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He grumbled something he hoped sounded like an answer, hauling the last of his equipment cases he’d left at his parents’ house down the flatbed of the enormous truck.
“Volunteer work will center your chi,” his mother went on, surveying the collection of rolling cases littering the walkway of Grayson’s front yard. “You’re too restless; it’s not good for you. You should come to the meditation studio with me sometime. And I don’t understand why you’d rather sleep next to barrels of chlorine than just come home. I have a room all ready for you.”
“Because I want to swim every day,” he rationalized, ignoring both her frown and the fact that there was a pool at his parent’s house as well. It wasn’t as big as Grayson’s, though, nor did it possess the tiered decks and spa-like opulence, and if he was going to waste away from loneliness, boredom, and depression, he at least wanted to be surrounded by his brother’s extravagant taste. “And this is the guest cabana, not the storage room. It’s a decent size guest house, too! That’s not just a ‘whoops, my car is blocked in’ option. Wow, how wildareGrayson’s parties that he needs to give people a place to crash? They must be doing some hardcore partying to necessitate this whole set-up.”
It took several beats for the implication of his words to sink in before his mother stiffened, marching off back to the house where Grayson — who was meant to be taking a day off but was actually working from home, a fact which Lowell could discern from the occasional heated shouting coming from the house — was visible in the kitchen window, her younger son’s guilt trip forgotten for the moment. Lowell stifled his laughter when Grayson appeared at the glass doors several minutes later, scowling toward the pool house.Better him than me.
Victoria had arrived home with little Jack before he had left, and Lowell was glad she at least got to see her mother-in-law’s vehicle in the driveway.Maybe she’ll tell Jackson I’m just moving home.It might be a few days, perhaps even a week before Jackson found out the truth, and by then, Lowell was confident he and Gray would have already moved on to some new contest that didn’t mean anything to anyone else in the entire world other than the two of them, that they would still manage to make everyone else’s problem.
His sister-in-law had seemed relieved, although she had tried to feign disappointment. She wasn’t as good an actor as Jackson, and she would need to work on that before they entered the political sphere, he opined, reminding himself that he had been an intruder in her home, a disrupter of her routine, and that Jackson had probably not even asked her first before calling him. She covered it well enough, exclaiming how much little Jack would miss him, and that part, at least, was true.
Lowell was going to miss his nephew. It was theonlything about Jackson’s house he was going to miss, but it was a significant thing. He often felt left out and isolated amongst the family, but he hadn’t realized what else he had been missing out on.
He’d been home for a holiday shortly after little Jack’s birth, when he was a black-eyed, squalling newborn, too terrifying to hold. He saw his nephew again when he was slightly older, able to sit up in a high chair at the edge of the table, covered in food from his hairline to his chin, giggling and babbling at everyone, not at all interesting. Lowell wasn’t sure how he had gone from saying no words one of the last times he saw him, when the kiddo was only one or two, to now being able to sayallthe words, including those he wasn’t supposed to. Everyone in the family seemed to have endless patience for his nephew — even their father, who had only ever had a rumor of patience for Lowell, but was somehow his grandson’s best friend — and everyone was endlessly amused by the things he did and said. Despite the long absence and being a virtual stranger, Lowell had done the same.
He had always liked children. Unsurprising, when he still considered himself to be practically a child. There had been a nearly embarrassing moment earlier that same year when a shady-seeming character had trailed after him as he navigated his way back to his temporary lodging during a shoot. The man tailed him as he rounded corners and doubled back, and the hair on the back of his neck had prickled, his wolf shifting uneasily in his bones. The country was known for being a hub of trafficking, and he had wondered, for a brief instant, before he remembered that he was, in fact, both a werewolf and a grown-ass man, if he was about to be kidnapped. The week had ended with his thirty-second birthday, celebrated with a handful of his friends, copious amounts of alcohol, and a threesome — a sobering reminder that he was far, far away from being a desirable target.
He wasn’t sure if it was a personality defect or not and didn’t really want to examine it that closely, but whatever it was that made him feel like he was actually three five-year-olds in a trench coat made him entirely approachable to actual children, and his little nephew had been no exception. He had lost track of the time he spent photographing the rambunctious pre-schooler — at play, at rest, eating, bathing, sleeping, it didn’t matter: the youngest Hemming seemed to be a flurry of motion at all times, flailing arms and fluttering eyelashes and non-stop energy, and Lowell attempted to capture all of it, his mood buoyed by his nephew’s wide-eyed exploration of the world, understanding the boy’s frustration at having to sit and eat his vegetables when the evenings were so warm, wanting to liberate him from the shackles of an early bedtime.
“That’s fine, Lowell,” Victoria would sigh. “As long as you’re the one responsible for getting him up tomorrow for school.”
Thus far, his nephew had been the only bright spot of his forced visit home.
