A Beautiful Disaster

by Marguerite Labbe

  Brenden was intelligent enough to show up for dinner and let Evelyn fuss over her boys. At least he wouldn’t have to cook or clean. He could relax and enjoy the company without having to direct it. After five days of frenetic activity, Brenden could use some relaxation. He would dearly love quiet, too, but he couldn’t have it all, and this was a noise and bustle he was comfortable with.

  Brenden parked behind everyone’s cars in the loaded driveway. Dakota was already here, and Brenden’s heart squeezed. The days away in Chicago hadn’t done a damn thing to lessen Dakota’s hold on him. The date hadn’t worked, and it was unfair to string the other guy along when Brenden’s thoughts hadn’t been on him, so he’d broken it off. He needed to move to Florida or, better yet, California.

  Knowing Dakota the way he did, the bastard would follow him.

  Brenden laid his forehead on the steering wheel. It had only been a week of this. A week of Dakota’s teasing flirting. A week of Dakota’s casual nudity. A week of his subconscious affection. Hell, not even a week, barely three days before Brenden ran for Chicago. Dakota was a fever that had seized him and would not let go. No con was worth this self-torture.

  On the topic of cons, they had the one on Kent Island coming up fast. He’d have to pull Dakota aside to talk about that tonight. Focus on the business and their friendship. That’s all he could do.

  Noise and warmth flowed out as Brenden opened the front door with his laptop bag slung over his shoulder. Male voices hooted and hollered at the TV, and Brenden picked Dakota’s out of the mix. Brenden wasn’t sure what was playing, probably hockey, but if it wasn’t wrestling, or sometimes baseball, he wasn’t interested. He set his laptop down, shrugged out of his coat, and followed his nose to the kitchen.

  Evelyn puttered at the dining room table, adding the final touches to each place setting. Brenden stole a peek in the oven and perked up. Her pot roast. Okay, that revived him. He’d go to greater lengths than this for his favorite meal.

  “Evelyn, do you want me to open a bottle of wine?” Brenden straightened as Julie came into the kitchen and stopped short. “Oh hey, Brenden.”

  She was a pretty girl, and he supposed she was nice, but Brenden was not about to forget how she’d crushed their youngest brother, Aden, last summer and strung him along for a couple of months before letting him back into her life. Brenden had been the one to comfort Aden when he showed up at his door, as Dakota had no patience with love-life problems. And as soon as he thought Aden was settled and ready to move on, she’d swooped back in. Brenden was keeping his eye on her.

  “Julie,” Brenden said with a stiff nod.

  Evelyn spun around, a welcoming smile lighting up her eyes. “Brenden, I was beginning to worry you were going to fob me off with an excuse.” She came over to lay an affectionate hand on his cheek before giving him a hug. She’d recently dyed all the gray out of her hair again and meticulously applied makeup to hide the signs that she was the mother of four men out in the world, but she was beautiful without the cosmetics. Her heart shone through her whole being. “How was Chicago?”

  “The conference went off with no hitches that couldn’t be handled.” Which was an absolute win for Brenden. The conferencegoers were happy; the client was happy once he stopped interfering and jumped into his own event, which meant Brenden was happy and could turn his attention to the next gig. “Go ahead and open the wine, Julie.” After that delayed flight, he could use a glass.

  “How did Dakota’s move in go?” Evelyn asked as she smiled at Julie. “Get the pretty glasses down, sweetie. I think I’ll have a little of the Merlot myself.”

  “He’s an assault on all my sensibilities.” Brenden shrugged, aware of Julie bustling around him. He longed to confide in Evelyn. Maybe she’d understand. “He’s as settled as Dakota will ever be. I left him in charge of finishing his unpacking, but I’m not expecting miracles.”

  Evelyn eyed him with one hand on her hip as she analyzed his dry tone. “Arguing already? It’s been a week, and you’ve been gone half that time.”

  Brenden gave her a crooked smile. “Mama E, Dakota and I were bickering within the first hour of meeting each other. Neither of us desires to change that dynamic. Hell, he’d rise from his deathbed to be sure he got the last word in.”

  “Why can’t you and Dakota get along?” She raised her hands, her expressive voice filled with exasperation. “You’re brothers.”

