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To James, they were, he’d admit, toys to play with. Expensive ones, granted. But that made them even more fun.
Sadly for him, Aidan’s rather bourgeois attitude usually spoiled his fun when it came time to testing their new cars.
While Aidan dusted the hood, he kept shooting irritated glances James' way. “You know you can’t take this any further, don’t you?”
James narrowed his eyes. “Do I?”
“Yeah. You damn well do,” Aidan roared. “You’ll hurt her, James. I don’t want you treating my sister like any other lay. I’ve seen the way you treat women, and the idea of you doing that to Hannah is so out of order, I can’t stand it.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t want to fall out over this, James, but this is something I can’t back down on.”
James gawked at Aidan for a second. “Are you being serious?”
“I’m being deadly serious.” Aidan rubbed his jaw, then wafted a hand at the car. “Today’s a prime example. You play with life, James. It’s a game to you. And as a guy who’s like your brother, and who lives pretty much in your pocket, just like you do in mine, it’s pretty fun to be around. But, like with the car you almost fucking wrecked today, Hannah is too precious to break. There’s no repairing the damage you could do to her, or to our friendship.” He let out a long breath and with a measured gaze, stared James straight in the eye, “I’m asking you, James. Not to do this.”
Though James’ jaw clenched with irritation, because even if it made him a dick, there was nothing worse than telling James there was something he couldn’t do, he had no choice but to nod.
Why?
Because Aidan was his fucking brother.
But even as the thought rippled through his head, he knew Hannah was…
What? he asked himself. Special? Was that too trite? Too low key to describe what she did to him?
James figured it was.
Though he understood Aidan’s fear, there was nothing he could do to combat it. To take it away. He knew his track record was shit, and he knew Aidan had been there to watch most of his love life first hand.
Just because he felt Hannah was different, didn’t mean he had a way of proving that to Aidan.
And the truth was, he didn’t dare argue about this because the risk was too high. The last thing he wanted was for this to put a rift between the two of them, and from the stubborn look on Aidan’s face, as well as the mutinous purse to his lips, that was the only way this was going to go.
With a sigh, he said, “I’ll tell her I don’t want to see her anymore.”
Aidan scowled. “You can’t do that. Fuck, James. You’ll just make it even weirder than it already is, dammit. You’re due to come over for the holidays. If you do that, she’ll think you’re not going to come to the get-togethers.”
“Do you still want me to come?” he asked softly, uncertain if this gambit with Aidan’s sister had already done irreparable damage to their friendship.
“Of course, I do,” Aidan blustered, annoyed at James' query. “Dammit, James, you’re family. You should be where you belong.”
Despite himself, he was touched by that. He had a family of his own, but they were distant. Disinterested. There was no changing that either. It was a habit of a lifetime. But the Sawyers were different. It was why he’d been so surprised by Hannah’s words about them earlier. He’d never imagined that they’d be putting the two siblings up against each other the way Hannah seemed to believe they did.
“Okay, well, I said I’d take her out to dinner, Aidan. I need to explain… Well, I need to explain something to her.”
His partner scowled down at the Orion.
“Just… tell her an important meeting cropped up. She knows how busy I am, and she has to figure that you’re equally as busy. It’s unfortunate, but I’ve often had to cancel dates with her because last-minute meetings took precedence.” He grimaced at his words. “Fuck, that makes me sound like such a shit brother.”
“Yeah, it does,” James slotted in, glad to be twisting the knife because even though he was downplaying this, that was exactly how he felt… like Aidan had stabbed him. Hard. He wasn’t sure if it was the lack of trust and faith in him—a trait shared by both siblings it seemed—or if he was being a brat, and thoroughly disliked having his toy taken away from him the way Aidan was doing… Well, he didn’t know if either was the problem, he just knew he was irritated as fuck with the man who was like a brother to him.
Aidan scowled at him. “Thanks for making me feel better.”
James shrugged. “Not here to do that, bro. You know that. You also know Hannah isn’t often in the area. I’m actually mad at you for not telling me you were doing shit like that. I know how close you two are. If I’d realized you were cancelling dates on her for meetings, I’d have jumped in for you.”
“I know why now,” Aidan snarked.
James huffed. “I mean, I’d have taken over the meetings for you. Not gone to dinner with her.” He rolled his eyes. “Now you’re being a pain in the ass.”
“Fuck, James, can you blame me?” He ran a frazzled hand through his hair. “I need to go. I have too much shit to be doing than to be worrying about this.” He shot James a look. “We good?”