“You and your dad need to visit me every week, and we’ll swim in the pool. Okay, buddy?”
He hadn’t been prepared for the strange tightness in his chest as he crouched to say goodbye to his nephew, unprepared for the moment when little Jack had wrapped tight arms around Lowell’s neck, planting a wet kiss on his cheek, certain the last time he’d been home for any length of time the kiddo had still had a gummy baby’s smile.He’s not even going to remember you the next time you’re in town.
If Grayson had been surprised to see him, that day he’d left Jackson’s house for good, he’d not let on. He’d not said anything at all, really. Lowell had been in the living room, sitting cross-legged on one of the chairs, his laptop balancing on his knee and his pulse jumping in his throat, when he heard the car door slam. The sky had been dark for several hours, and he had begun to wonder if his brother was coming home at all. Gray had come in through the attached garage, entered the kitchen, tie loosened, jacket slung over his arm, and radiating weariness, slowing slightly when he spotted Lowell but not stopping until he had reached the refrigerator. He’d paused, disappearing inside and reappearing with two bottles, before crossing the room to drop heavily into the other chair.
“You’d better not fuck up, because Trapp doesn’t want you. Just putting that out there. You’re going to wind up sleeping on Owen’s couch.”
Lowell had grinned, taking a long sip from the bottle he’d been handed, shaking his head.
“I’ll move to Bridgeton, take my chances with the humans first. It’s not like they can get me sick. I could probably clean up doing pizza delivery right now.”
Gray had laughed, a deep rumble that was familiar and oddly comforting.
“I guess that’s better than the Blinxieburger mascot, right? Although I’m not sure ‘the kind of clinical depression they put you in the hospital for’ is the kind of thing you should share in your interview. Do we need to admit you to a clinic or what?”
“I don’t think I’m that far gone quite yet. It’s just that, you know, existential dread of being trapped in a place where I’ll never be anything more than someone better’s little brother and a general feeling of internal worthlessness. Normal stuff. Plus, I have no friends here, no one to talk to all day, and I haven’t had sex since I left my apartment.”
“Well, there’s the problem, kid. You need to get laid. The alarm sets automatically. I’m going to bed.”
That had been several weeks ago. His mother was right — he hadn’t intended to call the guest cabana his temporary home, far from it, but he was set in his decision. It had happened a week or two after his arrival, right before the weekend, not that weekends were any different than Mondays or Tuesdays, not for him. Grayson stayed at his apartment in the city several days a week, quashing Lowell’s tentative overtures that perhaps he could simply move in there.
“That’s a shared cohabitation that is not big enough to add a Lowell tornado. No dice, kid.”
He hadn’t elaborated and Lowell had been too busy huffing in outrage over being called a tornado to question Gray’s words, but he had a moment of dawning clarity late one Friday night, returning from an evening run. He had just let himself in through the kitchen door, still slightly out of breath, stopping short at the sight of a barely dressed woman, bumping the refrigerator door shut with her hip, twenty paces ahead.
Her ass was a perfect heart, emphasized by her lace boy shorts, the matching lace bralette not leaving much to the imagination above the waist. Her dark hair was pulled up in a high ponytail as she crossed the long room, dropping to the sofa and stretching herself out against the supine form of his equally undressed brother.
Lowell realized he was still standing in the shadow of the doorway, still hidden in the darkness of the hallway leading to the utility and laundry rooms, that he still might be able to slip out unseen. He couldn’t tell if it was the same woman he had met at his parents’ house, for he had been too busy sulking that Grayson wasn’t speaking to him and playing with little Jack to pay her much mind. It seemed an impossibility, for Grayson went through women the way most people changed their underwear, but as he watched, his brother’s giant hand landed on the dark-haired woman’s hip. She flipped through channels with the remote in front of the projection screen she had lowered from the ceiling, seeming entirely comfortable in the space and with Grayson beneath her, in a way that spoke volumes. As comfortable and unselfconscious as if she practically lived there.
A shared cohabitation.
He didn’t know why the thought of playing the third wheel to Grayson and his apparent girlfriend made his stomach twist in a way it never had with Jackson and Victoria. Perhaps because Gray had always been reliably single, a reliable womanizer, a reliable partier. He didn’t want to stand awkwardly before them in this little domestic tableau, a reminder of how utterly alone in the world he was; didn’t care to learn what sort of perfect princess this woman must be to have tamed his immoral rake of a brother, and Lowell decided he didn’t really want to find out.
He stepped backward out of the doorway, slipping out of the house. He would have to move back in with his parents, the most humiliating prospect he could imagine. He wasn’t going there tonight, though. He would make do in the guest house by the pool. He didn’t know at the time if the cabana was heated or not, but he decided one night of being miserably cold would be worth not needing to walk through that room, past Grayson and whoever she was.
