Page 13 of Enemies with Benefits (Finding the Right Brother #1)

"Am I allowed to point out that it's weird and foreboding as hell that you're pulling me away from everyone to talk to me for the first time in.

..uh, years," I muttered as she led me up a flight of stairs.

Most guests preferred to use the elevators, considering the rooms accessed from these stairs were mainly for staff.

"You are," she said. "And it's been nearly nine. C'mon, into the office with you."

"Wow, the manager's office too?" I asked in surprise. Now I was starting to feel a genuine sense of foreboding. Our breakup hadn't been ugly, but it wasn't often that a breakup was gentle and easy for anyone involved, and we had been no different.

There hadn't been any cheating or ugly fighting, though we'd had our fair share of arguments in the time we'd been together, and I’d left the relationship without resentment or bitterness toward her.

There were hard feelings, of course, we had liked each other and had been planning a future together, but overall, I would have said things had ended as well as they could.

Our lives had not…meshed well and showed no signs of working in the future.

From what I’d learned about Mason, against my will, he was different than his sister in many ways.

She had been far more prepared to settle in, already taking responsibility at the hotel, while I had been.

..and as much as I hated to admit it, more like Mason.

I had wanted to experience things, worry about the future later, and try to live my life as best I could.

The idea of settling down and making a life like that work at that age had been. ..well, not for me.

"Take a seat," she said as she led me in, reaching for the shade on the window looking down over the lobby and stopping short as she stared into the thin crowd. I followed her eyes to see a small figure sitting at one of the tables near the front desk with a plate of food.

"He's, uh...an interesting kid," I said, not quite sure what to say. Kids had never really been something I was all that good with, especially considering most of them found me intimidating.

She snorted at that. “He's a weird kid, you can say it."

"Weird seems a little mean."

"He's weird, pretty rude sometimes, and most of the time I have no idea what’s going through his head. But if we can get him through his childhood in one piece, then maybe he'll end up going places."

"It's a little rich, you talking about someone being rude sometimes."

She flashed me a little smile as she sat behind the manager's desk, which now bore her name and was considerably neater than when her mother had held the title. "I never said he didn't get it honest."

"True," I said, easing into the seat and looking around.

The chaos that had defined the room the last time I'd seen it had died down, but there was still plenty of color.

The Jackson Pollock style paintings were gone, replaced with prints that were hard to define.

Still, I found myself distracted by the defined lines of clashing colors and the almost glowing spots of light, absurdly making me think of seeing a rainbow through the low-hanging branches of a weeping willow.

Moira wasn't as...eccentric as her mother, but she had always loved art in all its forms and styles, because among the weird stuff was also a vase that looked quite old and made me think of the pictures I'd seen in a book on Greek mythology from my childhood, and a bonsai tree in fine sand sitting near the window, clearly meticulously taken care of.

"So...why do I feel like I'm being pulled in here to get written up again? "

"Again?" she asked, cocking her head. "Misbehaving at work, are you?"

I snorted. “I was a little...overzealous with a perp today."

"You were rough."

"Not really, but he's trying to claim police brutality anyway. His legs are fine."

"Are you a medical expert?"

"Moira."

"What?"

"Don't scold me. You know how much I hate that."

She reached down into her desk and pulled out a bottle. “And you know I was never a fan of your refusal to accept that maybe you should listen to something other than your temper."

"The guy has a sheet that could paper the walls in this office, and he's not getting any better.

He pepper-sprayed Kayden, tried to shoot me, and was willing to keep firing even though we were near a street," I told her with a frown.

"That wasn't my temper...okay, not just my temper.

He is and was a danger, and I didn't need people, innocent people, to get hurt because he thought that not getting caught was worth it.

Maybe I should have listened to orders so it didn't get that far, but it doesn't change the fact that he needed to be brought in. "

She poured a couple of glasses of whiskey, sliding one over before snorting and looking out the window. “Gets it honest indeed."

"What?" I asked in confusion as I took the glass.

