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And he didn’t know why he felt the need to say that. It wasn’t anyone’s damn business.
For all they knew, he had feelings for her.
So what.
What the fuck was it to them?
He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with what that thought had done to his chest.
“Yeah, Elsie filled us in,” Sawyer said.
“Champion martyr, buddy,” Wolf said.
“I’m not a martyr. She’s going to move in and cook and clean. Hell, all you boys said that I should do that,” he said, looking at his brothers. “Around the time Sawyer mail-ordered his bride, you were thinking I needed to do the same. Get someone to clean this place up.”
“It is a pigsty,” Brody said.
“So there,” he said, gesturing to Brody. “I’m doing what you said. I’m getting myself a wife. I’mdomesticating.”
“Why do I not believe that?” Brody asked.
“I don’t know,Brody,” Gus said. “Why don’t you believe it?”
“Once an asshole, always an asshole?”
“Hey,” Sawyer said. “I, for one, am happy for you. Evelyn might not be Junebug’s biological mother,” he said, speaking of his wife and daughter. “But it doesn’t matter in the end. She loves that little girl more than she loves anything. And Junebug couldn’t be more bonded with her...no matter what. Blood doesn’t mean a thing. And we all know that. Because we’re all from some shit blood.”
“Hear! Hear!” Wolf said, and they all lifted their glasses.
“The only thing that really matters is...”
“Not beating your kids when you’re pissed off?” Lach asked.
“Well, that,” Sawyer said. “But also being there. Loving them. Kids don’t care about DNA. That’s all adult stuff. Hang-ups about stupid things. I’m here to tell you, I’ve got the best kind of blended family in the whole world. And nothing about it is less.”
That actually made Gus feel...not better. Not at all. Because it sounded like something he hadn’t bargained for. Sounded like something a little bit deeper than he’d been intending. But then, Evelyn had wanted children. She was very maternal. And she was already pregnant with baby number two. They loved having kids.
It was different. Different for him. Different for Alaina.
“Well...thanks,” he said to Sawyer. Because there was a certain kind of mean he would be to his brothers, but he’d be a little bit nicer to Sawyer.
“To Gus and Alaina,” Wolf said, lifting his glass.
“Gus and Alaina,” they echoed, raising their glasses.
And he looked around the table, and marveled at the thing they’d built. The truth was, he’d always felt outside of every group he was ever in. Well, maybe there was a time he hadn’t. But then, that had been before his dad had set him the fuckon fire.
Everything had changed after that.
He was the kind of tragic that made people uncomfortable, and he didn’t have the stomach for being tragic.
He didn’t want anyone’s pity. Any more than he wanted their fear or their disgust. But there was...nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do about the way people reacted to him.
It was what it was. But right now, he didn’t feel quite so distant. Right now he didn’t feel like a whole other species, or those men who got to hide the fact that they’d been through hell.
He often wondered what that was like. To not have to wear what you’d been through on your face.
To be able to protect your privacy just a little bit more.
