Rae was talking to Grace again because they’d somehow reverted to the initial friendship that made them both smile.
And Kai, well Kai was sending selfies to Solia, who was back in Seoul and grumpy because it was a different time zone.
We arrived a half-hour later at Grace’s house. It was right on Lake Washington, beautiful, and something I could see her missing with all the trees and the constant smell of rain.
It made sense.
Because it smelled like her.
It smelled like home.
“Dad!” Grace jumped out of the Escalade and ran toward a Korean man in his late fifties. He was fit and looked like he could and would pull a gun on me if I made a wrong move.
Great.
“My girl.” He squeezed her tight and then glanced over at us. “You hungry?”
“I love your dad,” Jay announced. “Yes, hungry, so hungry, always hungry.”
“NO chicken.” Sookie pointed his finger at him.
Her dad just laughed. “I called for pizza.”
“He’s a part of the family now,” Kai ordered.
Kevin grumbled, “And I’m not family yet?”
“We’ll take you.” Jay laughed. “But only because you saved Lucas’s ass.”
Rae bumped into me. I stopped walking while the rest of the guys went inside. We stopped, and both looked up at the stars.
I focused on the brightest ones.
The ones where I had seen Grace for the last four weeks. The ones that shined just like her.
“I was scared,” Rae said. “Scared that it wasn’t real, that you were just messing with her, that we’d lose what we had.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry, man.”
“I’m sorry too.” I looked over at him. “I should have been honest from the start. I was afraid too.”
“Brothers?” He wrapped an arm around me.
“Brothers.” I laughed. “Those questions were given on purpose, weren’t they?”
He just smiled. “We all need a Kevin.”
“Son of a bitch!” I laughed. “Are you serious?”
“We can neither confirm nor deny your allegations.” He winked. “Let’s go have some pizza.”
“Kevin,” I muttered. “Wow.”
“He’s really useful.”
“I’m sure.”
“No really, when I asked about hacking your phone—”
I groaned. “I don’t even want to know.” Then I sighed. “Kevin.”
“Kevin,” he repeated as we walked into the house on the lake.
“That’s me,” Kevin announced like he’d heard us.
I froze. “Think he has listening devices on us?”
Kevin stared us down and winked. “What was that?”
We sighed in unison as Kevin went back to eating pizza and taking selfies.
Grace was pouring beer for everyone. She looked up, our eyes locked, and I knew exactly what I was hungry for.
It wasn’t pizza.
“Be right back.” She smiled at everyone and started walking down the hall.
I followed without even apologizing for it.
She turned to the right.
I turned to the right.
She went into a room.
I followed and shut the door.
And then I jumped her, straight up slammed her against the nearest solid surface, and devoured her face. “Missed you,” I said against her soft skin.
“Need you.” She arched toward me. “Now.”
“I need you too.” I broke away from our kiss and pressed my mouth to her neck, inhaling her, telling myself it was real, that she was really here and we were together.
“Kiss me.” She hugged me tightly. “Please.”
“Only because you were polite about it.” I laughed and leaned down when a knock sounded at the door.
Frowning, I walked over and opened it and came face to face with a bear that had a SWEET shirt on it, being held by none other than Sookie.
His grin was merciless as he said in Korean. “Thought you could use this, just in case…”
“Son of a bitch.” I lunged for him only to have Kai poke his head around the corner. “So, the student becomes the master.”
I don’t think I’ve ever blushed so much in my entire life while Grace looked at us like we were all crazy, and yes, Sookie was still holding onto the bear.
Jay pulled up behind them, wrapping his hands around them with a grin. “We gonna finally talk about this.”
“Never!” I thrust a finger in their direction.
“Oh God, the bear again? Are you guys ever going to confess why you were stripping it?”
Wow. Great. He said that part in English.
Grace frowned. “Is that like a… SWT thing… stripping bears or…?”
I groaned.
The guys fell into fits of laughter.
“Nah,” Rae and the rest of the guys piled into the room, totally cock blocking me, though I couldn’t stop smiling as they all made themselves comfortable reminding me why we were brothers in the first place.
Close.
Together hopefully for a very long time.
Rae sat on her desk and shrugged. “It’s a family thing.” He grinned. “So what do you say guys? Is she part of the family now?”
“I vote yes.” Jay winked.
“Yes.” Sookie laughed.
“Of course.” Kai ruffled her hair.
Yes.” Rae nodded at both of us. “Lucas?”
I pulled her into my arms and hugged her close. “What? This horrible intern who can’t even get our coffee orders, right?”