by J. J. McAvoy
“The rules?” I chuckled, shaking my head. “If you are talking about the Callahan family rules, you should know Ethan doesn’t subscribe to them. Every time Father would tell one of us something, Ethan would try to find a hole in its logic. The ones he agreed with he sort of kept, but for most of them he—”
“That is not the point!” he hollered, and I shrugged, taking another bite of my Jell-O and let him go on. “The point was my sister was shot! If this was Dona—”
“It’s not Dona, though. Don’t compare my sister to yours; there is a difference,” I said.
He looked ready to strangle me, but I didn’t care.
“On top of everything, he went and sidelined me, just brushed me off. Me. I’m on the sidelines.”
“I can see that, which is why you are in front of my bed and not on your way with him. But maybe you haven’t noticed, I’m also not with him. I’m in bed, eating Jell-O because I have been sidelined, too. I can’t have a pity party for myself and you at the same time, Sedric.”
He paused, finally noticing. He frowned. “You’re not really sidelined, though.”
“Bed. Jell-O. You.” I pointed to each thing. “This looks like a real fucking sideline to me.”
He rolled his eyes, sitting on the end of my bed, “The difference is you’re hurt. You nearly died, and before you nearly died, you were out there fighting for our family and making people piss shit scared of you!”
I paused and took another bite before nodding. “This is true, carry on.” Though Calliope’s insults from days ago still haunted my mind and ruined that moment for me.
“If it weren’t for your being injured, you’d be right next to Ethan. I, on the other hand, got shafted for defending my sister against that…woman.”
“Ethan’s woman.”
“Yes, that one.” He rolled his eyes again. “Excuse me if I don’t shake at the title of Ethan’s woman. They don’t tend to last long around here.”
“Well, technically, she’s the longest-lasting one with a kid, too.”
He scoffed. “You mean the one that just got here?”
“Yeah, cute little girl with a green eye and a brown eye,” I replied, eating again.
“Again, she shot my sister and kicked her out of the house! Our house! Are you not getting that part?”
Oh, I was getting it. Unfortunately, I was getting it very clearly. Something was off, but I couldn’t say that to him. It would only add fuel to his fire, and Ethan might shoot him next. I wanted him to back off this.
“Wife trumps cousin,” I said, hoping to take most of the fight out of him.
“Now you sound like Ethan!” he hollered. “They aren’t even married yet!”
“Yes, they are, check the family register,” I said, and he paused.
He didn’t even need to check because I wouldn’t lie to him about something like this.
I snickered and pointed to his face. “I had the same look on my face, too.”
“When did this happen?”
“I have no idea. God knows how Ethan does half of the shit he does. But this is our reality now. Even if it weren’t true, Ethan isn’t going to let anyone insult his daughter in any way.” It was such a weird sentence to say. Ethan was a father. Like, he had a tiny little human that called him Dad? So fucking weird. He did not seem old enough to be a parent. But then again, I didn’t think anyone was old enough to be a parent.
“Wyatt, I’m so lost.”
“Yep, as you can see, this is not your room.”
“Wyatt!”
“What do you want me to say, Sedric? I do not like this role. I feel old and unlike myself. I’m having to lecture you. I am not a fucking lecturer. Save that shit for your dad because I’m tired of listening to you bitch, especially about something you can’t do anything about.” Wasn’t I supposed to be the fucking fun one? I used to always be able to find something fun in every situation. Now, I was out of my depth here, too. I felt like I’d aged twenty goddamn fucking years.
“Why?”
“Why? Really? Are you not hearing me?” I asked him, and he just stared back at me. “Fine, go ahead. I’d love to see what happens when you try to go against the woman who may or may not be an assassin with expertise in poison and military combat, who also has Ethan conceding to her…so much so that she can shoot family and he will stand at her side. Good luck, and while you are here, what kind of flowers should I put on your grave?”
“Shit…I forgot about all of that,” he muttered, pausing, and I wished I had something hard to throw at his damn head. “Why the fuck are you acting like this?”
“How else should I be acting?”
“Remember when Dona was here and you nearly lost it over Gabriel?”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Dona is a girl,” I said, licking the spoon.
He lifted his hand, and his face bunched up as if he weren’t sure whether to scream or smack me. I laughed, putting the empty cup to the side. “What I mean is, Dona would have to leave, and I didn’t want that. Ethan’s not going anywhere.”
“He’s just got some strange woman calling all the shots in this house now.”
I nodded. “That’s how I felt when he brought it up before. But after thinking about it, I realized this ends in one of two ways, Sedric. Either he’s letting her do whatever the fuck she wants because he’s going to kill her later, which I doubt because, like you said, the women around him don’t last long, and Ethan knows he needs a wife. Or. most likely the right answer, he is really letting her do whatever the fuck she wants because she is his wife at the end of the day. When has any man in this family told a Mrs. Callahan not to do whatever the fuck she wanted to do?”
“So, just let her insult my sister?”
“Sounds about right.” I nodded. “Or better yet, make sure you and Nari stay on her good side or avoid her altogether. I don’t trust her. But trust issues are sort of my thing. That being said, we can be skeptics and watchful without disrespecting her.”
