by Ella James
He kisses my head. “Piglet.” His hand comes to my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
I grab some boots and socks, and also my phone. Barrett squeezes my hand as we walk through the living room.
“Don’t worry,” he says gently.
He wraps an arm around my shoulders, making me feel safe and sheltered. Then he pulls the door open and I behold our guests.
I’m not sure which face is more surprising to behold. My eyes go from the blond, tanned version of Barrett to the stunning brunette and back to the guy as everyone smiles, talks, and grabs for each other all at once.
The girl reaches for Barrett, leaving me face-to-face with his brother. Ever awkward, I murmur, “You look like Barrett. Sort of.”
The guy smiles, and I feel slightly warm. Magnetic: that’s the way his face is. His smile is beautiful, like Barrett’s, and his face, like Bear’s, is chiseled, classically handsome. He’s got Barrett’s gorgeous man lips and, like Barrett, sports something between stubble and a light beard. Which only enhances his great looks.
But where Barrett’s skin is creamy, Kellan’s is tan. Where Bear’s hair is curly and dark, Kellan’s is slightly wavy, golden blond. This guy’s eyes are blue like Bear’s, but they’re more ocean blue than gray-sky blue. His eyes are kind, his smile is white. His eyes are brighter, I think, as he reaches for my hand. He looks more peaceful than Barrett.
I feel a streak of hurt at that thought, and shift my gaze down to our clasped hands. After just another millisecond of me taking in brother’s wide shoulders and tall, slim build, I turn my gaze to his girl—Cleo.
And two things happen really fast. The first: my heart squeezes in an aching, awful way—because she’s seriously breathtaking: wavy, shoulder-length dark hair and wide, green eyes. Her brows are flawless; her cheekbones are high and delicate; her lips, less full than mine but perfectly shaped, now pulled into a pretty smile.
For half a second, I’m swamped by raw inadequacy. Then she lunges for me, pulling me into a hug—or trying to. Barrett’s arm is still around me, though, so when she pulls me toward her, I don’t move. Cleo stumbles forward, and seconds later, we’re all laughing.
Her laughter is ridiculous: almost a howl.
I grab Cleo by the shoulders just as Barrett’s heavy arm releases me, so she and I end up wobbling comically into each other.
Her face is right in mine; her light, fragrant perfume fills my nose as my stomach rolls. My face is right by hers. A kind of shame-based terror fills me, chilling me down to my toes. But Cleo’s eyes are bright and kind. She clings to me as if we’re friends.
Still laughing, she says, “I’m Cleo.”
“I’m Gwen. Nice to meet you.” I don’t notice until I pull away from her and shift my eyes back to Kellan that I gave the shorter, more familiar version of my name. I hesitate only a breath before I smile at him again.
“Hey.” I hold my hand out, forgetting we already shook. Kellan takes it anyway, squeezing slightly; smiling. Where Barrett looks like a gorgeous warrior, his brother, in his pale blue button-up, dark jeans, and Ray Bans, looks like a movie star.
“I’m Kellan, or as Barrett likes to say, Kelly.” He shoots Bear a sulky look that barely masks a smile, and then he reaches out to slap Barrett’s arm.
“How are ya, man?”
Barrett smiles; oh God, those dimples. “I’m good, K.” His gaze shifts to Cleo, his eyebrows arching. “Does that work for him,” he asks Cleo. “K.?”
She grins, with a glint in her eye. “I think you should stick with Kelly.”
“Only if we call you Fi,” Kellan says to Cleo. He waggles his eyebrows.
Barrett frowns, and Cleo puts a hand to her forehead. “Y’all’s dad heard Kellan call me Cle.”
“He called her Fi, and then Fiona.” Kellan shakes his head. “Dad says to have you call him, Bear.”
“You talking to that jackass?”
Kellan quirks an eyebrow. “He’s talking to me.”
Kellan sticks his hands into his pockets, looking cold—or awkward. Cleo gives me a ‘hi, other outsider’ kind of look, then looks at her boots and mumbles, “He is a jackass, though.”
I nod, my eyebrows arched in what I hope is neutral-curious fashion. Until I notice her brown boots. Then my mouth falls open just a little. “Nice boots. I like the little fringey things.”
