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When he’s finished unloading more data on me, I smile and hand the goggles to him. “I’m not going to ask how you know that stuff, you dork.”
“Nav,” he answers. His tongue darts over his lower lip. “Navigating.”
So, by constellations, I guess. “Were you a navigator in the Rangers?”
His eyebrows lift, his features making a poker face. “I was a lot of things.”
I want to ask—like really want to—but I’m not about to pry. There’s been enough drama tonight between the two of us, and despite how solicitous he’s being now, I don’t trust him not to go all moody on me again.
“That fits with my impression of you as a closet geek,” I tease.
His hand comes around my thigh, the fingers squeezing gently at a spot that makes me giggle. “You better watch yourself,” he teases.
It’s my turn to watch him as looks through the goggles for a few minutes, sitting cross-legged beside me. I make him tell me what he’s focused on, and this time I get the long, tragic tale of Artemis and Orion—Zeus’s daughter and her mortal human lover—and Scorpius, the scorpion Zeus used to kill Orion, who, as a mortal, was not supposed to cavort with royal Artemis.
“The story goes, Artemis flew away with Orion’s body and tossed him into the sky—but nowhere near the scorpion that killed him,” Barrett finishes.
“Scorpius…”
He brings the goggles down off his eyes. “Yeah.”
“Wow. That’s impressive storytelling, geek boy.”
He sets the glasses on his knee and leans back on his hands, his back to the left panel of glass. I don’t expect the heavy sigh that comes from him, nor the way his eyes squeeze shut just briefly before he says, “I haven’t told that story in a long time.”
“Yeah?” When he just blinks at me, I add softly, “Who’d you tell it to last time?”
I see his chest inflate with breath before he says, “My brothers.”
Brothers?
I pull myself up to sit cross-legged to his left, leaning back against a beam between two of the window panes. Once I’m settled in my new position, I blink over at him, but I can’t tell shit from his face. After another heartbeat, I venture, “I didn’t realize you had two.”
He rubs his eyes, looking at me around his hand. “Kellan and Lyon. Twins. Lyon used to love to hear the Leo story.” Another deep breath swells his chest, and he looks right at me as he says, “He died a few years back.”
My heart squeezes as I look into his carefully blank eyes. “Oh my God, I didn’t know.”
He lifts his brows. “I didn’t tell you.”
“I’m so sorry.”
When he says nothing, just looks down at the beige and gold paisley cushion under us, I swallow past my dry throat.
“When did it happen? If you don’t mind me asking…” My voice is whispered—probably because my throat is tight.
“End of 2011.” He rubs the bridge of his nose, eyes on his leg before they slowly lift to mine. “They had leukemia.”
I lean into the space between us. “Who did?”
“Ly and Kelly.”
I blink. “Both? They both did?”
“Yeah.” He finger-drums the seat cushion, looking down at his hand as it moves. “Identical twins. I guess it was…” He shakes his head.
My chest feels tight with pain for him. I wrack my brain for what to say. There’s nothing…
His eyes lift to meet mine, and his handsome face is hard and still. I can feel the pain behind it, though, the weight of wordless things.
