Page 6 of Sleeping with the Dark (The Righteous 3)
Well, well, well, this day was looking up.
“Thank you, Sally, and you may go for the night,” Trev said.
“Don’t forget Arek is waiting in the hall.” Sally cleared her throat as she opened the door and waved in his brother.
“Oh, how could I ever forget,” Trev mumbled under his breath.
“What the hell is up with keeping me out there like some client?” Arek slumped in the chair across from him, his face red with irritation.
“Let’s just say it’s a little payback for asking Cody to move in without clearing it with me. Didn’t we already go through this with Renee and J.J.?”
“Yeah, but this is different.” Arek was brimming with a mischievousness that Trev hated, it never led anywhere good. Arek’s face was practically alight with the uncontained joy as he reached for the bottle of scotch on the desk. “You like him, and don’t try to deny it.”
“I can’t deny it. I do like him. He seems like a nice person once you get to know him. You were right not to kill him.” Trev shrugged. “He could prove to be useful.”
“Fuck off with that shit, Trev. You know what I’m talking about—you want to bend him over your desk and see if you can make him scream.” Arek jerked his hips in the air repeatedly as he made a stupid grunting noise.
Trev jumped up and marched to the door, and with the flick of his wrist, flung it closed with a bang. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” his voice heated as he spoke. Worse was the fact that the image Arek portrayed made him hot all over.
“You can’t hide that shit from me, brother.” Arek sipped the scotch, and all Trev could picture was messing up that pretty face as he wiped the smirk off of it. “Why are you fighting it? I’ve never known you to be scared of anything.”
“Scared? Who the hell said I was scared?” Trev asked, heading back to his desk. He was going to need a drink.
Arek stood and casually leaned against the desk, his eyes searching Trev’s face, and he didn’t like it one bit. “Interesting. You like him more than a fuck buddy to get your rocks off, not that you tend to do that either.” Arek shrugged.
“Don’t be ridiculous, I barely know him, and we’ve never even been, as you say, fuck buddies. Can we get to why I needed to see you?” Trev didn’t spare Arek a look as he rounded his desk and sat down once more.
“Nope, we are definitely talking about this first. You have all this pent-up sexual tension around you, and the way you look at him—like he is a fucking scotch dipped piece of art” Arek slowly turned to face him, and his whole face was lit-up like they were still kids who had just walked into the living room on Christmas morning. Correction, it was Arek’s ‘I have got a fucking brilliant idea that ends with Trev apologizing to someone’ look. “And!” Arek held up a finger, making Trev roll his eyes at the dramatic display. “You haven’t been able to think straight, like you are mentally or maybe emotionally pent-up?”
“You brother are unbelievable. I am not any of those things and I’m certainly not verklempt.”
Arek laughed, his whole body shaking and almost spilling the high-end scotch. “The fact you used the word verklempt makes you verklempt.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Trev tried for casual as he stared at his brother. “I don’t want to talk about this.” He grabbed the Streetlore file and slid it across the desk. “I got a call from Alejandro this morning to have lunch.”
“Yeah, yeah, we will form a plan. Now tell me, what is it about him you like? I mean, Cody is a good-looking man. Wouldn’t that be something if we married siblings? That is just a little fucked up, and yet, I’m so down. Holy shit, could you picture mum? She’d love it. A double wedding. Dad would shit his rubber boots full. Damn, I can picture it now.”
Trev rubbed his face and grabbed the bottle on his desk, pouring himself two fingers, hesitated, and then added another two. He was going to need it, and he suddenly wished he’d never brought up the subject of Cody.
“Does dad even really understand what it means to be bi? I mean, he knows you dated in high school and were into guys as well, but do you think he understands or thinks you were experimenting? It seems like forever since that overly fun family dinner.”
This entire conversation was entering dangerous territory that Trev refused to discuss. “I don’t know, Arek. It’s not like I’ve sat down and had a heart-to-heart with him about it. Now, if I admit that I like him, can we move on?”
“Nope, not good enough. You never go all girl or guy crush, not since…well you know.” He held up his finger like what he was saying was important. “This is like a one-in-a-million opportunity for me. You know, you barely sleep with anyone. Are you sure your dick even remembers what it’s supposed to do?” Arek laughed and ducked as a pen whizzed past his head.
“Don’t drop any of that scotch, you fucker,” Trev said and glared at his brother. “My cock, which is much larger than yours, I might add, works just fine, thank you very much.”
“Pfft, don’t you wish? Want me to get the ruler out?”
Trev shook his head. “The reason I don’t sleep around, dear brother, is because one of us has to be the public role model. We can’t all be super vigilante at night and then fuck everything that moves the rest of the time. I am the reason we live in this lavish lifestyle, or have you forgotten that part?”
Arek’s face sobered. “Are you saying I don’t pull my weight?”
“No, I’m… look, I simply don’t want to talk about Cody anymore. I’m sorry I brought it up. You pushing my buttons is making me edgy. Can we just move on? You know that I’m not interested in settling down with anyone. At one point, we had that in common until Renee showed up.” Trev rubbed his face. “And before you go getting all pissy, I don’t mean I don’t like her because I do.”
Arek sighed and slouched back in the chair once more. “You’re an ass when you’re all tied up in knots.” Trev raised a cocked eyebrow at Arek. “Fine, I’ll leave it alone, but you’re no fun. Speaking of vigilantism, with the baby coming, Renee is worried that one day, I won’t come home.”
Trev leaned back in the large chair, the leather squeaking in the otherwise silent room as he analyzed the bomb his brother had just dropped. “I knew this was coming. What would she do if you were still enlisted?”
