Cass flicked a quick look at me, then dropped his eyes back to the tattoo. "Suppose so. Isn't that what people do with valuable things they want to keep hidden?"
Zed and I locked eyes, and he tilted his head to the side, silently telling me he'd look into it.
"What about the whole redacted-IVF-files situation?" Zed asked, glancing at Lucas quickly, then back to me. "Any leads on a potential sibling for the Gumdrop?"
"Could be you," Cass grunted. "How fucking coincidental would that shit be?"
"Funny guy," Lucas muttered, sounding sleepy but not opening his eyes. "I'm not asleep, dickhead, just chilling."
Cass flashed a lightning-fast grin. "Just saying, you joke about being brothers. What if you are?"
Lucas cracked one eye and gave Cass a long glare.
"Aside from the fact that Zed is basically a male carbon copy of his mom," I commented, trying really hard not to laugh at Cass's teasing, "the age gap is wrong."
"Unless those IVF cycles didn't work for a few years," Zed commented, looking thoughtful. I gave him a startled look, and he shook his head. "Not me, but if there were any babies born from whatever the fuck Sandra was involved in, they could be any age between nineteen and, what? Twenty-nine?"
Both of Lucas's eyes snapped open, and he jerked enough that Cass muttered a curse at him.
"Sorry," Lucas replied, then looked to me in alarm. "How old is Chase?"
"Twenty-six," I replied, "same as Zed. They're a week apart."
Zed snickered a laugh, then swiped his hand over his face. "Oh man. Wouldn't that be a mind fuck."
I shook my head, firmly in denial on that one. "Nope. No way. That's..." I grimaced, my stomach rolling. "Nope. Just hell no."
Zed, still laughing, got up and went to the kitchen for a moment, then returned with a bunch of sterile cheek swabs in sealed tubes. "Better safe than sorry." He popped one open and indicated to Lucas to open his mouth.
"Why do you have cheek swabs in the kitchen?" Cass muttered, raising one eyebrow at Zed like he was questioning Zed's sanity.
Zed shrugged. "Why not? Useful now, isn't it? Open wide." He waved a second swab at Cass's face.
Cass just scowled back. "The fuck you need my DNA for? I'm five years too old for this hypothetical."
Zed smirked. "You're what, fifteen years older than Gumdrop? Or sixteen? Sure sounds old enough to father a baby you never knew about."
I hadn't known Cass could glare harder than he'd already been, but hey, what do you know? He could. And did. I actually shifted in my seat. The tension ramped up so high, but Zed wasn't backing down.
"Come on, Grumpy Cat, it's just a cheek swab. If you're confident you didn't have any random one-night stands with an older woman when you were fifteen, there's nothing to worry about." Then Zed did something that had me seriously questioning how much he'd actually had to drink. Because only alcohol or drugs could explain where he found the audacity to boop Cass on the nose with the swab.
I choked on my own tongue for a second, and all three of them turned to look at me. Fair, I was coughing like I was drowning, but I quickly got ahold of myself and wrinkled my nose at Cass. "Just do the swab. He's in a mood to make a thing out of this."
Holding my gaze with a clear this is fucking ridiculous expression, Cass opened his mouth and let Zed take the sample with a quick swipe.
Cass returned to Lucas's tattoo with a few muttered insults in Zeddy Bear's direction, and Zed swabbed his own cheek before sealing the tubes up.
"Can't hurt to double-check," he told Lucas, who was staring at him with an incredulous expression.
I gave a soft laugh. "Better tell our lab tech not to test for anything else. How shitfaced are you right now?"
Zed uncapped another swab and held it out to me. "Not very. Here."
I frowned in confusion. "Why do I need one?"
"Why not? Better safe than sorry. Imagine if you and Lucas were blood-related." He arched a brow at me, and I snatched the swab from his hand, quickly rubbing it inside my cheek. The thought that Lucas and I could be related? Hell no. My moral compass didn't come anywhere close to pointing north, yet incest was too far even for me. Like Zed said, better safe than sorry.
Zed smirked and sealed up my sample in its tube. Then he presented me with another fresh swab. "We need a sample from one-eyed dickface."
I grimaced but took the tube from him. "I'll work it out."
Lucas gave me a small smile of reassurance. "I think I'd know if you were my sister, babe. Don't stress; Zed's just being a prick."
Still, my stomach twisted uncomfortably. "Thanks for killing the mood, asshole," I muttered to Zed. "I'm grabbing drinks. You guys want something?"
They gave me their preferences, and I made my way into the kitchen to grab them. My mind was a million miles away, though, ticking over a plan for how I might get a DNA sample from Chase. My flimsy long-term plan for dealing with him depended on getting a bit closer anyway, but... how close could I handle without totally losing myself?
For the next few hours while Cass continued Lucas's tattoo, Zed and I hung out in the living room playing some Call of Duty and then starting a movie that we'd both seen enough times to recite the dialogue word for word.
"Done," Cass announced eventually, sitting back and stretching his neck.
Lucas looked down at his inked chest and grinned wide. "Holy shit, Cass. That is incredible."
I hopped up from the couch where Zed and I were trading off on Keanu's lines and went to see the finished product. Cass had almost perfectly replicated the sketch I'd found, turning the Darling brand on Lucas's chest into a star constellation over a stormy sea. A highly detailed lighthouse cast light over the waves, and on the rocks there was a small, silhouetted woman looking up at the lighthouse. Her shadow cast across the ground in the shape of a wolf, but the best part of the whole thing—in my opinion—were the rocks.
The rocks at the base of the lighthouse, where the ocean crashed with startling realism. The rocks that looked a whole lot like gumdrops dusted with sugar.
"You said you didn't wanna get rid of the brand," Cass muttered with a shrug as he applied antibacterial cream and a plastic film over the new tattoo. "Figured you needed some ink to look a bit more badass. Keep it covered till morning, then just keep it clean while it heals."
Lucas was still smiling so hard I thought he might try and hug Cass, but he contained himself to a bro fist-bump instead. "Thank you, man. This means a lot."
Cass just grunted, then jerked his chin at me. "Get on the table, Red."
Lucas slid off, heading over to show Zed his new design, and I arched a brow at Cass in question.
He just gave me a flat look in response. "Come on, it's not your first. Don't you trust me? Take your shirt off."
Rolling my eyes, I tugged my shirt over my head and sat my ass up on the tattoo table. Cass gave my flesh a critical look, then swiped a hand over his face.
"Bra too," he murmured, his voice deep and rough, "and lie back."
I flicked a quick glance over at Zed, who was watching us closely, then flicked my bra clasp open and tossed it aside. Lying back on the table, I draped my arm over my breasts, and Cass released a long breath.