Page 92 of Burden of Proof

“Are you bonded?”

Smith scoffed. “I feel better than I did when I got here, if that’s enough of an answer.”

“I feel better than when I got here too.”

He glanced at me, stare penetrating. “Is there anything you need to talk about?”

There were probably a dozen things I needed to talk about, but none I wanted to talk about in that very moment and probably none that I should talk about with Smith. I needed Silas for this, or maybe even Keith. Keith would probably be a better choice, a very uninvested third party who was also a switch.

Fuck.

Was I a switch?

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I dropped my temple onto Smith’s shoulder with a sigh.

“If this is better, I’d hate to see the before,” he muttered.

“That part of me is exclusively reserved for your brother,” I teased.

“Ew!” Finn hollered from the kitchen, jumping off the counter. He had coffee in one hand and a plate of golden toast in the other. “Too early for sex talk.”

“I wasn’t?—”

Finn dropped the plate of toast on my lap and sank down into the couch to my left, squishing in between my body and the arm of the couch. It pushed Smith toward the other end, but Hunter was there with bacon, and the four of us were shoulder to shoulder like an overfilled sandwich of our own.

“He won’t believe you,” Hunter said. “Even if it wasn’t a sex thing.”

“It’s always a sex thing,” Finn said, stretching out his legs and propping his feet on the coffee table. He was also in Hunter’s pajamas it looked like, if the short length of the pantswas anything to go by. Finn was easily the tallest of the three Covingtons currently in my company, muscular in his own right, but not aggressively in the way Hunter was.

“Of course it is,” Hunter agreed, reaching over Smith’s lap to pick up a piece of toast. I caught his stare, and he smiled at me, and I’d never seen him happier. “Now make yourself a meat sandwich and shut up.”

CHAPTER 28

HUNTER

On Monday afternoon during my lunch break, I called Andrew. He answered right before it went to voicemail, which was very much like him. I was still trying to put him into the right Covington boxes, trying to figure out which of our traits he possessed, even though not being raised with us. Sometimes, he was predictable, and other times, not so much.

“Hey,” he said, his voice echoing. “You’re on speaker.”

“Am I in mixed company?”

“No. Just me, this Epsom bath, and these sore muscles.”

“Everything all right?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I just worked out a little too hard on Saturday, and I’m paying the price. Took the day off.” He laughed, and it was all Smith, rare but precious. “What’s up?”

“I know we’d talked a couple weeks ago about me and my brothers—” I grimaced. “Your brothers…coming down to San Diego, which clearly hasn’t worked out.”

“I don’t think they like me,” he interrupted.

“It’s not that. Marshall just moved his boyfriend in, and they’re very head over heels about each other. He said maybe in a month or so. But I wanted to see if you could maybe come up again? I hate to ask?—”

“Yeah,” Andrew said before I could finish. “It’s not a long drive.”

Even if he hadn’t meant for there to be accusation in the words, I heard it anyway. San Diego was not so far from Los Angeles that it should ever be an ordeal for us to get together. I realized then I’d been approaching a relationship with my newest brother all wrong. I’d wanted to set out a unified front as to not alienate Finn, Smith, or Marshall, but in doing so, I’d definitely done the same to Andrew. He didn’t seem like the type to ever admit it—very Finn of him—but that didn’t take away the fact it might have happened.

“I got promoted last week at work,” I explained. “Made partner. Finally.”