Page 90 of Piece Us Together
Ah. The other man who came with Travis and Maison to pick up Carter the disastrous night I took him home.Great.
I fight to keep my smile in place. Not because of the gun thing, but because that was the night Maison came crashing into my world, and I swear I can feel his eyes on me like a physical touch and it’s killing me not to look at him, not to look at Nolan, not to smile at both of them and ask how they’re doing and admit that I’ve fucking missed them despite it only having been a few days since they stood beneath my roof.
“Nice to meet you again, without a gun,” I say. I offer him my hand since he’s close enough to take it. “Hunter.”
He grips my hand, firm and strong, but not purposely intimidating. “Jake. No guns this time, promise.”
“Well,” another man says with a sly grin. He’s lingering the farthest away from the rest of the group, almost like he’s an outsider too. “No guns being pulled out, at least.”
“Don’t scare him off, Keats,” Travis chides.
“So many guns,” another man says with a laugh. He’s on the other side of who I assume is Jake’s boyfriend, from the way he has his body tucked against Jake’s side. The man is older than everyone else. A father of one of them, maybe. He grins at me. “If it makes you feel any better, that one had a gun on me just the other day. It seems to be their love language.”
I follow his finger to Maison. My first instinct is to demand to know why the hell he was pointing guns at someone. Then I meet his eyes, the blue full of guilt and fear, and all I want to do is puta hand to his cheek and promise him that whatever happened, it’s alright. His chest heaves with a shaky breath.
Oh, Maison, it’s okay.
“He’s pulled a gun on Hunter too,” Travis jokes, like pulling guns is common in this family. Perhaps it is. I wouldn’t know much about them, after all. Maison and Nolan are a very tight-lipped duo. “Hunter, you probably recognize him. This is Maison, Carter’s brother.”
I nod, hoping like hell my expression isn’t giving anything away. “Nice to see you again.”
His eyes flash a dozen emotions before going distant, almost cold. He’s a different person when he speaks. A person I’ve worked so hard to free him of these past weeks. Not the defeated man from the alley, but the defensive man who pulled that gun on me, the man who told me he’d kill me if I hurt Nolan, the man who glared at me in the snow and told me I couldn’t keep him there.
“Meridian,” he says with zero inflection.
It hurts.
It hurts very much.
I try not to let it show. I realize my smile has fallen, so I hurry to shove it back into place.
“We like him now, remember, Mais?” Travis teases. “Stop glaring at the poor guy.”
“I’m not glaring,” Maison mutters, dropping his gaze to the drink in his hands. I get the feeling he’s wishing for something much stronger. Or maybe wishing he had told me not to come after all.
“Ignore him. He’s a grump,” Carter says with a roll of his eyes. On the surface, it sounds teasing like Travis, but there’s something biting beneath it. A tension. I see it echoed in the way Maison’s shoulders tense, in the way his jaw ticks, in the way he lowers his head further.
I can’t help it, then. I look at Nolan. I can feel the pleading in my gaze. He gives me a shaky smile and scoots closer to his boyfriend until his hip is pressed against Maison’s knee. Maison immediately grabs at him, desperate for comfort.
“He’s not a grump,” Nolan defends. “You scared him that night.”
It breaks my heart as I watch Nolan step into shoes I know he doesn’t like. Shoes I should be filling. He looks so convincing, squaring his shoulders and speaking with authority.Do any of them even know how badly he needs to submit? Do any of them know that Maison seems to be hanging by a fucking thread at any given moment?
“No brotherly fighting,” the man who let me into the house snaps. His cat has ditched us, leaving orange hairs on the front of his black shirt. He glares at Maison and Carter, putting any of Maison’s glares to shame. “For one night, get along. It’s Thanksgiving.”
That startles me, but I try not to let it show.Do Maison and Carter not get along? More than just some attitude about that night? Is that part of Maison’s sadness?
“Subject change,” Jake says in a tone that I recognize, giving everyone a chastising look. He and Booker would get along great, if the guy is even aware that he’s definitely got some daddy-dom in him. The warning look is gone by the time his attention is back on me. “Who is your team?”
I blink at him. “Team?”
“Football team,” Travis explains. I don’t know if it was the tension between the brothers, the fact that my introduction is finished, or the topic of football, but three of the men leave the kitchen without looking back. “You a football fan?”
“Not particularly. I’ve gone to a few games and I’ll watch if it’s on TV, but I don’t have any allegiance.”
“Oh man, it has to be—” Jake says at the same time Travis says, “Well, in my opinion—” and Keats says, “Can’t go wrong with—”
“The Packers,” Maison says over everyone else, his eyes right on me. There’s an intensity in his gaze that I’m fairly certain has nothing to do with football. “You gotta like the Packers.”