“Three-to-one odds?” I asked.
“You owe me three orgasms for every one of yours.”
I burst out laughing again and this time Shiloh joined me.
Oh, yeah, everything was just fucking fine.
16
“Am I interrupting?” Phoenix asked.
No, actually he didn’t ask; he simply interrupted and did it snidely.
“You are,” I told him without lifting my cheek from Luke’s chest.
“Babe,” Luke rumbled.
“For fuck’s sake, you mind taking your hands off my sister?” That was Phoenix again.
Luke’s body went still.
Shit.
We were off to the side, not yet in the middle of the festivities, but the tables and people milling about weren’t far. And when Luke and I had walked around Triple Canopy’s main building I’d noticed kids were running around.
Not the time or the place for me to get into a smackdown with my brother. It also wouldn’t be good if Luke kicked his ass. Though Phoenix was being a jerk so I figured I’d let Luke get in two good hits before I pulled them apart.
“There’re kids here. I’d appreciate you watching your mouth,” Luke rumbled.
At that point, I felt it prudent to intervene. I pushed off Luke’s chest but only far enough to slip one arm behind his back and place the other around his abs.
I was making a statement—one Phoenix didn’t miss.
“I’d appreciate—”
“Knock it off,” I seethed. “And you’re lucky there are kids around or I’d step away and let Luke handle you.”
“Babe,” Luke rumbled again. “Thought we talked about this.”
“No, you asked me not to use you to egg my brothers on. This is not that. This is me telling Phoenix he’s so far out of line it’s not funny. You caught it from River, which I kinda understand because we took him off-guard. Echo heard about it and sought you out. That was way uncool. But Phoenix, he knows River and Echo already went at you, yet here he is acting a fool for no reason. He didn’t walk up and introduce himself like a normal human being. He didn’t say hello to his sister and offer brotherly love. Nope, he walked up, interrupted us, then proceeded to be a jerk. And that’s fucked.”
I lowered the fucked part to a whisper but Phoenix still heard.
“Not five minutes ago you read me the riot act about your brothers. Told me they were all you had, they were family, and family is always your business. You were right. So you gotta know, baby, that goes both ways. You’re their family. You’re their business. You are all they have.”
“It’s not the same and you know it. This is him being an ass.”
“No, it’s him being your brother. It’s him being protective. I gotta suck it up and you do, too. So cool it, yeah?”
Throughout this exchange, Phoenix’s eyes were dancing back and forth between me and Luke. He’d lost some of his dickheadedness but not all of it.
“Fine,” I huffed and Luke smiled. “Phoenix, this is Luke. Luke, this is my youngest brother Phoenix.”
Neither man said anything and I almost felt relief when I saw Echo and River walking toward us. I had a few angry words I wanted to say to Echo but I knew he’d handle Phoenix. There was one thing about my eldest brother that had not changed in all the years since he’d started raising us; a Kent never misbehaved in public—that was what he told us when we were teenagers. When we got older he drilled into us that a Kent never acted a fool and embarrassed themselves in public. And when we all got to the age where we were making our way as adults and starting our careers he set in stone that a Kent went above and beyond to do good work, to be a good person, to be honest, to be our best. Not the best—our personal best.
I knew it was because of who our father was—a criminal, a felon, a cop killer—that had led Echo to push us to be these things. Not that any of them were bad. But my brother took these things to such an extent sometimes I thought they were unhealthy or at least the reasons behind them were.
So I knew, there was no way in hell Echo would be happy if Phoenix caused a scene.
“What’s going on?” Echo boomed when he stopped at our huddle.
“Nothing,” Phoenix lied.
Echo took one look at my narrowed eyes and Luke’s posture and he sighed.
“Told you, brother, it’s all good,” Echo told Phoenix.
“Yeah, you said that. But is it?”
“What’s that mean?” I asked nastily.
Echo glanced between Phoenix and me, then his gaze settled on Luke.
“Everything all right?”
Interesting. Echo asked Luke that question and not Phoenix.
“All good,” Luke returned then greeted my other brother. “River, good to see you.”
“Yeah, you, too.”
Well, two out of three wasn’t bad.
At least that was what I was telling myself.
Then I took a good, long look at Phoenix and noticed the dark circles under his eyes and his unshaven face. He looked like shit which was not my brother’s style. Out of the four of us, Phoenix was the one who primped. He always had designer gear and a fresh haircut.
“What’s going on, brother?” I asked, all the hostility gone.
I didn’t miss his flinch and neither did Echo.
“Got a letter from Dad. He’s sick, says he wants to see us all. You know, like a family reunion in the big house. Says he doesn’t have long and wants to see his kids so he can say goodbye.”
I sucked in a breath then froze solid.
“Fuck,” Luke grunted and tucked me close.
“Not good, brother,” Echo seethed. “You think maybe you coulda cushioned that?”
“Right. Like it was cushioned for me when I got his letter outta the blue. Not that I give one fuck the bastard’s dying. The faster the better as far as I’m concerned. You all can do what you have to do, but I’m not going to see the asshole.”
Phoenix cared. He cared a lot and it pissed him off he did. Out of all of us, I think it hurt Phoenix the most what Dad did. For some reason, Lester Kent loved Phoenix more than the rest of us. When we were kids before we understood who our dad was, Phoenix was closest to him. To me, Lester was just a man who lived with us while Echo was my dad. But Lester was Phoenix’s dad.
“River, head on to the party with Sunny and Luke. Me and Phoenix are gonna take a walk.”
River dipped his chin to Echo and moved my way. Echo patted Phoenix on the shoulder and shoved him back toward the parking lot. As soon as my brothers were out of earshot I turned to River.
“You okay?”
River glanced at Luke, then the two men’s gazes locked in some sort of manly silent communication that would’ve pissed me off if Phoenix hadn’t just dropped a bomb.
Whatever my brother needed to work out was done when he broke the stare and looked back at me.
“Yeah, sis, I’m good. But this is gonna rock Phoenix.”
“I know.”
“He had a different dad than we had.”
“He did,” I confirmed.
River nodded then turned to Luke and shocked the shit out of me.
“There are a lot of reasons to hate Lester Kent. For the most part, he ignored me, Echo, and Sunny. But he took Phoenix everywhere with him. He taught Phoenix how to work on cars. He even bought this beat-up junker of a dirt bike so he and Phoenix could fix it up. They spent a lotta time together, so it hit Phoenix especially hard the first time the cops came knocking. The second time the cops came with a warrant, we were minors but we were still cuffed and set on the porch while the house was searched. Something inside my brother died that day. There was no more denying who our dad was. I’m telling you this because something was obviously going on when Echo and I walked up. My guess is Phoenix was being a dick. I’m not excusing whatever he said, but I hope you can understand what getting a letter from our dad would do to him.”