Page 12 of Edmond

“I don’t fucking want to meet my mate. All right? Look at him. He’s sitting there wishing that he was anywhere but with me. Us.” Everyone turned to look at him, and he shrugged. “Don’t give me that shit. I saw the way you looked at Mac when she dropped you off. You’d rather be with her.”

“You’re making it so that none of us want to be with you. What the fuck, Ayden? Do you need a vacation? Lica said that you were working yourself too hard.” Ayden asked him why they were talking about him. “Because, shithead, we’re worried about you. I’m seriously thinking of taking you to see a head doctor to see if you’ve gotten a knot in your noodle. Tell us, or I’m going to leave. I don’t need this kind of shit going on when I just want to chill out and spend some time with you guys. Do you remember why Lica isn’t here? This is the day that Brandy has her ultrasound. He told us that last week and the week before how he wasn’t going to miss that and wanted us to change—you’re the one who told him it would be fine. That he’d better be bringing us back some pictures of the little guy.”

“I forgot.” They all snorted at Ayden, and then he looked around the table. Edmond thought that there was still more to whatever was up his ass and was, like the others, just grateful to be with his brothers. “What do you have to say for yourself? Mac going to be carting your ass around all the time too?” He’d been wrong in thinking that Ayden was in a better mood now.

“No.” He had to count to ten twice before he trusted himself to speak. “I also told you that she was going to go and pick up her new car today. Since mine was here first, she’s going to go there, and one of the drivers on the lot is going to bring my car back here. So that I could be here with you, whiney ass.”

Ayden stood up so quickly that he felt his wolf race over his skin. He could feel him there as if he was ready for whatever his brother did. Edmond stood up, too, slower and put both his hands up to make sure that Ayden didn’t try and hurt him. He knew that in the mood he was in right now, he would tear him apart. Not kill him, but to hurt him badly.

“Sit down and cool the fuck off before I toss the lot of you out of here on your fucking ears. You’re scaring the kids here. And you’re not doing so good with my fear either. Sit the fuck down.” Ayden sat down. Hard, like the woman standing there, he didn’t know her name had a bit of alpha in her. “Now, order or don’t, but you’re not going to take up my best table with your bickering like five-year-olds. I have two at home right now, and I believe they have better manners than you do.”

They each mumbled that they were sorry, and she didn’t seem to like that either. Smacking the back of Ayden’s head, he really was the cause of all this. She pointed her pen at them as she dressed them down. Christ, he wondered if Brandy or Mac had taken lessons from her.

“Now, this is the way it’s going to be. You’re going to order something to eat before I drag you out of here, and you’re going to eat it, every morsel. I don’t care if you have to puke it down in the bathroom but I don’t want to have to buss this table only to find out that you’ve made a mess under the table as well.” She hit Ayden again. “You’re lucky to have family here with you, moron. You have been bitching a great deal. Now order. And so help me, if you don’t leave me a reasonable tip, I’m going to hunt each of you down and make you eat it. Are we clear on that?”

They each gave her their order, and she took it, even going so far as to ask them questions that would need to be asked, like what sort of dressing did they want. Was there something that they wanted on the side? By the time she walked away, they were all sitting up a little straighter and making sure that they were as polite as they could be. She was fucking scary.

When she brought their drinks, each of them helping her steady the tray that looked as heavy as she was, she told them her name was Summer and that she was sorry for busting their chops. Instead of them telling her that it was all right, Ayden stood up. None of them moved when he told her how sorry he was and put money in her apron. That seemed to have pissed her off more than them bitching.

“I don’t want your money, dipshit. I didn’t do anything to deserve it. Just sit down and tip me at the end like you’re supposed to.” She shoved the money, which looked like a hundred-dollar bill, into Ayden’s shirt pocket before she left them again.

No one said anything for several minutes. Edmond thought that they were waiting on Ayden. He was older than his other brothers by about a year, but he didn’t want to set him off again. Waiting for him to raise his head seemed impossibly long, but when he did, he had tears in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry.” None of them told him that it was all right. It wasn’t, but he was their brother, and they’d do anything for any one of them. He knew that he would. “I’ve been house hunting like the rest of you were, and I was hit on with every person that, Christ, guys, men were hitting on me. I don’t have a problem with how they hang, but he’d embarrassed me so badly that I left the house I was looking at for fear of what he’d do to me. It’s the money. They don’t want us. They want what they think we have being related to Brandy.”

“Gee, thanks.” Everyone laughed at him but for Ayden. “Look, I know what you mean. It’s like…I told you guys about Mac’s grandma, didn’t I? All she cares about is how much she can get out of Mac and me before she keels over. That’s in her mind, too. That we’re going to somehow have this amazing bank account with a lot of zeros in it and that’s going to be their ticket. To what? I have no idea, but it’s out there, and I’m afraid of it. I think that from now on, we go in packs to look around. I’ll be willing to lend you Mac, too. You know that she’ll not put up with anything. She told me the other day that she only tolerates me so that she can have normal brothers. She actually thinks that you guys are normal. I have no idea where she gets that information but there you have it.”

