Page 92 of Five Brothers
“What?” I hear him ask.
I look up, seeing him staring at me, and I realize I’m smiling a little.
I shake it off. “Nothing. So you wanna go?”
“No.”
I shrug, mumbling, “I kinda wanna go.”
“What the hell for?”
“Why don’t you want to?”
“Why do you care?”
WhydoI care? No idea. Why am I even here right now?
“Goddammit.” He tosses the brush into the sink. “I told you to use the damn gloves.”
I gaze at his face as he pumps a different soap into his hands and rubs it into mine. There’s a tiny scar on the back of his jaw. A groove with a few lines—like a shooting star. I never noticed it before.
But I always noticed everything else.
The constant pinch between his brows. The fatigue in his eyes. The tension in his muscles, and the stress and anger rolling off him in waves more and more every time I see him.
He’s not easy, but he’s a good man. I know he is. Feeding these people. Helping their families. Giving up his life to come home and raise his siblings.
“I think someone should be making you smile, is all.”
My voice is so quiet, because my heart is beating so hard it hurts.
“I’ll be happy if the people around me ever do what they’re told,” he growls, rinsing off our hands. “Y’all don’t listen because you think I haven’t been alive longer and might know some shit.”
His scent drifts into my nose, and I fight not to curl my fingers around his. Tingles spread up my arms from my hands where we touch.
“Someone should be taking care of you,” I whisper, dropping my eyes. “At night.”
He stops and just stands there, and he can push me away if he wants, because that’s what he always does to everyone else. Eventually, they just stopped trying. I don’t want to be afraid of him.
“You take care of everyone, all day,” I say quietly. “Someone should be loving you.”
His chest moves up and down, and I lower my eyes to the brown leather belt around his narrow waist. Against his golden skin.
“Touching you …” But I can only mouth the words. I don’t think he hears.
He should have a woman. One woman, because he’s got a body he can’t fuck around with. He’s made for something special.
Deep down, so are Army, Trace, and Iron, and maybe Dallas, too, for someone brave enough, but Macon … I just want to see him exhale.
He doesn’t need tail. He needs her, someone who can take him far away just behind a closed door.
“I can’t dance.” I turn off the water and dry my hands. “Not like the girls at the club, so I can’t bring a lap dance to you, but … I can bend in half.”
He meets my eyes just in time to see me clutch the basin hip-high and hold on as I bend backward, my ponytail grazing the backs of my ankles.
I immediately pop back up and grab the key chain dangling out of his pocket, waving my hands in front of him like a magician. “I can also make your keys disappear.”
Haphazardly, I fling them somewhere behind me, like he totally didn’t notice I just threw them.