Ball & Chain(9)

“Are you happy?”

“Very much so,” Deuce said. The answer would have been clear in his voice regardless.

Ty smiled. “Good.”

“I have another favor to ask you,” Deuce said quickly, his voice losing its enthusiasm.

Ty’s brow furrowed. “Anything.”

“Can you bring someone with you to the wedding?”

“What do you mean?”

“One of your Recon buddies.”

Ty sat up, his unbuttoned jeans forgotten. “What? Why?”

“Short version? Livi’s dad is concerned about safety. His company’s been getting threats, apparently. That’s why we’re rushing it. He’s got his own private bodyguards, but I’d feel a lot better if we had someone there who could put all his attention on the baby girl if anything goes wrong.”

“You want a bodyguard for the baby at your wedding?” Ty frowned harder. He glanced up when Zane came back into the kitchen, shrugging at the questioning look Zane gave him, and Zane turned to head back into the living room. Ty’s eyes lingered on his ass as he walked away.

“I know it sounds overboard, but I swear man, the way her dad talks, it makes me paranoid. And I don’t want to have to worry on my wedding day.”

“Yeah, no,” Ty said quickly. “I got it. I’ll call someone.”

“I’ll make him a groomsman so he’ll have access to all the crap we’re going to have to go through. Pay his way, everything. And give him a guest. It’s only fair. All on us.”

“Got it.”

“Thanks, bro.”

Ty nodded, grinning. “Now, if you ever call me again while I’m getting head, I’ll kill you.”

“Understood,” Deuce said with a laugh, and the phone clicked off in Ty’s ear.

Ty smirked, looking down at the phone for a moment before clambering to his feet. “Garrett!”

“What?” Zane called back.

Ty found Zane in the bathroom, shirt off, wiping himself down with a hand towel. “I’m not done with you. We have to celebrate.”

Zane smiled indulgently. “Celebrate Deuce’s engagement by engaging in copious amounts of hot sex?”

Ty spread his arms and cocked his head with a grin. “Sounds like a plan, right?”

Zane left the towel in the sink and moved until they stood chest to chest. He placed his hands on Ty’s hips, his thumbs stroking the skin bared by Ty’s unfastened jeans. “You know what that wedding means, don’t you? A whole week. The two of us. On vaca—”

Ty tapped Zane’s lips with two fingers, shushing him. “Don’t finish that thought.”

Zane blinked at him, smirking. “What else did he need?”

“Later,” Ty grunted, determined to get back to business. “There was an inappropriate celebration we were getting to, remember?”

Zane chuckled, a low rumble in his chest. “You can’t distract me that easily.”

“Watch me,” Ty growled.



It took Nick a long time to talk himself into climbing the front steps of the triple-decker he’d grown up in. He glanced at the upstairs window as he stood on the sidewalk. His father was laid up in bed there, dying from all the poison he’d put into his body in the last sixty or so years. He wanted to see all his children before he passed, wanted to make peace with them.

At least, that was what Nick’s mother had told them. Nick knew there was something more going on, though. It had taken his mother two weeks to contact him after he’d returned home, and the first words from her mouth hadn’t been to say she was glad he was home safe. Just that his father needed to see him.

He climbed the front steps and knocked before he could decide against it. His mother answered the door, her smile strained and her hug stiff when she greeted him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, voice quiet. “You look good, Nicholas. Your father’s been asking for you.”

Nick merely nodded, resisting the urge to glance up or in the direction of his father’s study. He was closer to forty than four, but he still felt that flash of anxiety and outright fear when he thought of walking down that hallway.

They stood in awkward silence, not really looking at each other, not really wanting to. This was the first time Nick had been in his childhood home since he’d told his parents he was bi. He hadn’t been welcome after that.

Nick cleared his throat.

“Katherine and Erin are here,” his mother said finally. “They’ve been waiting for you to get here before they go up to see him.”

Nick nodded again, shrugging out of his snow-covered coat. He and Kat and Erin shared memories the younger siblings hadn’t been subjected to.