Page 36 of Never Dance with the Devils (Never Say Never #6)

“You knew about this?” Chance exclaims, shock-filled eyes turning to his wife.

“Not this, exactly.” She gives me a meaningful glance that clearly says ‘you left out the best part.’ “But that Kayla had a knock-your-socks-off experience that changed things for her and she wanted it to be more than a once in a lifetime thing? Yeah, I told her to go for it.”

Chance’s jaw drops like he can’t believe the words that just came out of her mouth.

“Again, you should fix your face or I’ll have to fill everyone in on how our relationship started.

” She looks at him boldly, daring him to open that door, and thankfully, he clacks his mouth shut.

I appreciate Samantha’s assistance, because in the same way they don’t want to hear the details of my sex life, I don’t want to hear about my brother’s either.

“How did you get from there to here?” she asks me, focusing the conversation and giving me back the floor to use how I want.

“They found me, which I didn’t take well, basically verbally tearing their heads off before sending them on their way. But someone reminded me that I deserve happiness, so I decided to see if I could find it.”

“And have you? With two men?” Chance asks, still stuck on that fact.

I’m not surprised. He’s my brother with a ‘right is right and wrong is wrong’ mentality, and this is not the norm, if there is even such a thing.

But of my siblings, he’s the one I’ve always been closest with, so his condemnation cuts deeper .

“With two professional hockey players,” Kyle specifies, holding up two wiggling fingers with a grin. He’s enjoying this, like it’s some sort of game we’re his pawns in. But I’m no pawn and this isn’t a game. It’s my life.

Baring my teeth, I growl, “Fuck you, Kyle.”

It’s the first unplanned move I make, and I regret it instantly.

It’s a tell as obvious as if I’d scratched my nose at the poker table, and my brothers all know it because we grew up in the same house, receiving the same lessons at Dad’s knee.

It might as well be a cavernous crack in my don’t-give-a-shit hard shell.

“Are you happy?” Samantha asks calmly, back in therapist mode and smoothing over my outburst with a return to the important question.

Still mad, just not at her, I snap, “I was, until this asshole showed up and ruined everything.”

I point an accusatory finger at Kyle and he holds his hands up,acting surprised at my vitriol.

Dani, who I’ve learned faces down rougher than Kyle pretty much every day, leans his way, assuring him, “You deserved that. And worse.”

More afraid of her than of me, he sobers, crossing his arms over his chest and going silent.

Despite the immature back and forth, the truth of what I said landed for everyone. I was happy until it became this Big Thing. And now? I don’t know. It’s all so messy, and I hate messy. It’s the antithesis of everything I am, which is orderly, planned, above reproach.

Boring. Alone. Lonely.

Except I haven’t been any of those things lately.

I’ve been excited, open to experiences, and even a bit, dare I say, giddy at learning more about Riggs and Maddox and sharing more of myself with them.

I’ve felt alive in a way I’ve never been before.

I’ve felt unmasked, something that should make me terrified and vulnerable but has felt safe and comfortable because of their acceptance of me, just as I am.

No, their celebration of me.

“Do you know their history?” Cole says quietly. “Especially Patrick’s. I’ve already done background checks if you want the low-down?”

I clench my jaw, feeling protective of Riggs. I did my own research on them, but Cole’s offer of more feels invasive. Offended, I growl, “I know what I need to know, from them directly.”

He narrows his eyes, his gaze penetrating, and I don’t back down a bit, flat-faced staring back at him and challenging him to say something stupid.

We don’t have the twin telepathy thing they talk about on TV shows, but a lifetime spent together has given us some ability at reading each other wordlessly.

So when he dips his chin the slightest bit, giving in, I know that he’s at least acknowledging he didn’t find anything too damning.

There are no felonies, no suspicious motives, no instant vetoes to either man.

It doesn’t mean he approves of them, especially both of them, but he’s not fully against them based on the detailed reports he compiled.

Not that I want to see those reports. I trust what Riggs and Maddox have told me. And my own research too.

Still, it’s the slightest shift in the chess board. It’s no longer Kayla, party of one, Harrington boys, party of five. It’s more like 1.5 vs 4.5.

