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“Mine.”

I froze. “This is your house? Like, your actual house that you paid for, or your house for right now while you keep it warm for the owner who doesn’t know you’re here?”

He laughed, low and husky. “It was my grandmother’s house. And now it’s ours.”

I looked around the kitchen. It was orderly and clean, with tan cabinets set against midnight blue walls. The countertops were sand-colored, and the fridge was big and black. On the windowsill above the sink, there were two small figurines. Maybe salt and pepper shakers. One was a dog, and the other was a fire hydrant.

All in all, it was simple and nice.

Then my gaze landed on the wooden knife block and the distinct lack of any knives in it.

I wondered if he’d been the one to hide all the sharp objects while I was sleeping, or if he’d really just let me sleep on his lap and had one of the other guys hide them. Honestly, probably the latter, because he was a creep and watching me sleep seemed like something he’d love doing.

I turned my attention back to Court, ignoring what I’d just seen. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight. How old are you?”

“Twenty-four,” I replied absently. “But why is there a swing on that tree?”

A laugh. “We put it up for my brother.”

“For Cade?”

“No, for Jesse.”

“Jesse?”

“Our younger brother.”

Oh. Another brother?

“How many siblings do you have?”

He was leaning back in his chair and smiling at me now, his eyes warm and his posture utterly relaxed. “Just Cade and Jesse. My mom had her hands full with Cade and me, and then Jesse came along, but we were old enough that we could help out. Our dad was never in the picture, so our mom did her best with us. She was…” His gaze turned thoughtful, and he stared at a spot over my shoulder, remembering. “She was a very special woman.”

The love in his voice was like a heavy boulder on my chest. A hard flare of envy shot through me, and I immediately wanted to make some kind of snarky, nasty comment to purge it from my system.

At the same time, I wanted to put my hand over his and tell him I was glad he’d had someone special in his life. That he’d had a mother he could remember with a deep fondness. That he’d had a mother who’d been an actual mother to him.

A bitterness began to spread through my mind, as if his words—his love—had punctured a dark bubble floating in the depths.

I bit down on my bottom lip, trying to will away the darkness with pain. I didn’t want to say something awful, didn’t want to let these vile thoughts slip into my bloodstream and make me act out. I was so tired of myself, tired of living with these gloomy emotions. I wanted to excise them from my being.

It wasn’t his fault.

It wasn’t his fault I’d had a horrible mother and he’d had…love.

“What was your mom like?”

His question was innocent, a normal question anyone would ask in a normal conversation.

But I wasn’t normal, my childhood hadn’t been normal, and I hated thinking about my mom.

I hated hating her as much as I did, because now that I was older, I understood her better. At least, I understood that she’d been a desperate addict that had no chance in life. But I blamed her for my brother’s death because she was the one who’d brought that monster into our home.

I hadn’t spoken about her to another person in almost a decade, and it was a rusty, touchy subject that always left me feeling like thorns were pushing up through my skin from the inside. I looked at my arms, at the long sleeves I always wore, and stayed quiet.

“Alright,” he said after a moment, picking up his plate, then mine. “You can keep your secrets for now.” I hadn’t realized I’d finished eating. “I need to talk to you about something and I don’t think you’ll like it.”