Page 106 of By All Accounts
“Lincoln and Silas had already made plans for themselves, and I’m told we ruined things by inviting them to dinner,” the brother said.
I grabbed Sophie’s hand and glanced at the fourth man in the room, the one who must be Lincoln.
“Hunter.” Finn gestured toward me and Sophie, half a pace behind him. “This is Daniel and Sophie. This is my brother, Hunter.”
I shook Hunter’s hand, noticing the way his mouth twitched as he released my hand to greet Sophie. While we said hello, Lincoln sidestepped around us and flung his arms around Finn’s neck, whispering something into his ear. Finn nodded and gently returned the embrace, his cheeks flushing when Lincoln kissed his cheek less than an inch from his mouth.
“It looks good on you,” I heard Lincoln say before his attention was on me and Sophie.
I understood quickly everything Finn had told me about Lincoln. He was a tidal wave, for sure, foregoing handshakes to wrap Sophie and me both up in hugs as familiar as the one he offered Finn.
“It’s so good to meet you,” he said, and I believed him. “This is Silas.”
Silas was next, then, and we exchanged a brief nod with Marshall, and then there were more people in the room. Finn’s youngest brother, Smith, who didn’t look much older than Silas, and the long-haired, tattooed man on his arm I later learnedwas named Riggs. He was by far the quietest of the bunch, like he wasn’t sure how to act once the four Covington brothers got together, and I didn’t blame him.
“You really see the resemblance once they’re all in the same room,” Riggs said to me, scratching the side of his nose while we both hung back. Sophie stayed close to Finn, which I didn’t mind, but she lost herself quickly to a conversation with Silas.
“They’re more alike than they realize, I think.”
Riggs nodded, tapping his fingernail against the neck of his beer bottle.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “You and her both?”
“Yeah.”
Riggs nodded. “Happy?”
“Very.”
“Good.”
I cleared my throat. “Are you?”
He looked at me, then searched out Smith and smiled, any tension he’d been carrying rolling right off of him. “Very.”
“Good.”
I watched Finn’s stare leave Hunter and drift around the room until he found Sophie, and then until he found me. He looked from me to Riggs and back, crooking his finger to invite me over.
“I’m needed, apparently,” I said.
“I’m sure you are.”
Riggs moved to join Silas, Smith, and Sophie, and I closed the space between myself and Finn. He was talking with Hunter, who kissed Lincoln on the top of the head and sent him off upon my arrival.
“Am I interrupting?” I asked.
Hunter laughed, swatting at Lincoln’s ass as he headed for Silas.
“God, no, he was bored of me.”
Finn grabbed my hand, his palm sweaty against mine. He might have looked calm and collected on the outside, but his nerves were clearly still in place.
“Oh,” Hunter said next, looking over my head toward the exit. “He actually came.”
Finn and I both turned to find a man in the doorway, unaccompanied. He was almost as tall as Finn, but his features were as ambiguous as the other four. I had no doubt he was a Covington in some way, even though he was clearly not part of the family.
“Andrew,” Finn whispered into my ear. “We just found him recently. He lives in San Diego.”