“Marc Fisher.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“Yours are awesome, too,” she says. “Kors?”
“Yep.”
She smiles brightly. “I like you. I think we could do some damage in a shoe shop.”
Kellan puts an arm around Cleo’s shoulders, fixing Barrett with an exaggerated, brain numb kind of look, which is actually hilarious. I giggle, and Kellan raises a brow. Damn, he’s charming. He’s got this sort of…rakish vibe about him. Where Barrett is so quiet and mysterious, Kellan has this swagger…
“So,” he blinks at Bear. “You guys want to go get breakfast?”
“Sure.” Barrett looks at me, and I nod. He steps out of the doorway and I move past him to lock the door.
“Cleo wants a breakfast burrito,” I hear Kellan say from behind me. Barrett’s hand strokes up my neck, sifting in my hair and making me shiver. The touch is brief and soft, a kind of touching base, I think.
I turn around, door locked behind me, and he folds his big hand around mine.
“I said I’d do waffles, too. Like Waffle House,” Cleo is saying. “Mmm, I’ve been missing me some Waffle House.”
And this is how it happens that, two hours later, the four of us are talking over napkin-covered plates and half-drained sodas at the nearest grease palace. Cleo and I are seated across from one another by the window, talking about Lularoe leggings and being from the South, and whispering about her and Kellan’s covert business—which is insane. And incredible.
“So you’re like the king and queen of…?” I mouth the “M” and “J” silently because I’m too nervous to say it aloud in public even though Cleo just told me the story herself in murmurs.
Long story short: the two of them get medical marijuana to cancer patients in states where it isn’t legal yet. At one point, they financed the venture by dealing to college students, but now, since Kellan got his bone marrow transplant, some of their friends are overseeing that part of their operation, while Kelly and Cleo live in California, by the ocean.
Cleo smiles at my question. “Maybe more like Robin Hood and Little John.”
I laugh, and Barrett’s arm settles around my shoulders.
“So wait up…how’d you guys meet?” Kellan cuts in, looking from Bear to me. I see his eyebrows quirk as his gaze settles on his brother.
Barrett squeezes my shoulder and smirks down at me. “Gwenna laid me out.”
Kellan and Cleo look from him to me, smiling expectantly. When Barrett doesn’t supply deets, Kellan lays his big palm on the table, leaning forward.
“All right Bear, what did you do?” At the same time Cleo tells me, “I’m impressed.” She shoots me a look of wonder. “Barrett is a badass.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” I give Bear a guilting look, earning a smirk. “I was working out in the woods early one morning and he scared me. I attacked.”
Barrett shakes his head, mock shaming. “Split my scar open.” He taps his head.
“His head is so hard, I bet she hardly even dented it.” Kellan grins at Barrett, who commandeers Kelly’s coffee cup and gives Kellan a funny, mock-threat look as he steals a long swallow.
“Ah, shit,” Barrett says as soon as he lowers the cup.
I frown, confused, as Kellan holds his palm out. “I was finished.” He smiles, and his eyes glide to me. He smiles at me, but it looks…strange. Not self-conscious? He seems too confident for that, but…
Cleo leans her head against his shoulder and changes the subject. “We went to the beach. I wish you guys had come, too. It was so amazing.”
Kellan kisses her temple. It reminds me so much of some
thing Barrett would do, my stomach flips a little. “Not like we live on a beach or anything,” he teases.
“The Gulf is different,” Cleo argues. “White sand versus cliffs; hot, hot, gloriously hot sun versus the breeze. They’re all good, but man…”
“I get it,” I nod. “If you’re from the South, the Gulf is everything.”
“We live overlooking the beach,” Cleo tells me. “And it’s amazing. So beautiful and breezy. But we don’t get out that much. I’m finishing my degree online—” she jerks her thumb toward Kellan— “and he’s working on his MBA online, too. We are not about the party these days.”
Minutes glide past like an easy breeze. By the time we get up, almost an hour later, I feel like I’ve known Cleo for years. Kellan, too. He’s not quite as open as Cleo, but he’s really nice. Charming, too. I can see why Cleo likes him so much.
