Gideon suddenly rolled me on my back. His strong fingers settled on my cheek. "And yet every day you went back to that computer and turned it back on so you could help your brothers bring another kid home. Call yourself weak or call yourself strong, Lex. But in my book, you, like your brothers, are a hero and I’m proud to call you mine." His mouth brushed over mine before I could even respond to his declaration. "I love you, Lexington Parker."
"I love you too," I said and then I pulled him back down for another kiss. He obliged me, but then he was breaking it.
"I heard your brother come in about twenty minutes ago. Why don't you go check on him?"
"Did you give him a key?" I asked in surprise.
Gideon grabbed my hand and put it to his face. "Feel that? For future reference, that's my are-you-fucking-kidding-me look."
I laughed and kissed him hard before I climbed over his body. He gave me a soft slap on my backside. I threw what I hoped was a dirty look his way and then made my way out of the room. By the time I reached the kitchen, I could smell bacon and eggs cooking.
Normally, I would've joked with my brother about him making himself at home, but I didn't need to be able to see King to know he was suffering. The fact that King didn't acknowledge me when I entered the kitchen was further proof of that. Like the rest of us, he wasn't okay. Those who didn't truly know him thought King had some kind of superhuman armor that kept him from feeling things, but that was anything but true.
I’d learned my way around Gideon's kitchen enough to know how to get to the stove. When I reached my brother, I knew his back was still to me. He didn't make a sound, nor did he turn around. But he knew I was there. I wrapped my arms around him from behind and laid my head between his broad shoulders. That he didn't respond didn't deter me in the least. It was a good thirty seconds before King lifted his hand to cover both of mine where they were locked over his heart.
It was all he did, but it was enough.
Only when he dropped his hand a good minute later did I release him and step back. I moved to the table and sat down. I put my hand out to confirm that the place setting I suspected was in front of me was, in fact, there.
It was.
When I'd lived with Con and King, we'd all had different schedules with our jobs and often the only times we'd had to sit together and enjoy a meal had been in the early morning hours.
I sensed King moving behind me and then he was putting food on my plate. His own chair scraped back a moment later and then he was sitting.
"I made enough for three," he said.
"I'll take some to Gideon in bed in a little bit, if that's okay," I responded.
King's mouth was clearly full as he answered with a grunt. I took that as a yes. We ate in silence, but that was just fine by me. I knew there was a lot that we needed to talk about, but I didn't mind the peaceful moments like this. My gut was telling me that for the foreseeable future, we wouldn't get enough of them. It wasn't until several minutes later when King pushed his plate away that I knew what was coming next.
The grilling.
Before he could say anything, I asked, “How’s your arm? Gideon said Brewer bit you.”
“It’s fine. It was just a love bite.”
I smiled before saying, “Okay, go ahead then.”
“With what?” King asked innocently.
I rolled my eyes. “Do it or I’m going to go back to the gorgeous man waiting in bed for me and let him do unspeakable things that I’m going to make sure you hear.”
King chuckled. But he caught me off guard when he said, "He's a good man. I like the way he looks at you."
"How does he look at me?" I asked.
"Like you deserve to be looked at. Like the world starts and stops with you."
They were the most poetic words I'd ever heard my brother say. The fact that he was saying them about Gideon had me smiling. Not only because he'd made the effort to say something nice about the man I was planning to spend the rest of my life with, but because I loved hearing that Gideon looked at me like that.
"Thank you," I said to him. "For everything." I thought about Con and my other brothers and realized how much I missed them. "I want to go to Seattle, but I'm afraid I'll be a distraction," I admitted.
When King didn't respond, I tensed up. I knew his silence meant something.
"What?" I asked.
"Luca, Con, and Vaughn know you're safe. I haven't told them anything beyond that. Come home whenever you're ready, but I think there's something you need to know first." King paused for a moment before softly adding, "It's about Gideon."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gideon
I heard Lex before I saw him. I'd never noticed before how the floorboards outside my bedroom creaked so much, but there were a lot of things I'd never noticed until Lex had come into my life. As his footsteps got closer, I called out, "I couldn't sleep. I thought I'd start packing some stuff for us. I checked and there's a flight to Seattle in a couple of hours. I wasn't sure if King was going to come with us, so I didn't book anything yet—"
"Gideon," Lex interrupted.
I stopped what I was doing and turned to look his way. He was standing stiffly in the doorway. My heart squeezed painfully in my chest at the grim expression on his face. I immediately tossed the shirt I'd been examining aside and hurried to him. "What is it? Did something happen to Gio?"
Lex shook his head. "No, everyone's fine."
I sighed in relief. It was funny how quickly Lex's family had come to mean so much to me as well, despite the fact that I'd only met one other member of it. If the other brothers were anything like King, it was going to make for some interesting family get-togethers.
"Why didn't you tell me, Gideon?" Lex asked, his eyes sad. Before I could ask what he was talking about, he added, "About Emma."
The mere mention of my oldest daughter had that same familiar pain spiraling throughout my body. It was quickly followed by the self-preservation instinct that had made it possible for me to put one foot in front of the other day after day. I turned my back on Lex and returned my attention to the shirt I'd been examining to make sure it was clean before packing it. "I was planning on it," I said simply.
I didn't recognize my own voice. The emptiness in it, anyway. Had I always sounded like that when someone had asked me about Bethie and Emma? I'd always said something similar about me being fine or thanking people for their concern, but I'd never really heard how I’d said the words. I wondered if it would always be this way. If, when something got too hard to deal with, I'd always have that instinct to tamp down my emotions.
I bunched the shirt up between my hands as I moved to sit down on the bed. Lex, my sweet, beautiful Lex, was at my side almost instantly. His fingers curled through mine. "I assume King told you?"
"He was just worried about me, Gideon. He only researched you because of what happened with Grady and because I'd put your name on the account for the purchase of the cabins."
I fell silent, but I couldn't find it in me to be angry with King. Now that I understood his relationship with his younger brother, I was actually grateful for his meddling. It meant someone would always be looking out for Lex if for some reason I couldn't.