She ignored me for a moment before downing the contents of her glass and gesturing toward me. “Drink your drink."

"You know I'm not big on drinking."

"And you know I wouldn't hand you liquor unless I thought it was for a good reason."

I grunted, unable to argue but still holding my glass on my knee. “Or you could tell me why you pulled me in here, handed me liquor, and act like you're about to tell me someone died."

"Quite the opposite. You gonna drink?"

"Not yet."

She sighed. “Micah?—"

I frowned as she trailed off. “What is it? Are you guys...in trouble? Like, the kind of trouble you and your whole family couldn't deal with?"

It wasn't uncommon for hotels to occasionally have issues with organized crime, but they tended to target smaller businesses in worse neighborhoods.

The hotel wasn't in the high-end part of town, but neither was it in bad shape, especially being so close to the Gras, which the city put extra effort into making safe for the tourism money.

It would have to be really bad if the whole family couldn't deal with whatever it was.

I could say any number of things about Mason, and with enthusiasm, but there was no way in hell I would deny that he loved his family and would protect them with a vehemence that put my sense of justice to shame.

"Look, ignore Kayden, alright? I don't know what you have to tell me. He feels he needs to stick his nose in, but ignore him. He likes to interfere way too much, I would know. We haven't seen each other in like...eight years, and I can't see what you'd have to say that I'd need to?—"

"Closer to nine."

"What?"

"It's been closer to nine."

I started to talk again and then stopped, confused why she needed to correct that when an extra year didn't really matter. "Okay...nine years then?—"

She looked up at me, and for a moment, I saw the woman I'd dated and had loved for a time.

While her gaze no longer gave me that little stop in my chest, I could still see the beautiful woman she was.

Except now that beautiful face was torn by hesitation, fear, and worry that I had never seen on her face before.

"And," she said, and I watched her draw herself up, the emotion on her face easing in a way I’d seen before whenever she felt the need to steel herself for something tough.

Moira wasn't one to let people see her anything but confident, and I didn't know how to feel that I was being allowed to see that moment of mental and emotional stillness despite the years and us no longer being together.

Her eyes latched onto mine, and I knew then to brace for what was about to leave her mouth.

“And, it's been a little over eight years since Micah was born. "

"O...kay," I said, unable to help but glance out the window down toward the boy as he sat at the table. The chair was slightly too tall for him, and his feet dangled, which didn't seem to bother him as he kicked mechanically while he chewed away at his sandwich. "What are you trying to?—"

I stopped, feeling something flare in the back of my thoughts, and I was helpless to do anything but wait for it to roll over me, like seeing the blast of a nuclear bomb in the distance and knowing you were too close to escape and could only wait for the shockwave.

All I could do was sit there and let the warm air of the blast wash over me as the ground was torn up in the distance.

Staring down at Micah, I watched as he twisted in his seat as the girl at the front desk said something to him.

His brow furrowed, creating a deep crease that I remembered seeing in the face of my father…

and in the mirror. Then she said something, and his cloudy expression disappeared under the presence of a bright, sunny smile.

My chest squeezed tight enough to make it hard to suck in the sharp breath I needed when his cheeks sunk in two points with a grin, dimples as prominent as his black hair and dark eyes that were colorless from this distance.

It was then that I realized what I should have seen before, but had been too distracted by Mason, the rotten bastard.

That was the shape of his face, and even in some way, the way the boy held himself.

My mouth fell open, and a noise I would never claim later, let alone be able to describe, fell from my lips.

I slowly turned to stare at Moira. She was staring back at me steadily, her expression somber as she waited for me to process the aftermath as the shockwaves of the blast washed over me.

..and then the debris rained down around me.

I was vaguely aware of the glass clenched in my hand and barely noticed how much the liquid sloshed as I brought it to my lips.

It took me a couple of tries to get my throat to work correctly to inhale the contents.

It burned on the way down, but I welcomed the sudden blossom of fire that erupted in my stomach as it landed.