  Brenden’s smile fell away. That was where the problem lay. Brenden didn’t consider Dakota his brother. He never had. A friend, yes. An irritant, all the fucking time. Mostly, though, Dakota was the man he’d been attracted to since they’d first met and head-over-heels in love with ever since Dakota first whispered his coming out to Brenden. They’d bonded over their plans to reveal the secret to their foster parents together. It was a tangled, impossible situation.

  Add in the promise Brenden made to his foster parents and he was stuck. He’d never be able to tell Evelyn about his feelings for Dakota. She’d be horrified. But damn, living with Dakota as his brother for the rest of his life would make him miserable. He wanted to love him, even if Dakota had no desire for a lifelong commitment.

  “We’d get along fine if he wasn’t such a prissy know-it-all.”

  Brenden tried to duck the moment he heard Dakota’s voice, but he was too late. Dakota caught him in a chokehold and kissed the top of his head. “Admit I’m right.”

  Brenden elbowed him in the ribs as Evelyn squawked about wrestling in the dining room. He shoved Dakota away and rolled his eyes. “In your dreams you’re right.” He met Evelyn’s exasperated gaze as she swatted at them. “That is why we don’t get along. He’s still fifteen.”

  “And you’re fifty,” Dakota countered, leaning over to tweak the nearest place setting so it was off-center. “How was your trip?”

  Brenden tried to resist. He knew the reaction Dakota wanted, but he couldn’t stop himself from fixing the alignment, damn his perfectionist tendencies. Dakota gave him a laughing glance. “Everything went according to schedule.”

  “So in Brenden speak, perfect?”

  Brenden shook his head. “Nothing’s perfect. But all glitches fell within acceptable parameters.” He grinned as Dakota rolled his eyes this time. As much as Dakota knew how to get to him, he also knew the best ways to get right back at him. “As you can see, Mama E, we get along fine. He’s the R2D2 to my C3PO.”

  “Let me point out who’s the loved droid there, Aunt Evelyn. And it isn’t the golden butler.”

  “BB8!” Aden’s voice called out as he came into the kitchen. “So it would be me. Zach’s K2SO. ’Cause he’s a jerk.”

  “Which means I’m awesome,” their other brother shouted from the living room. “Bite me.”

  “The whole lot of you.” Evelyn smiled as Julie came into the dining room carrying the wine. “How did I end up with a home full of boys? Thank you, sweetie. You’re a balm to my sanity.”

  Brenden took his wine and used the opportunity to escape Evelyn’s questioning of his relationship with Dakota. She overimagined the tension between them. The only tension was one-sided sexual frustration and unrequited love. “So is my house still in one piece?” he asked as Dakota trailed after him.

  “Yep, I put all the pillow shams on inside out and reorganized the cutlery drawer.”

  Brenden said a silent prayer that Dakota was just messing with him. Probably was, bless him. He was too lazy to put in the work for a good prank, not when he got the results he wanted with words. Though there had been a few times when he’d gone all out for a laugh and had gotten Brenden good.

  Calling him lazy wasn’t fair. When it came to a job, his podcast, working the cons, he was untiring. When something was important to him, he wasn’t in the least bit lazy.

  Brenden met Aden in the kitchen and fist-bumped him. The youngest Nye was heading off to med school in the fall. That kid had gotten it all. The drive, the brains, and absolutely the pretty in the family. Dakota had a boxer’s ro
ugh visage that would scare babies. Zach looked like a giant, affable bear. Brenden knew he’d win no prizes. But Aden looked like a damn angel, and he was so gentle that Brenden worried about him.

  “Mama kept fussing that you weren’t going to make it, but you’re not the stranger around here.” Aden flicked a towel at Dakota. “I can’t believe you managed to drag this one back into the fold. And here I was all set to harass you when I moved to Baltimore in the fall.”

  Brenden leaned against the counter and took a sip of his wine. It was impossible to stay irritable when he was surrounded by his family. They might be a madhouse, but it was his madhouse. Dakota grabbed the towel as Aden went for another flick—damn, he had some reflexes on him—and snapped it right back at Aden. “Whatever, once school gets a hold of you, we won’t see you until you’ve finished your residency, and you’ll be even more of a toothpick than you already are.”