“Kayla, what are you doing?” Cameron asks, shaking his head like I’m exhausting him. And confusing him.

My oldest brother and I have had a tumultuous relationship in a lot of ways.

I saw him at his worst after his wife died unexpectedly, when Mom and Dad worried he was going to take Grace and the rest of the world along for his devastating ride to destruction.

I held his hand, stepped in with Grace when he couldn’t, and played therapist for his breakdowns.

When I came on at Blue Lake, Cameron and Carter were deadlocked in the competitive war Dad always fostered between them, and I stayed out of their way for the most part, building my own mini-empire inside what was effectively their walls.

When Carter left and it was the two of us, Cameron and I suddenly had to figure out how we were going to work together without stepping on each other’s toes or killing one another.

And we did it, forging our own paths to success while seeking out the best for the company overall.

Most recently, I’ve watched him come back to life, something I thought impossible and is one hundred percent Riley’s doing.

It hasn’t been an easy, nor sudden, resurrection, though.

It’s been painstakingly slow, and has come with a fair amount of judgment of its own because Riley was initially Grace’s nanny and is quite young compared to Cameron.

But through all of that, good and bad, I not only supported him, but I also made sure that Blue Lake was a sanctuary for him, where no one questioned him nor his decisions, at least to his face.

I deserve that type of unflinching support too. I expect it. I demand it.

Everyone’s eyes bore into me as they await my answer to Cameron’s question or some sort of explanation for this out of character behavior. And while I don’t like disappointing them and hate that they’re looking at me differently now, I’m not sure I have a reason they’ll understand .

My whole life, I’ve been on the outside of their brotherhood.

Early on, I tried my damnedest to get into their clique, one I was rejected from solely because I was a girl.

Later, I found a way to skirt around the outlines of their complicated connections, forging individual relationships with each brother as their own bonds faded into chaos.

Now, as adults, we’ve worked our way back to being family for the most part.

It’s not perfect, but just as things are improving, to the point we can talk in a group chat, have each other’s backs when crises arise, and sit down for regular dinners, here I am on the outside once again.

It's where I always am—the only girl in a family of boys, the only woman in a position of power at Blue Lake, the only one who gave a shit about all the rest of them when Dad was gone for work and Mom was busy keeping the foundation running.

So this outlier position is home in a way—a place where I know how to act, how to respond, and how to address their invasion, because this is my territory. Not theirs. My life, not theirs.

“For the first time in my life, whatever the hell I want,” I answer clearly and evenly, injecting confidence I don’t feel into my voice.

“Whatever you want?” Chance says hollowly.

“For the first time?” Carter echoes, his face screwed up in confusion. “What are you talking about? You’ve always done what you want. Who would dare to stop you?”

“Someone with a death wish,” Cole murmurs.

My brothers look from one to another, outright rejecting the idea that I don’t wake up, decide to fuck things up, and go about my business with only my own voice in my head .

Do they really think I’m not as fucked up as they all are?

I’ve always been Mom’s backup, a role I didn’t necessarily want but took on naturally. Maybe I played it too well, to the point that they never considered I didn’t want to be responsible for the whole damn family?

“You think I want to worry about all of you every single day?” I demand, searching the lot of them, hoping one of them will have the sense to say no but they look like a match set of our father—chiseled jaw set hard, blue eyes somehow both empty and angry, and shoulders squared against the fight I’m putting up.

Once upon a time, with Dad at least, I would’ve silently given in, the quintessential people pleaser.

Later, I learned to fake the surrender and then carry on because once his attention was off me, it would be weeks or sometimes months before he tuned in again.

As I grew up, I changed. It wasn’t a quick rip of the Band-Aid, where I was suddenly strong enough to stand on my own two feet.

No, I changed slowly and painfully, and it was brutally violent on my spirit, but I became a person who doesn’t want to do things ‘the right way’ according to Dad, or my brothers, or anyone else.

I want to do things that feel right to me, even if no one else understands it or supports it or expects it of me.

So for the first time in my life, I stand up to my brothers in a new and sharply targeted way, calling them out in ways I never have before.