Page 160 of Nothing More

“No, no, no,” he said, arm flung up, palm out, grinning like a devil, eyes glittering with mockery as he faced off from his expanding audience, Cass at his elbow. “You do that, and you’re gonna have brains all over you.”

Perhaps not themostappropriate conversation to be having in front of the kid, but, well, that wasn’t Reese’s business, really.

Tenny was holding court. He tended to do that, in large gatherings. Not because he liked it – he hated it, in fact, and was tired and mopey afterward – but because, Reese suspected, he felt that he had to. Either he thought he had something to prove to the Lean Dogs, or, more likely, he was covering his anxiety.

No one had said anything to either of them about being together. Reese had spotted a few sideways glances, but no one had breathed a word of disgust or judgement. Because they didn’t care? Or because Ghost had laid down some sort of edict? It didn’t matter to Reese; he didn’t care what anyone save his sister and his husband thought about him. (His brother still didn’t quite count, though they were attempting, tentatively, to build something like a rapport.) But though Tenny loudly and frequently called everyone an idiot and claimed not to “give a shit” about anyone’s opinion, Reese knew that was all a front, and that he cared quite a lot, anxious and nervous and skittery as a mouse among cats. He was self-conscious in a way that Reese wasn’t, and always had been. He worried and fretted and brooded.

They’d exchanged rings and brief vows – Tenny’s had consisted of firm eye contact and a terse “You and me, yeah?” – at the courthouse, with only Fox and Eden as witnesses. They wore their rings, and Tenny called him “love” in public, sometimes, when he forgot to be discreet, but if they touched in front of the others, it was brotherly roughhousing, and nothing serious or tender. Reese liked that he was the only one who got to see Tenny’s softer side, was covetous of his vulnerability…but he didn’t like that the reason he hid it in the first place was because he was afraid of what others would think.

Reassuring him in these instances was never an option. So, usually, Reese hovered at his side, silent support, and would do his best to soothe away the socializing jitters later, when they were alone.

Tonight, though, Cassandra was there, and he didn’t want to interfere with any sibling bonding. A shadow shifted in his periphery, and Reese turned and drifted toward it, hands in his pockets, playing at casual. Tenny said he was getting better at it; that he no longer looked like “a disturbing robot” when he walked up to someone. He could feel the way his face was a little more expressive than it had been…but thought, when he looked in the mirror, that the difference was too subtle to make much difference to anyone who didn’t know him well.

He didn’t think that would matter to Toly, though, whose own face was a closed-off mask most of the time. He was finishing up with the last fire, feeding strips of newspaper into the small blaze he’d kindled below the stacked wood. Reese walked up slowly, and moved to stand opposite him at the fire pit.

Toly saw him. Flicker of lashes, twitch of a muscle in his cheek. But he didn’t speak, and he continued to stoke at the burning kindling with a metal poker, feeding in more paper until some of the lower twigs began to smoke.

Reese felt a sudden swell of kinship. He himself rarely knew what to say in this sort of situation. People approached him, wanting something, and without any small talk skills to speak of, he kept silent, waiting for the other person to reveal what they wanted. Toly was that way. Cautious, unbothered by quiet. Disinterested in chit-chat.

But in this case, it meant Reese would have to be the one to initiate conversation. Damn. Tenny was worlds better at this.

As he stood, debating how to start things, Toly finally glanced up at him, a dart of black eyes in the expanding orange glow of firelight. Hooded, hunted gaze.

Scratch the chit chat.

Reese said, “Hey.”

Another darted glance, another jaw flex. “Hey.” One word loaded with skepticism.What do you want?

Reese crouched, too, so they were on eye level, smoke curling up between them, and Toly reared back a fraction, head lifting, eyes widening, nostrils flaring. Lit from below, his face was smooth – he was Tenny and Reese’s age, or thereabouts – young-looking, less cynical. But the sharp lines of jaw, cheek, nose, and chin threw shadows upward, a sinister twist. He was very good-looking when he wasn’t scowling, Reese acknowledged.

“What?” he asked.

Reese thought of that morning, the greasy-tabled diner, the weak December light pouring through the windows, Toly’s foot bouncing under the table as he sat and talked with a large-framed man with a stern face. They’d been too far away to hear the words, but the body language had been clear: deference. Fear. Guilt. He chose his words carefully.

“It took me a long time to feel like I belonged with the Lean Dogs. Sometimes I still feel like I don’t…but then someone reminds me that I do.”

Toly’s brows snapped together; his mouth thinned. “I don’t need a lecture.” Thefrom youwent unsaid, but Reese was conversation savvy enough to read it now.

“No,” he agreed. “But Raven needs to know how you really feel. She deserves honesty.”

The furrow between his brows deepened. “What are–”

“I joined the club because I had nowhere else to go. I like it. But Tennyson is the reason I’m happy.”

He could hear him now, his sharp punch of laughter as he pretended to be the smartest man on earth.

“Maybe,” he continued, “the club isn’t ever going to make you happy, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to. Maybe Raven can. But she’s a good person, and my sister-in-law, so. Don’t hurt her.”

Toly studied him a moment, as the flames crackled and built, sharp orange tongues darting up to obscure his face. “Are you seriously giving me some kinda shovel talk?”

Reese stood. “No. Brotherly advice, I guess. Devin’s kids don’t know how to admit it, but they love really hard. It’s worth being a part of the club for that, even if you don’t have another reason to stay.”

He turned his back, then, on Toly’s troubled expression, and walked away. He hadn’t looked surprised, or angry – no,troubled. A man conflicted.

It wasn’t going to be the bratva or the club that won out, in the end. Reese knew that. As he made his way back toward Tenny’s floor show, smiling at the sight of his handsome face lit by fire and Christmas light, he put his faith in the power of Devin’s children. Raven, and Raven alone, would determine Toly’s fate, of that he was sure.

~*~