absolutely everything of hers. There was no chance of her popping back over to say she forgot her favorite earrings, hell, not even a Q-tip. Like I said, it’s for the best.
1 Month Later
Jaasiel
“Josh, you have to talk to him!”
“Why do I have to talk to him?”
“Who else is he going to listen to?” I ask.
“I took several calls from angry customers of his, mad because he didn’t finish their orders,” Joseph adds.
“Not to mention his drunken episodes,” Anson points out.
“Episodes?” Josh asks, surprised. “I knew he had the one, but are you telling me there have been others?”
“You mean that one wasn’t enough? We found him asleep on the front steps after the ride-share driver helped him to the door. He left his car in the city, unlocked with the keys in the ignition! It’s nothing short of a miracle that it wasn’t stolen and chopped up,” Asher says.
“And how would you handle it if your wives walked away from you?” Josh asks.
“That’s different. We claimed our women, declared our love, so if one of our wives left, we’d burn this fucking world down to its most basic form,” I say.
“I hear you, but let’s be real. The only reason we were all upset with him was because we all knew he loved her, and he was being stubborn about it. No matter what he says or doesn’t say, he loves Brooklyn. He has to deal with it and figure it out on his own. I can’t make him see reason. Hell, we’ve all been on his ass, and nothing got through to him,” Josh says.
“What are the odds we can get one of the wives to go talk to Brooklyn?” Atlas asks.
“Probably, but what good would that do? If he can’t admit it still, do you really think him seeing her again is going to change that? It’s been a month, and he still hasn’t gone after her,” Josh points out.
“That’s valid, but you never know what seeing her might do. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“I’ll talk to Savvy. Maybe they all can go talk to her. I mean, I’m sure they already have,” he says. We have been sitting in the living room, discussing what we can do with Aryan. To say he has been on a downward spiral since Brooklyn left is an understatement. But he won’t talk to any of us or listen to anything we are trying to tell him.
“If he gets worse, we will have to figure out something other than letting him hit rock bottom,” I say, and we all agree.
“Well, now that that is settled, I am going to find my wife,” Josh says, walking out.
“Find his wife, like he doesn’t know where she is every second of the day,” Atlas says.
“Yeah, look at the pot calling the kettle black,” Jabarri says as we all make our way out of the living room. I am worried about my brother, but I feel somewhat better now that I have talked with the rest of my brothers. I was hoping that he would come to his senses before it came to this, but instead, he dug his heels in, and now he could have possibly lost the best thing to have ever happened to him. No matter how many times I came to him to talk, he never wanted to open up to me, and honestly, that hurt me. Ever since they came to live with us after their parents were killed, he and I were always close. So, for him to just shut me out bothers me more than I let on. Now seeing him on this self-destructive path has me conflicted. On one hand, I want to help him, and on the other hand, I want to beat his ass because his stubbornness brought this on himself. I clean up, put the dishes in the dishwasher, lock up, and head up to find my own wife.
Josh
“What was that!?” Savvy asks, jumping up out of her sleep at the same time as me.
“I don’t know,” I say, moving to get out of bed when another crash, even louder than the first one, sounds out. “Stay here, Savvy,” I tell her grabbing my gun from the nightstand drawer and heading out to the living room to see who was stupid enough to break into this house. Luckily, she doesn’t argue with me, but I see her grab her gun as I walk out.
By the time I make it to the main part of the house, the other brothers are here too to see Aryan passed out on the floor, face in his own vomit, and the table and everything that was on it smashed on the floor. Clearly, he ran into it, knocking it over and breaking everything on it before falling and passing out on the floor.
“Didn’t we just have this conversation a few days ago?” Jaasiel asks.
“Fine, I’ll talk to Savvy as soon as we get him to his suite and cleaned up,” I say. I thought giving him time was what he needed, but apparently, I was wrong. Instead of him getting better, he is progressively getting worse. Jaasiel and I reach down to pick his big ass up, and he wakes up like a man possessed swinging and cussing. He catches Jaasiel off guard, hitting him in the mouth and busting his lip open. Blood flies everywhere, and I can see him holding himself back from knocking Aryan’s ass out.
“Aryan!” I yell, trying to get him to realize it’s us he’s trying to fight. He swings again and misses but hits Parker, who has come down to see if everything is okay. I realize all the women have come out to make sure everything is okay. One thing about our wives is they are only going to stay on the sidelines but for so long before they are going to become part of the action too. We have all accepted that about them, hell we love that about them. He hit her on her arm since he was falling from sliding in his vomit, so she didn’t take the full brunt of the hit, but it was enough to make her cry out in pain, and then all hell breaks loose.
