Page 54 of Cryptic Curse

At least it may help get my mind off Daniela.

I walk to the door, open it.

And there stands my little brother.

I’m not exactly tempted to let him come in.I’m still irked about him flirting with Daniela the other night.

“E,” I say.“Why didn’t you call?Do you need something?”

He needs me to get him out of another mess, no doubt.

“Sorry,” he says, scratching Jimmy behind his ears.“I lost my cell phone.”

Right.And I have some swamp land…

Or he could be telling the truth.Eagle is always losing shit.Expensive Ray Ban sunglasses, his fucking key fob.And now his cell phone.

Could definitely be on brand.

But at this rate he’s going to burn through his trust fund by the time he hits his thirties.

Except that’s a crock and we both know it.Those trust funds are enough to last us each several lifetimes.Being the grandchild of steel heiress Sandra Cooper Bellamy does have its perks.

I inhale.

And I resist the urge to call Eagle out for being irresponsible with his phone.For being irresponsible about fucking everything.For flirting with Daniela and messing with her head.

“What’s up?”I ask him.

He pauses, shuffles his boot-clad feet on my tiled foyer.

“I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s up,” I remind him.

More shuffling.“It’s… Fuck.”He riffles his hands through his dark hair.

Of all of us, he’s the one who resembles Mom the most.Even Raven and Robin, who are both beautiful and look a lot like her, don’t quite have the features down.But Eagle is Mom in masculine form.Tall, lean, and kind of pretty for a guy.

Another reason why Falcon couldn’t let him go to prison at seventeen.

God, our lives are fucked up.

“Spit it out, E,” I say.

“I’m going… I mean…” More hair raking.“Fuck, Hawk.”

Fuck is right.I don’t have a clue what’s going on with him.Eagle is used to being brutally honest with me.I’m the one he comes to every time he screws up.He knows he has to be truthful, or I won’t bail him out.

I’m sick of it.

Fucking sick of it.

Why am I the one who’s always saddled with taking care of Eagle’s shit?

And it won’t change anytime soon.

Falcon already did his time for Eagle.And the girls?Raven did her time with her leukemia, and Robbie’s the hardest worker on the ranch.She loves those animals and takes damned good care of all of them.

So that leaves me.