“I don’t like this smart and mature Wyatt. I can’t reason with this version of you,” he grumbled. “I blame Helen; she broke you.”
“I did what now?” she said, stepping into my room, looking beautiful as always in her deep green dress.
“Abort. Abort,” I coughed into my hand.
He shook his head. “I think I’m going to go to the gym and work off my anger before I run into another Callahan woman.”
“Brilliant idea.” I nodded at him.
“Love you, too, Sedric.” Helen pouted, and he just waved her off, closing the door behind him as he went. She shook her head before looking to me.
“I’m sick,” I told her, coughing.
“You’re just saying that so I will play doctor with you.”
I couldn’t help but grin. There was so much more I wanted to do than play, too. Helen came over and tossed her leg over my lap and sat down slowly as I leaned back on the pillows. She put her hand on my head. “You don’t feel hot.”
“You’re touching the wrong head,” I replied, pulling her hand down and pressing it against my cock. She gasped. “See?”
“You have a talent for getting hard.”
“Best compliment I’ve ever gotten,” I muttered, kissing her chest.
“Wyatt, we have to talk…”
“Fuck and talk?”
“You need to rest.”
“That’s why you’re on top.”
“I need to rest, too.”
“Fifty-fifty, and it will be a quickie.”
She didn’t say anything, and instead, reached into my pants, and I closed my eyes. Her hand around me was the only type of medicine I needed.
“Ahh…” I moaned as I felt her rising off me a little. Slowly, she lowered herself on top of me. She was fucking evil. Reaching up, I pulled down the top of her dress and her bra. I waited until she took all of me before taking her nipple into my mouth. I sucked and kissed all over her breast as she b
ounced. Wrapping my arms around her tightly, I couldn’t help it, I flipped us both over, thrusting forward.
“Oh!” she moaned, kissing my ear.
Thank fucking God for the sideline.
HELEN
“That was a terrible idea!” I groaned, laying my head on his chest.
“Blasphemy. Sex is never a terrible idea,” he said, playing with the curls of my hair.
I knew he’d say that. “How’s your leg feeling?”
“Like a fucking semi slammed into it; fuck, it hurts!” he groaned, and I laughed. So did he.
“Which is why the doctors said no strenuous activity!”
“But I was horny, and you are beautiful. It was a set-up from the beginning.” He snickered, kissing my head.
“Cheesy, fucking bastard.”
“Gasp, Helen, language; what would your father say?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I’d be able to hear him over the shotgun fire he’d be hailing down on you for fucking me.”
“Uncle Declan loves me,” he said, and I sat up some to look at him. “How could he not? Look at my face!”
“You’re in a better mood?”
“Yeah…Ethan has someone, isn’t that good?” He didn’t sound like he believed that.
“Okay, now tell me how you really feel.”
“You know I don’t like new people.” He pouted like a child. “And I trust them even less…but she came with a kid…smart on her part. You can’t hate her when she has a kid.”
“She had the guards escort Nari off the property.”
“Yes, Sedric, let me know…loudly…the last thing I want is for him to go up against her. Not when we don’t know anything about her yet. I was trying to get him to calm down, but I understand. Hell, I want to yell with him.” He sighed. “What do you think of her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Double gasp. The great, certified genius, Helen B. Callahan, does not know?”
“Are you mocking me?”
He nodded and laughed again. “What’s my punishment?”
“Down boy.”
He could make anything turn into an excuse for sex! Jesus. My hands and side were on fire already.
“I really don’t know how I feel about her. She doesn’t make sense, and yet, she makes sense.”
“Break that down for me?”
“You ever see someone and just know that person has issues?” I asked, trying to figure it out as I spoke. “From the little we know about her, she should be, I don’t know, colder? And yet she is polite and courteous. Even with Nari, she invited her out of the room to speak to her privately. If Nari hadn’t blown up, there wouldn’t have been a problem. Even during breakfast she seemed nice.”
“She’s pretending.”
“Even if she was, she knew to do so, because she wasn’t trying to hurt us. If it was Dona—”
“Why do you all keep bringing up Dona?” He frowned, and I guess he didn’t see it. “They are nothing alike.”
“You can’t see the ambition?”
Dona was shaking with it. She was nearly going crazy with the desire to be greater; it was like she was fighting her way up a mountain. Meanwhile, Calliope looked calm and collected like she was using a ski lift to get up instead.
“There is something about Calliope. Some part she’s not showing us, that makes Ethan look so different next to her.”
When I looked back at Wyatt, since he wasn’t speaking, I found him just staring at me. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Liar! What? Tell me!”
“You know everyone in this house is aware you secretly assess and dissect people almost as badly as Ethan does.”
I frowned at that. “You make it seem like I’m plotting something.”
“No, that’s the problem.” He chuckled. “You use what you learn to avoid everyone, to stay out of the way. You’ve always done that, you know. You’d read the room, rush to warn Darcy and me to make sure we didn’t get into trouble. Darcy listened more than I did.”
“You never listen to me,” I snapped.
