Scott lifted his shoulder. “Didn’t have the neighbors then. They just moved in on Monday.”
“Blue hairs?” Liam asked again. He often made fun of Scott and the neighborhood he lived in, with its geriatric population and all the gossip. Particularly since Liam lived on Lake Washington and rubbed proverbial shoulders with the upper echelon of Seattle’s elite.
Scott shook his head. “Nope. Mom and two young boys, five and seven.”
Eyes flared and brows rose around the table.
“Single mom?” Emmett asked. He’d landed his own single mom earlier that year, falling for the wonderful and beautiful Zara at a New Year’s Eve party Scott had attended as well.
He nodded. “Yeah. “
Emmett’s mouth formed an O, and he nodded.
“She hot?” Zak asked.
Fucking smokin’.
He nodded again. “Yeah.”
Heads bobbed around their little trust circle, and the odd nice was murmured.
“Going out on Monday,” he said with a mouth full of pretzels. “She scored tickets to the Allison DeWitt signing.”
Everyone but Liam gave him a confused lip curl or brow raise.
“Well, now you have to marry this chick. If she’s into that weirdo fantasy fiction like you, you can’t fuck this up.”
“This coming from the born-again bachelor, anti-love cynic?” Mason asked, his expression just as surprised as the rest of them as he lasered his focus in on Liam.
Liam lifted one shoulder. “I’m not saying their marriage will last. But Katrin thought those fantasy books were garbage—because they are—but if he can find someone who not only puts up with his geeky obsession but also takes part in it, well, then who am I to dismiss a temporary happily ever after?”
“You’re a dick,” Scott muttered to his older brother.
Liam shrugged again. “Perhaps, but I’m also rarely wrong. Marry her and have a blissful, geeky five to seven years. Then I’ll represent you in the divorce and help you move out of that septuagenarian borough you and my nephew are living in.”
“You’re still a dick,” Scott bit back, making sure his glare was extra fierce. Liam seemed neither fazed nor apologetic. In fact, he seemed a bit bored.
“Moving on,” Atlas grunted. “Let’s play some fucking poker. “
“Agreed.” Mark nodded.
Adam fished his phone out of his back pocket, and his thumb began to fly across the screen. “But first, baby photos.” He held up the screen of his phone, where a three-week-old baby Brielle was snoozing peacefully in her bassinet while Adam’s daughter Mira and Mitch’s daughter Jayda stood beside it with enormous grins.
“How are the girls handling having a new little sister slash cousin around?” Scott asked, grateful for the change of subject but also curious about how Mira, who spent half her time with Adam and Violet and the other half of her time with Mitch and Paige, was handling a new baby sister. Jayda was Brielle’s cousin, so there probably wasn’t as much jealousy involved—at least he assumed.
“They’re handling it well,” Adam said through a yawn. “Mira loves her sister. Almost a little too much. We keep having to say ’gentle with the baby,’ otherwise we might have an Of Mice and Men situation on our hands.”
“So no jealousy?” Atlas asked, his long fingers drumming nervously on the table.
Adam and Mitch shook their heads. “None so far,” they both said.
Atlas hummed.
“Aria struggling with having Cecily in the house?” Scott asked Atlas.
One curt nod was all they got from the steely-eyed blond man.
“Fuck, that’s hard,” Zak muttered. His brows furrowed for a moment before he leaned his broad frame over and dug his phone out of his back pocket. “During the divorce, we sent Aiden to an art therapist here in the city. She worked miracles with him. Got him to really open up, express his feelings through art—kid still does it. When he’s angry or hurt, he draws or paints, often spending hours in his room, forgetting to eat or sleep sometimes until his project is complete.”
“Jesus,” Aaron muttered. “That doesn’t seem healthy.”
“I thought so too at first, but once his project is done and he’s let those feelings out in the most constructive way that works for him, he’s back to his old self. I was skeptical of this woman at first, especially since I got a serious hippy-dippy vibe from her the first time I took Aiden, but she knows her shit and is fantastic with kids.”
Atlas’s phone next to his drinking glass vibrated. But he didn’t even blink to acknowledge it.
Zak stowed his phone in his jeans once again. “There. I just texted you her information. Her name is Tessa Copland, and she—” He shook his head and smiled a smile of gratitude before running his big, meaty hand through his dark red hair. “She fucking saved my kid, is all I’m saying. You all saw how troubled Aiden was when everything with Loni went down. Tessa worked a goddamn miracle.”
“Your kid was nine,” Atlas said. “Aria is three.”
“Doesn’t matter. Tessa works with all ages. Just give her a call, or check out her website. It couldn’t hurt.”
Atlas grunted a response, which meant the conversation was over.
Nobody could really blame the man for his constant grumpiness. He was fucking exhausted. A widower of nearly two years, he was now raising his daughter Aria alone and had recently taken in his cousin’s infant daughter, Cecily, after his cousin lost custody of her. Toss in the fact that Atlas was also a senior partner at Liam’s law firm and apparently close to becoming a name partner, the man was stretched paper-thin. If they were all bigger assholes, they’d start placing bets on when his tether would finally snap.
But they weren’t assholes, they were brothers, friends, family, and they did whatever they could do to help Atlas, which often meant taking Aria for a few hours so the man could take a deep breath without having to answer fifty million why questions. Scott did not miss those days.
When Freddie would ask why so many fucking times in a day, Scott felt like his head was going to explode. Only for the kid to ask the exact same fucking questions the next day. He got that it was appropriate age development and meant that his kid was eager to learn about the world and blah, blah, blah, but Jesus fucking Christ, “Why does a bird only have two legs but a zebra has four?” can only be asked so many times and be considered adorable only so many times before Scott was ready to rip himself bald or go insane.
“Meet her at the bar Monday for a drink so I can scope her out,” Mason said with a sly grin, bringing the conversation back full circle to Scott’s love life.
“I have a business meeting with a new client right before. He wants to meet for drinks, so maybe I’ll suggest Prime and then just have Eva meet me there.”
“Oooh, Eva,” Zak said, making a dorky cooing noise. “How sexy.”
Scott rolled his eyes, but the grin on his face began to hurt his jaw. Because as cheeseball as Zak was being, he wasn’t wrong. Every damn thing about Eva oozed sexy. Her voice, her smile, her curves, her eyes, her wicked sense of humor, not to mention that brain of hers. She hadn’t gone into much detail about her ex, but from the few things she’d said, Scott knew the woman had been through hell. And it took strength in spades to claw your way out of hell.