Page 59 of Burden of Proof

Smith exhaled, tilting his head to the side. “Seeing him like…seeinghim, seeing him?”

“Yeah.”

My brother licked his lips, pulling them together between his teeth and working them back and forth until they were both a darker shade of pink than usual. “How’d that happen?” he asked.

“It’s a very long story.”

“And you know…” Smith groaned, staring down at the napkin in his lap.

“I know.”

“You don’t care?” he asked next, the unspoken part clear between us.

You don’t care that I fucked him first?

“Doyoucare?” I countered. “That I am now, I mean?”

“Lincoln and I are friends,” he said simply.

“And Lincoln and I are more than friends.” I paused, clearing my throat. “I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

Smith regarded me cautiously, and it was then that I really saw him for the first time. A man on the cusp of the rest of his life, constantly being throttled by three older brothers who loved him beyond measure but didn’t always know how to show it. Growing up after being abandoned by all of our mothers and shoved into a house owned by a man who could have cared less about being our father had fostered a fucked-up sense of camaraderie between us. Mostly, it was for the better, but sometimes…

I wanted to ask Smith again how he saw himself in the mix of us.

What brother was he?

“He deserves someone like you,” Smith finally said, snapping me back to the crowded noise of the restaurant.

“I…I’m rather fond of him,” I confessed.

“He needs someone to be gentle with him, even if he won’t admit that out loud.”

It was such a thoughtful—and true—assessment. I wondered if Lincoln knew Smith had pinned him so fast, seen straight through to the heart of him.

“I know,” I agreed.

“Don’t hurt him,” Smith said.

I huffed out a laugh, rolling my eyes and asking him the same thing I asked of Marshall. “Are you going to tell him the same about me?”

He stared at me, hard and unmoving. “Of course.”

“Of course you will,” I agreed, and then everything between us felt normal again. We ordered drinks, ordered food, and made small talk.

Smith asked if Silas knew about Lincoln and me, and I shared that he did, in no certain terms. Marshall knew, so of course Silas knew, but I didn’t think Lincoln and Silas had talked about the whole thing. Smith agreed with me, changing the topic of conversation next to our newly found brother, Andrew.

“Do you talk to him often?” Smith asked.

“Not often. A couple weeks ago was the last time.”

“Does he…does he want to talk to any of us or just you?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “He’s still very private when it comes to us, like he doesn’t want to let us in all the way. I think he’s adjusting to the idea of having brothers.”

“What even does that mean?” Smith shook his head, picking at the noodles he’d been working through for the past ten minutes before dropping his fork unceremoniously on the edge of the plate.

“The four of us grew up together.”