“The other day, I was met at my office with my cleaning lady’s daughter, naked, guys. She was standing there like she had better things to do than to hang out with me, but she was willing to do all the stuff I wanted. Stuff? Christ, that was scary as fuck.” Guy looked around the room and told them that they should watch their language with the kids being around. They all agreed, and Guy continued. “I had to call the police to get her out of my office. Of course, I was so taken aback that I couldn’t look them in the face. Or I don’t know, they were embarrassed for me. But I don’t want that kind of life either.”

By the time their food came, they were all in a much better mood. Especially Ayden. He’d had a rough time of it lately. In working with Brandy, being her undercover man, so to speak, he’d been at a restaurant that had been—even to think about it made him a little ill—they were serving human meat instead of the things that were being bought for the restaurant, which they were selling off for more cash. Ayden hadn’t been able to eat anything that might bleed onto his plate, and red meat was out of the question. Edmond didn’t blame him one bit for that, either.

The rest of them, including him worked for Brandy and Lica too. A couple of days ago he’d been sent some paperwork on nine buildings in the next town over. He was to go there and inspect them. For wall standability. If they had electric as well as what the voltage that it could take. He’d never known that there was so much that a person had to look at to simply purchase a building. It had made him a little more aware of the buildings that he went into as well, like the one that were sitting in now. There was so much going on with it that he would have recommended tearing it down. But he loved the old place. It had a lot of good memories for him.

After their food mess was taken away, he sat with his brothers until Lica came in with Brandy. She was getting so big—not that he’d say that to her. But she seemed to shine with her new status as being a mom soon. When she told them that she was leaving, they all moved over for her to be with them as they went over the pictures.

“He’s a boy, just as Mac told me. I’m so excited.” She pointed out things on the pictures that he wouldn’t have been able to tell you what they were. But she was excited and it made them so as well. When Summer came back, she asked if she could see the pictures too and was excited with them. “I’ve got a bit to go yet. But you can’t believe how excited I am right now.”

“I have me two-five year olds at home with my husband. Every day, I look at them and think to myself, I made that. I have trouble wrapping my head around that at times, too.” Summer handed the pictures back to Brandy and smiled at the table. “I’m glad to see that the five of you have gotten your crap together. I’m sorry for yelling at you before, but you were making a huge ruckus when there was no need for it.”

As they left, he had to laugh a little to himself when he noticed that they hadn’t stiffed her at all on the tip. There was at least five hundred dollars there as well as a couple of twenties. It made him feel good that he was a part of a great family.

Once he was outside, he turned to face the sun and let it warm him to his bones. It was chilly out. They’d been remarking on that for days now. The trees were nearly all turned now. The sound of them crunching under his feet made him happy. Also, for the first time in their lives, they were going to have a big family holiday. Thanksgiving and Christmas were holidays that he’d never looked forward to before. However, this year? He was about as excited as he’d ever been.

“What are your plans for the day?” He smiled at Ayden and told him that he was free if he was. “I am. I want to make it up to you, too, for making fun of you being in love. I’m jealous, I think. That you have something so wonderful, more than I could hope for in a mate, and I’m sitting on the sidelines just waiting for it to happen to me.” He looked hurt before turning away.

“What is it? Tell me so that I can help you out of the jam or whatever it is that you need for me to do.” He told him it was nothing and started away. The two of them were still standing in front of the little diner as they spoke. “It is something. Tell me before I have to wrap you up in my web and figure it out on my own. It would be a good deal less funny to me if you were just to tell me.”

“All right. When that woman, Summer, came to the table and yelled at us, all I could think about was having her in my bed. Not very smart of my first thought about her, but that’s what I wanted. Then she said she had two kids at home. Again, my heart was singing when I realized I actually knew that I was not going to be a good dad to them. But she has a husband.” It took him all of three seconds to realize what his brother was saying. He asked him if what he thought was true. “Yes. But she’s also married with those two children. And I know that I can go in there, kill off her husband so that I can be there for her. Seems to take away from the fact that we’re mates. Don’t you think?”

“Then we’ll ask her if she’s happy.” Ayden just stared at him. “All right. As soon as I said it, I knew that it was wrong. But there is something that we’re missing here. Maybe they really aren’t happy.”

“Stop it, goof. She’s married and therefore—” Edmond turned to see what his brother was looking at. It was Summer.

“Did either one of you idiots drive here?” Ayden said that he did. “Good. Please, I need for you to—” She let out several calming breaths. It didn’t seem to make her any less intense, but he wanted to help her as she struggled with it. “I need a ride to my house. I’ve already called the police so I would like to…I need to get there before the police. They won’t allow me in if they’re there first.”

“Your husband or your children?” She didn’t voice her answer but did nod at him. As they made their way to the parking lot, she didn’t seem to mind him going along, so Edmond got into the back seat. Whatever was going on, he was going to be there for his brother.

“I need for you all to meet me at Fourteen Zero Seven, Chestnut Street. I don’t know what’s going on, but something has our waitress stressed out.” He put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. The other brothers, including Mac and Brandy, said that they were on their way. “Good. Thank you. The police are on their way, so if one of you could go in and check on the husband and children, again, I don’t know what’s going on, I’ll be ever so grateful.”

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