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I cleared my throat, knowing that this was going to come up at some stage. It was inevitable, Corey had always been protective and now he knew the truth about Max, I had a feeling he would be even worse.

“Yeah,” I said, flicking my eyes over to him. “I know he’s your friend-”

“Does he treat you right?” he interrupted.

“Yeah.” I sighed wistfully. “He really does.”

“Then as long as you’re happy…” He shrugged. “I’m okay with it.”

I raised a brow at him because even if he wasn’t happy with it, I had a feeling that Ty wouldn’t care. To be honest, it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference to me either.

After the elephant in the room had been spoken about, we talked about everything. It was good to get my brother back, have him physically in front of me instead of on a computer screen.

I didn’t want to think about how long he would be here before he’d have to go away again. I pushed all of those thoughts to the back of my mind, not worrying about them until the time came.

We spoke about Eli and all the stuff they’d got up to while I was ‘away’. Then talk turned to how I was doing on the jobs and whether I’d learned to shoot a gun yet.

Telling me about when he first met Eli, I giggled and said, “I would have loved to have seen your face.”

“I was shitting myself, honestly, sis. I freaked the fuck out.” He shook his head, his face turning bright read.

I grabbed my side as a pain shot through me from giggling so much. Damn, that hurt.

“Careful, sis,” he warned, pulling up to the compound gates.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I huffed. If he wasn’t so funny then I wouldn’t be laughing in the first place, ergo, I wouldn’t be in pain. So it was his fault. That logic worked, right?

But seriously, I could just imagine his face. Eli didn’t seem fazed by it so why had he freaked out? I was sad that I’d missed it but I told myself that it wouldn’t do me any good to wallow about it, I wanted to move on from everything that had happened. The only way I’d be able to do it was if I forgot about the past and focused on the present and the future.

Parking outside of the warehouse, I was about to push my door open, but before I could, Evan’s face came into view.

“Kay.” Looking over at Corey he nodded and then moved his eyes back to me. “I need your help.”

My heart rate sped up at the serious look on his face. Holding my hand out so he could help me down, I stepped out and followed him to his cabin.

Once we were inside, he started to pace the small space, his hands waving all about. Frowning at how agitated he was, I asked, “Evan? What’s the matter?”

He turned to face me, his face pale as he worried his lip. “I...”

Stepping forward, I held my hand in the air. “It’s okay, just calm down, take a deep breath.” Once I could see that he had calmed a little, I asked again. “Now, what’s the matter?”

He ran his hands through his hair, looking at everything in the room but me.

“Take a deep breath.” I breathed in and out to show him. As if he didn’t know how to breathe. “Sit down.” I pointed to one of his chairs and waited for him to sit before I stood in front of him.

“Now,” I said calmly. “What’s going on?”

“Well, see…there’s this…girl.” He flicked his eyes to mine and looked away again.

“Erm…Okay?”

“And…I…I…don’t know how to ask her if she’d like to…court me?” he said, uncertain.

I held the giggle in that desperately wanted to come out. Ty had briefly told me about Evan’s crush on Geena and how he had freaked when Ty had found out.

“Geena?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face. It wasn’t funny that he liked someone, it was how nervous and worried about it that was.

“Yeah,” he nodded, looking everywhere but at me.