  “I thought I heard your voice.” Trev, Brenden’s foster dad, came into the kitchen and rummaged in the refrigerator for a beer. He wore a battered Washington Capitals jersey that he swore to keep pulling out each season, no matter the condition, until they won the cup. When it had finally happened, he continued wearing it for good luck. It had taken Brenden a long time to warm up to the man, but Trev had worn him down with a steady patience. Brenden had to give him credit for putting up with his teenage angst. “What made you decide to let that one back into your space?”

  Dakota grimaced as his uncle pointed at him, and Brenden shrugged. “A momentary lapse of good judgment,” he teased. “I’m sure I’ll come to my senses soon.”

  “Should be longer than a moment. You need more lapses in your life.” Dakota hopped up to sit on the counter, risking his hide if Evelyn saw him. “Kent Island is almost upon us. We might want to change that next time. It’s a smaller show, but it’s still close to Annapolis. Do you think we’d want to keep it next year? Or move it earlier a month so it’s at opposite times?”

  Brenden tugged on his earlobe. Dakota was taking it as a given that the Annapolis show would succeed. It was still a fair question. “Opposite,” he said after a moment. “We’ve been doing that one for five years. We’ve got tie-ins with the local community, and the focus is more on the comics and local artists, so we get a different crowd.”

  “You’re the boss. I started spawning more ads on social media while you were out. The buzz is growing.”

  Those were words Brenden loved to hear.

  “You guys going to be putting up signs all over the island again?” Aden asked. “I can help.”

  “Nah.” Brenden shook his head. “We needed that initially to get the word out, but after this many years, word of mouth and online advertising works better.”

  Dakota pressed his hands together in a pious gesture. “Thank God. Trying to figure out where we were allowed to put up signs and trying to remember where they all were so we could collect them afterward was a nightmare.”

  “Dakota Alexander Nye! Get your tookus down now.” Evelyn came into the kitchen, her arms crossed and a fire in her eyes.

  Dakota slipped from the counter and held out his arms for a hug. “I missed you, Aunt Evelyn. Did I tell you that today?”

  His foster mom softened like a stick of butter on a hot stove, and Brenden shared a wry glance with Aden. “What is it with you, man?” Zach asked in exasperation as he followed his dad into the kitchen for a beer. “How do you get away with that when the rest of us can’t?”

  “Brenden and I are the good children, so don’t lump us in with you,” Aden retorted.

  “And I’m the charming one,” Dakota added with a smirk. “So you’re shit outta luck.”

  Evelyn swatted him and then shooed them all out of the kitchen. “Go, the lot of you. I have to put the salad together. Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes, so clean up or else.”

  Brenden sidestepped the mad dash for the downstairs bathroom and headed for the stairs. The Nye boys could duke it out over the powder room while he could take his time in his old bathroom upstairs. Evelyn had redecorated since they moved out, and the room he’d once shared with Dakota had become a guest room with no traces of the warring teenagers who had once occupied the space.

  Brenden washed his hands and then dampened a cloth to press over his eyes as fatigue settled over him again. “Long flight?” He tensed at the sound of Dakota’s voice, and the bathroom suddenly shrunk around them. Dakota’s hands settled on his shoulders, kneading out the knots that formed there. “Damn, Bren, you need a keeper before you develop an ulcer.”

  “Long few days,” Brenden admitted. Dakota’s strong fingers felt so good that Brenden relaxed, accepting his ministrations. “Delayed flight, and Kent Island is only two weeks away.”

  “It’ll be fine. We’ll get there early like we always do and get the ball rolling.” Dakota’s hands moved up to the nape of his neck, pressing against the knot at the root of his tension headache.

  “Dakota, you have some magic hands,” Brenden murmured. He straightened and pulled away before he could completely crumble.

  “I have magic lips too,” Dakota said with a grin, and before Brenden could react, he brushed those damned lips against the back of his neck. A tingle of heat went straight to his dick, and Brenden was too damn tired to fight it off. “What you need is a night of lazy hedonism. After dinner, it’s going to be you, me, and the couch. Some ice cream too.”

