Roman-2(Lane Brothers, Book 5)(90)

Together he and Logan will have me crying into a gallon of chocolate mousse and whipped cream. I don’t mind it. It’s just that the tears totally ruin the flavor.

“Yes. Ryan.” He sighs. “Garret rang me, and while everything seems fine, I can’t risk it. He wants to go in for rugby when he’s out of school, and he can’t if it’ll be a recurring injury.”

“You love them very much.”

I like that. It means he’s as into family as I am, and that’s what I’ve always wanted, to love someone who shares the same values as I do. Family means everything to me, and maybe that’s why I’m so pissed at Lo. He feels the same; he’s just being a stubborn ass.

“Yes. They’re everything to me.”

I understand him then, as those eyes of his go soft and a smile tilts his mouth. He’s spent all these years raising three boys and being their everything, and that’s all he knows. All he wants to know.

There’s no room in his life for anything else, and honestly, even if there is, I don’t think it would make a difference. He won’t let it.

“I gotta go make sure Lila’s surprise from Mama and me is ready,” I say, pulling away and smiling, though it hurts. “If I don’t see you before you leave, tell Ryan and the boys I said hI, and tell Garret I said Amelia is really pretty but I don’t thinks she’s as into him as he is her.”

I leave him with his mouth hanging open and make my way to anywhere that isn’t near him. I don’t get to talk to them a lot, since we’re not that close, but I follow them all on Facebook and sometimes I send them messages to cheer on their achievements.

Like I said, I’m real into family, and those guys are part of mine, even if their big brother’s a douchebag.





Chapter Eleven


Oh, shit.

I don’t know what to do with myself, and instead of being the grown idiot that I am, I do the childish thing and bury my head in the sand and just pretend that I don’t know a thing, that nothing’s changed and that I’m not terrified out of my mind.

Instead I focus on everything around me that’s either improved or gone to shit. For instance, the day I got back to the city and walked into the office and coincidentally bumped straight into Peter he’d jumped back like I have the clap and apologized as if I hadn’t been in the wrong, not watching where I was going.

Shocked me, to be truthful, but I’d nodded and taken in his face.

“Are you wearing concealer?”

He’d blushed deep red and scuttled away like I’d lit a fire in his shorts. I learned later that day that someone had hit him, a lot, and that he’d been wearing concealer to hide his two black eyes and bruised jaw.

Love to kiss the hell out of whoever did that.

It’s been two months since the wedding, and I’m surprisingly good. I went on a blind date—sans the tentacle arms of one Kurt Engelhouser—and I really like the guy.

Dillon lets me order whatever I want at dinner without giving me the look that says ‘you really think you need that?’ and he doesn’t make fun of me for wanting to take things slowly. He kisses me goodnight—on the cheek—and leaves me at my door, happy to just be with me for me and not what he can take.

And now that’s all blown to hell and back because I’m a fucking dummy and I went and ruined things before they even started. I don’t know how this is going to play out, and I honestly can’t say I’m okay, but I will be, just as soon as I do what I should have done three years ago.

“Abi, you got a minute?” I ask, poking my head in her door.

She motions me forward without looking up from her desk and makes me wait while she gets done reading. Classic psyche-out tactic, but whatever. I no longer need to care.

“What is it, Slade?”

“I need you to know that I have to leave this morning, I have a very important call to make, and I kinda won’t be back. Ever,” I say, enjoying the shock that fills her eyes and leaves her mouth hanging open.

She’d be really pretty if she weren’t such a bitch, but hey, that’s not my problem anymore.

“What the hell are you talking about? You can’t just leave!”

“Yeah, I really can. No contract, remember? It used to scare me that you could kick me to the curb without so much as a week’s notice, but now I am totally glad I let you screw me over that way because it means you can’t make me stay.”

So what if I’m enjoying this? I’m not spiteful by nature, but hell, with the way my week’s been going, I so need to get the upper hand on something. And it looks like that something is Abi.