“Yeah, because it’s okay to make trouble sometimes, Helen. They would yell a little bit, and then it was over. You never seemed to get that and were always the good one. The one that tried to stay out of messy conversations or issues. Now, look at you diving into this. You’ve never done that with me before—shown me what was going through your mind as you tried to figure out people.”
I shifted and looked away. “This isn’t about me. Seriously, focus. How do you feel about Calliope?”
He sighed, rubbing the side of his face. “I thought Ethan was becoming different, was opening up more. There was even witty banter between us. His ice wall was coming down, and now this Calliope has his wall back up. I feel like something is calculated about this, too, but I can’t put my finger on it. Not to mention this whole Ivy-Calliope mess feels…rushed and reckless.”
“That worries you because Ethan is always calculated?”
“I’m the reckless one. He’s the calculated one. That’s how it’s always been,” he replied, and I could feel him drumming his fingers on my bare back.
“Maybe you are both changing.” And I wasn’t sure what that meant yet. “Here you are trying to calculate while he’s out there being reckless. He asked for both Sedric and Darcy. Then Sedric got benched. Which means he’s going into whatever he’s doing with one less man then he planned…reckless.”
He sighed, just realizing and moving to get up despite the pain he was in. “See, this is why I fucking hate new people! They come in and fuck up the order of shit, and I no longer know what the fuck is going anywhere.”
“In her defense, you kinda never knew what the fuck was going on here before,” I replied, rolling over in the sheets and twisting back my hair.
“Are you mocking me now?”
I grinned. “What’s my punishment?”
He glared and shook his head. “You’re trying to seduce me so I’ll stay in bed and I don’t go out to help, Ethan.”
“I am.”
“Always trying to stop trouble.”
“I’m also reminding you that Ethan didn’t ask for your help.” I swore he wasn’t going to rest no matter what. He just couldn’t stay still. I’d rather he spent his time in bed with me than getting hurt further before he could fight.
“Ethan never asks for help, Helen. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t need it.”
“Wyatt, Ethan did ask for help. He just didn’t ask for yours,” I reminded him, sitting up. “Don’t overstep him. That’s what Nari did with Calliope. Be calm, collected, and wait. He knows you are his brother and have his back. So be the good soldier and be patient. And get off your leg, you’re hurt.”
He frowned and sat back down. “God, I’m so fucking whipped.”
“Now, is that your punishment or mine?”
His eyebrow rose, and I knew we’d both be hurting from this round, but neither of us cared.
I didn’t know what Calliope was up to yet. Or how she had managed to get Ethan to allow her to do what she did today. And until I found out, I was going to play it safe and protect my people: Wyatt, my brother, and my parents.
I had a bad feeling…and until it went away, I didn’t trust her. But at least Ethan wouldn’t be alone. He had a daughter now.
9
“We are so old, we have become young again.”
~ Hanya Yanagihara
CORALINE
“I’m old,” he whispered softly as he laid his head down on my lap, closing his eyes.
I glanced over to the maid who stepped into the greenhouse with my tea. Shaking my head at her, I turned around and looked back to the beautiful man now in my lap. Yes, his face had a few more wrinkles. Yes, his hair was graying completely on the sides and along his five o’clock shadow. And yes, his knees sometimes cracked now when he got out of bed quickly.
However…“You look just as handsome to me now as you did when I first
met you.”
“Liar.” He chuckled.
“Never,” I said back, putting down my book on the small stool beside the bench we were both on. “Shouldn’t I be the one complaining about my age?”
“Try aging first!” He sulked, and I laughed. “Not funny. You look like Helen’s older sister and not by much. And don’t you dare say black doesn’t crack; I’ve seen your relatives.”
“What are you trying to say about my aunt?” There was no point in saying relatives; I didn’t have many of them left. Not ones that lived close to us, anyway.
“She’s one of the ugliest people I’ve ever seen,” he admitted blatantly, and I smacked his chest lightly because he was right, and I didn’t care so much for her anyway; nevertheless, it was rude. He smiled at my pathetic smack before opening his beautiful eyes and looking up at me. “And mean, while you are still the most beautiful.”
“Exactly, why would such a beautiful woman like me be with an old man?” I teased, running my hand through his hair. “The fact that I’m still with you is proof that you aren’t an old man yet.”
“Why, thank you, but I don’t know if you are complimenting me or you more.” He laughed before sitting up, sighing deeply as he brought his feet back to the cobblestone underneath us. He sat forward on the edge of his seat, rubbing his hands on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered, putting my hand on his shoulder and leaning into him.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” he muttered, reaching up and taking my hand. He looked at the rows upon rows of red roses beginning to bloom, even though it was November. “You are blooming them so early. I thought you wanted them for spring?”
“I did. I still do. But I couldn’t help myself. But you didn’t come to talk about my roses. Since you don’t know where to begin, I’ll help. Why did you start this conversation with ‘I’m old?’”
“Because that is how I felt watching Ethan and Calliope just now.” He chuckled, gently shaking his head. “Did you know she shot Nari today?”
“She what?” I gasped, much more alert now. “Is Nari all right?”
