Harrison
Ashadow falls over me as I hang up my call.
“You look awfully cheerful this morning.”
I look up from my café table down at the marina and gesture to the chair opposite. Sebastian drops into it.
“My roommate came home around five this morning,” he goes on. “Know anything about that?”
I stretch out my legs, picturing Raegan crawling into her bed sore after the night we had at the beach. “A gentleman never tells.”
“Right. I trust from the phone call that you were ordering new testicles to replace the ones Raegan’s been carrying in her pocket.”
“I was arranging additional security for Raegan and myself.” Two for Raegan, two for me.
“Where’s my security?”
“Even I can’t afford what it would take to have trained ex-military mind your arse once they realized how irritating you are,” I gripe.
He rolls his eyes. “Well, I’m glad things are going well between you.”
“Some things are still unresolved.” She’s guarding her heart, and as frustrating as it is, I can’t blame her. “But I will do whatever it takes to keep her with me.”
Starting with a date tonight, where I will prove how committed I am to our future.
The waitress delivers my coffee, and I gesture to Ash, who orders one too.
A notification buzzes on my phone—a shipment notification for Sawyer’s AI. One is destined for London, one for Tokyo, and the third for Debajo here in Ibiza.
I hold up the phone so my brother can see it.
“Nightclub robots?” he demands. “Do they twerk?”
“You’re in a good mood too,” I observe. It’s rare that we can have such a mild conversation, and I’m not foolish enough to believe one heart-to-heart over our dead parents’ things erased years of tension. “You sleep like the dead. Which means if you were up when Raegan returned, you had company. Who is she?”
His smile fades. Sebastian flexes his hand on the table. “It wasn’t a she.”
The waitress returns with his coffee, giving me a few beats to study him. When she leaves, he takes a slow sip, holding my gaze over the rim.
It’s a surprise, and also not. I had a suspicion my brother wasn’t as enthusiastic about the opposite sex as I was, but he’s never said as much, and I’ve never made it my duty to pry. Perhaps I should’ve.
Perhaps this was part of why his teenage years were so hellish to suffer through alone.
“Who is he?” I ask evenly.
My brother shifts in his seat, scanning the street behind me. “Another bloke from my club. It was a tough season. Gavin was there for me when I let my team down, reminding me I’m not defined by my performance on any given day. It’s easy to forget when you’re hounded by management and fans, every mistake hung out for everyone to see.”
“Is he good enough for you?”
Sebastian’s brows shoot up. “That’s not the first question I expected from you.”
“Well, it’s the one I have.”
He shakes his head. “Trust me. He’s good. We were still up when Raegan got back…” Then he looks guilty, as if questioning what he should say in front of me.
“I didn’t mean in bed.”
He rubs a hand over his neck. “I don’t know what it is or isn’t. We haven’t put labels on it. But until we do, the team can’t know.”