  Though he knew Dakota didn’t mean it that way, Brenden couldn’t stop the image of the two of them wrapped up on the couch from entering his brain. He wanted that intimacy, to be able to hold him as they relaxed after a long day.

  He glanced up and met Dakota’s gaze in the mirror. Big mistake. Heat sparked, and suddenly he couldn’t find his breath as Dakota’s eyes narrowed. Brenden tried to look away with no success as the spark flared into embers. Dakota teased and flirted, but he rarely studied Brenden with that claiming gaze. The few times he had, every molecule in Brenden had wanted to surrender.

  “Your turn to use the sink.” Brenden tore his gaze away and turned to the door.

  Dakota reached around him and shut it. “You want out, you’ve got to look at me.”

  “What are we? Juveniles?” Brenden retorted acidly, throwing Dakota a glance over his shoulder.

  “Thankfully no. I couldn’t act on my impulses as a kid, not like I can now.” Dakota leaned against the door so he could watch Brenden’s face. “Did you ever wonder what harm one little kiss could do? Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  What harm…. Dakota still didn’t remember the searing kiss they’d shared as teenagers. That one night of drinking and making out resulted in a promise that caged him for life. Brenden wasn’t curious at all because he knew what it would be like and he craved to experience it again, this time with Dakota fully fucking aware of what he was doing to him. Brenden couldn’t cross that line.

  “Nope, not at all. I’m not here to scratch your itches. Go find another victim,” Brenden replied, looking Dakota straight in the eye so he’d recognize he wasn’t lying. The fact they were in Evelyn and Trev’s house did not seem to faze him in the slightest.

  “Brenden! Dakota! Come on, dinner is ready,” Evelyn called up the stairs, and Brenden pulled away in mortified guilt. She would have his hide if she knew the thoughts going through his mind. If she knew how tempted he was to take Dakota up on his offer and kiss him. A kiss he damn well would never forget. Brenden would make sure of that.

  Dakota grumbled something under his breath and removed his hand. Brenden let out a relieved sigh and escaped before he could change his mind.

  “Let’s play the WWE game when we get home,” he called back from the sanctuary of the stairs. That was safe. They’d be together but concentrating on whooping each other’s ass on the screen and trash-talking.

  “Tournament time,” Dakota replied with a war cry. Relieved at the distraction, Brenden went downstairs to face his family.

  Chapter Four

  BREND
EN HAD a voice made for recording, rich and smooth with an underlying dark timbre that often made Dakota imagine midnight whispers under the sheets. Of course, that might go back to their habit of talking half the night away when they were teenagers. Or maybe not. There had always been a certain amount of heat between them. Dakota could usually ignore it because he’d never had much of an inkling Brenden reciprocated that heat.

  He was so fucking hard to read. Now that he’d taken to wearing sunglasses around Dakota, it made it harder. Little annoying semitransparent bits of glass that hid his eyes just enough. Dakota wanted to snatch the things off Brenden’s overlarge nose to see what he was hiding.

  As impossible as Brenden could be to read, his voice usually gave away his emotions. Even when Brenden tried to disguise it. Dakota replayed that scene in the bathroom over and over. Brenden’s eyes had demanded he back off, which was a familiar sight. But his voice, his word choice, had Dakota examining the encounter, had him lingering over Brenden’s body language from the moment Dakota came up behind him and massaged his neck.

  It had been a simple act meant to ease the exhaustion he’d seen on Brenden’s face. He’d only wanted to give him a few minutes of relaxing and letting go. It proceeded with Dakota wanting to pin him to that door with a scorching kiss. Then ended with a lot of confusion as Dakota tried to figure out which message was the truth. Brenden’s unspoken signals or his words?

  Right now his voice betrayed his irritation, a favorite state of being for Brenden, bless him. Which was amusing but didn’t answer a damn one of Dakota’s questions.

  “I’ve been reading comics for a long time. Going for shock and awe over character consistency is lazy writing.” Brenden tapped his finger on the stack of trade comics for emphasis. “And pissing on fans who have followed faithfully for decades, ignoring their genuine concerns for months, isn’t going to bring new fans to a changing industry.”