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4

Hayes

I was bored. So bored.

Bored of the boys at the club, bored from the lack of interesting contracts, bored with life.

“Are you planning on reading that page for the rest of the day?” Hudson stood over me, casting a shadow over the book that I hadn’t actually been reading for at least half an hour now.

“Seems like it.” I took a deep breath, closed the book, and placed it on the glass side table beside me. “You have to be bored too, right?”

Hudson rubbed his temple before sitting on the chair to my right. “Eh. More or less.”

I hummed, tapping my fingers on the chair’s arm in thought.

Hudson leaned back, studying me with that sharp, lazy gaze he always wore when he was half-here, half-deep in the pit of his own mind. “You’re restless,” he said eventually. “That’s always worse than bored.”

I scoffed, “Restless implies a desire to do something. I don’t want to do anything. I want something to happen. ”

He tilted his head, giving me a wry look. “That’s dangerously close to asking for chaos.”

“Maybe we need something new,” I said. “Something we haven’t tried before.”

Hudson arched a brow, but didn’t argue. “And what would that be?”

I groaned, “I don’t fucking know.”

“Well, that’s helpful.”

“Fuck off.”

“Thanks.”

“We could go bother Grey?” I contemplated out loud. “Have you heard from him lately? I feel like it’s been at least a week since I spoke with him.”

My twin grinned. “If you haven’t heard from him, then it means you haven’t fucked up anything,” I grunted, rolling my eyes at him. “But, I haven’t heard from him lately either, so he’s either avoiding us or too focused on something. He’s probably at his office right now. I’m down to drop in if you are.”

We decided to leave right then, not giving any heads up to our older brother that we were on our way. Would he be delighted to see us? No. Would he be annoyed? Yes. An annoyed Greyson was the best form of entertainment growing up.

It only took us fifteen minutes to pull into the small parking lot of his even smaller workplace. We could never understand why he’d willingly spend his weekdays listening to his clients’ beyond-mundane issues for up to ten hours a day; it wasn’t like he needed to. Even without working with Uncle, any one of us could have been fully supported by our parents’ estate.

I swung open the front door, entering a small, bland waiting room. My eyes immediately made contact with the young girl behind the reception counter. She froze for a moment before shaking out of it.

“Hi, um… My name is Amelia. How can I assist you? Do you have an appointment?” She asked, flustered. I couldn’t fault her for it; we were gorgeous. Definitely more conventionally attractive than our brother, although I would be lying if I said he was unattractive. He gave off psychology or literature professor vibes, which I guess was a type some would like.

I gave Amelia a bright smile. “Hi there, sweetheart.” A blush spread across her cheeks. “We’re just stopping by to see our brother.” She tilted her head at us, gaze jumping back and forth between our faces.

Hudson spoke up, “Greyson Cohen. He’s our older brother. He won’t be expecting us, but we were just in the neighborhood and wanted to say hi.” He leaned seductively into the counter.

Amelia gulped. Quickly reeling herself back to convey a professional attitude, she said, “He should be leaving for lunch shortly. Let me tell him you’re here.” She punched in a few numbers on her desk phone as she lifted the receiver to her ear.

“Dr. Cohen, it seems your brothers are here to see you?” Her brows raised in surprise. “Yes, yes. Will do. Thank you.”

“Did brother dearest say something that got you worked up?” I coyly asked, smirking at the receptionist. Amelia stared back at me silently. I could almost see the cogs turning in her brain.

She stammered, “Oh. Oh! No, no. He was just a little more curt than usual. Oh, but he did say that you guys can go back to his office. Do you already know the way?”

I knocked on the surface of the counter, turning towards the door that led to Greyson’s private office. “No worries, we know where to go. Thank you,” I assured her. She let out a breath, shoulders relaxing.

It took only a few seconds until we were standing in front of our brother’s closed door. When we entered, we were met with a grumbling man.

“Do you two really not understand the importance of knocking?” Greyson shook his head at us in frustration. “What are you two even doing here? Finally decided to go to therapy?”

“We would’ve knocked if it were anyone else. We’re your younger brothers, it’s in our job description to annoy you,” I drawled.

“We’ve come to check in on you. You’ve not been up our asses lately so there has to be something up,” Hayes commented dryly. Greyson grunted in response, pushing past us out of his office.

“I’m having lunch at a coffee shop nearby if you’d like to join,” he said over his shoulder. He strutted down the hallway towards the reception area. As he walked past the front counter, he smiled kindly at his receptionist, letting her know he was leaving for lunch.

As we left through the front door, he looked back at us in question. Hudson and I looked at each other briefly.

“We’ll come. Are we walking there or driving?” I questioned, looking towards the moderately busy road.

* * *

I looked up to read the large sign above the cafe’s entrance: Wild Roast. I already didn’t like the name, but I could use some caffeine.

Greyson stopped with his hand firmly on the entrance door’s handle; he turned his body slightly back towards up, a serious look darkening his face. “You will not talk to or touch the boy with red hair,” he hissed under his breath.

“Okay,” Hudson and I agreed in unison. It looked like we were about to meet our brother’s current obsession. Greyson frequently became hyper-fixated on different things: scientific theories, animals, learning a new skill, etc. He’d never been obsessed with a person.

I felt it was interesting that he brought us to his precious toy, as he was obviously concerned about us taking it from him. Maybe the need to show off his new possession overrode that fear.

We strode to the counter to order, but my focus wasn’t on coffee. It was hard to ignore the beacon of red hair across the room. From where we were standing, only the back of the redheaded boy was visible; he wore a loose pastel sweater that hung off one slim, freckled shoulder. I glanced at Greyson; his eyes held more desire than I had ever known he was capable of possessing.

Greyson said, never moving his gaze from his target, “Get me a cappuccino to go.”

When I looked again towards the table, I was more than interested to see that the redhead had twisted around in his chair; the same burning desire reflected back towards my brother.

Hudson nudged my arm lightly with his shoulder. “Look at the other one.” I’d been too focused on discovering who could possibly have Greyson so transfixed.

Across the small table from the redhead was another guy; he resembled a tiny field mouse. Greyson’s boy was already quite small, but actually looked normal-sized compared to the mouse. His messy brown hair obscured most of his forehead, curling around his ears. Large chocolate eyes sat behind delicate wire-framed glasses. Unlike his freckled counterpart, his ivory skin was a blank canvas.

I leaned into Hudson to whisper, “He seems very breakable.”

A glint appeared in my twin’s eye.

“Want to find out?”

“Yeah. I think I do.”