I ponder the difference in their backgrounds, even their childhoods, I’m sure, as we wait for the check. Kellan’s so much easier to read than Barrett. His manner with Cleo is more relaxed than Barrett’s is with me. More natural, or maybe just easier.
Of course, all that is changing…
The whole time we were eating, Barrett kept his left hand on my leg underneath the table, or his arm around me. As we walk back out to Kellan’s ride, a sleek, charcoal Porsche Cayenne Hybrid Kellan claims Cleo made him get—something about The Lorax—Barrett wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me up against him, so close we almost can’t walk without tripping. When I stop to laugh and look up at him, his lips feather over my cheek.
I hear laughing and turn to find Cleo and Kellan smirking at us as Kelly heads around to her side of the car, to get her door, I guess.
Barrett gets my door—he’s been schooled by Cleo; this is what a Southern girl expects, she told him—and he and I sit holding hands, my right leg and his left one intertwined, as we ride back toward home.
“So how’d you end up buying a house here, B.?” Kellan asks. “That seems random as hell.”
SIX
BARRETT
I look at Barrett. I can’t remember what he told me about this, or if I even asked.
He shrugs. “Knew an Operator friend from here. Said it was a good place. Noticed that it didn’t have a mixed martial arts place.”
Cleo turns around in her seat, looking excited. “So are you going to open one?”
Barrett lifts a shoulder. “Thought I’d look at space.”
“That’s awesome, man.” In the rear view mirror, Kellan’s eyes look warm and caring.
Barrett’s fingers squeeze mine slightly as he gives his brother a small smile. I’m starting to learn his smiles, and this one is the sad one. Or maybe I should think of it as the forced one. Like, he’s trying to be nice, lighthearted, but he feels unsure or unhappy, so it looks a little strained.
I squeeze his hand back, wondering what’s up with that.
“He taught me some new moves,” I tell Cleo and Kelly. “That’s kind of how we got to know each other.”
Barrett’s brows arch, and he smirks, his handsome face showing his dimples.
“It’s true.” I look from Kellan’s blue eyes, in the rear-view, to Cleo’s green ones; she’s mostly turned around in the passenger’s seat. “The kick was a bad first impression,” I say, smiling at Barrett. “I’ll admit that. But afterwards, I helped him clean his head up and I got a crush on him. Which of course, he didn’t know about.” I grin at him. My cheeks are so hot they almost hurt, but Barrett’s grin is real now, so it’s worth it. “He offered to show me some hand to hand moves since I have a weak ankle and am limited with kicks, and I told him if he did, I’d bake him cakes.”
“Gwenna has an advanced black belt in Taekwondo.” Barrett’s eyes slide from Cleo to me. His smile is soft and indulgent, and also proud.
“I love it.” Cleo nods, turning a little more in her seat. “So you guys could run the martial arts place together. Not that anyone is marrying you two off or anything… Pinning you together indefinitely, because you are such a cute couple. Definitely not me.”
“Never.” Kellan smiles at Cleo, and they latch hands.
“She is.” He winks into the rear view mirror.
“You should be glad my sense of romanticism is strong,” she teases.
“Oh, I am. I really am.” I can hear a cord of sincerity in his low voice, and I wonder what it means. Then I remember his history, and I realize it’s probably that. I don’t think I got quite the whole story at breakfast, but I gathered the two of them met through Kellan’s marijuana business, and he was admitted to the hospital for a long time with a relapse when he and Cleo hadn’t know each other very long.
“Ah, shit.” Barrett tilts his head back, gritting his teeth. He lets my hand go, heaves a breath out, and fishes into his pocket. “I had a meeting with Mallorie, to see a place. Right now. Damn,” he murmurs as he texts.
“She’s so nice.” I bump his arm lightly. “Don’t worry.”
Sure enough, Mallorie Pryce tells him he can see the space later today, or any day.
“Just a minute, Mallorie.” He covers the mouthpiece and looks to me. “One thirty?”
“Sure.”
“We should go too,” I hear Cleo telling Kellan as Barrett gets off the phone with the realtor.
Kellan laughs. “Maybe—if Barrett wants us to. Whatcha say, B.?”
Barrett leans back against the seat and finds my hand again with his. “You guys want to stay around that long?”
“Are you trying to get rid of us?” Kellan smiles at his brother in the rearview mirror, and I can feel a warmth between the two of them.
“No way.” Barrett surprises me, loosening his grip on my hand so he can lean up and ruffle Kellan’s blond hair. He drapes his arm loosely around Kellan’s neck and says, “I missed my little bro.”
Kellan’s hand closes around Barrett’s thick forearm. I can’t see Barrett’s face, but I can see Kellan’s. For just a second, I can see the relaxation in his features: a kind of peacefulness. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever witnessed.
A millisecond later, Barrett’s back beside me, smiling like he, too, feels good. It’s no wonder, if you think about it. He probably felt like all the guys he served with were his brothers, and it seems he lost the closest one. So he needs Kellan. Having lost his twin, I’m going to guess that Kellan needs Bear, too.
With that in mind, the next few hours spent with Kellan and Cleo—touring Barrett’s house; going into the enclosure, where I sneak Cleo over to see Brooksie, curled up in a hollow tree; then drinking wine on Barrett’s back porch while Kellan and Barrett shoot a bow—feel blissfully satisfying.
It’s been ages since I hung out in a group like this, and maybe even longer since I spent a long day with a non-Jamie friend with whom I felt as comfortable as I do around Cleo.
By the time we load back up into Kellan’s ride to see the studio space, Kellan and Barrett are chumming it up like the bros they (literally) are, and Cleo and I are giggling about things that possibly aren’t even funny unless you’ve got a midday wine buzz.
As it turns out, the studio space is almost perfect: 1,600 square feet of former yoga center space along a main thoroughfare, priced under market because the owner’s husband has some rare disease they need to move to Germany to treat.
I catch myself watching Kellan’s face as Mallorie explains how the only real treatment the guy can get is experimental, and not legal in America. I swear, I think he loses a little color in his cheeks. When, as we move down the little hall between two rooms, Cleo catches Kellan’s hand and squeezes, I feel almost sure that I was right.
He probably has PTSD from having cancer. Damn, that sucks. As we walk back toward the front door, Barrett warms an arm around me. He strokes my arm and gives me a quizzical look.
I smile. “I love this place,” I murmur.
His brows arch, and he nods. The walls already have mirrors and the floors are covered with those foamy mats
whose vinyl scent takes me back to the Taekwondo studio where Rett and I learned. They only major thing we—Barrett, really—might want to do is busting out two walls to make the two rooms in the front of the space into one giant room.
Barrett drives us home: to his home, and as Kellan opens the front passenger side Bear leans into the back seat where Cleo and I are sitting. “Be right back,” he tells me quietly. “Just going to let them in.”
The three of them go up the stairs, and I wait, feeling slightly awkward and admiring Kellan’s car, which smells phenomenally new car-ish.
Cleo and Kellan disappear through Barrett’s front door, and I watch Barrett descend the stairs. I can see him smiling toward me even though I know he can’t see me through the windows’ heavy tinting. Still, I smile back.
I’m still smiling when he opens my door. “Over the river and through the woods?” he asks, nodding back toward my house. He gives me a little smile that makes a flock of birds swoop through my stomach.
“Sure.” We fall into step beside each other, weaving between pines and through the crackling leaves. “So are they leaving?”
“I invited them for dinner. At my house if that’s better.”
I shove him. “Psshh. My house. You and me, Bear. We’ll make something good for them. Are they just taking some alone time at the moment?”
He nods. “Kelly’s tired.”
“So what’s it like with him? Is he like…done with everything or…?”
“He takes some maintenance medicines, I think. Most of it for his heart.”
“His heart?”
Barrett holds a branch back for me, nodding.
“He has some damage from the chemo.”
“Really? He seems…so healthy.” I shake my head and laugh unhappily. “That’s a stupid thing to say, I guess.”
“No.” His hand brushes my lower back as the wind blows a strand of hair into my face. “He’s doing pretty well. And his heart is healing up, they think.”
“Still.” I exhale slowly. “That’s just… I hate that.”
“Because you have a soft heart.”
