Five Brothers
: Chapter 15

Army Jaeger has a dark side.

Jesus. I bite back my smile. He’s good at faking docile, isn’t he? Maybe Macon should loosen the leash on him. Or maybe that’s why he doesn’t.

November wind blows into his room, billowing his curtains, and I feel Army’s body molded to my back. But I feel him everywhere else, too. The marks his teeth left. His grip.

I clench my legs, the skin raw deep inside.

He nestles into my neck, and I arch my ass into his groin as I reach back and caress his neck. Both of us moan.

Last night was aggressive. Just like on the couch. It had to be him or Iron. I should just ask, but I’m embarrassed that I don’t know, and I’m not sure how I’ll feel if I find out.

Macon wouldn’t have pushed me away in the garage if he’d already had me, and I don’t want it to be Dallas.

But guilt makes me go still as I stare at the curtains blowing.

Last night felt special. By the pool felt special, too.

But I still would’ve rather loved them. Iron, Army, and Trace.

I flip over, nestling into Army’s chest and looking up at his sleeping face.

He’s the only one who kept hold of me. Even when it was over. Even counting Milo. Who knows what made Dex’s mom do what she did—there are two sides to every story—but I know Army loved her. And he loved her right.

Dex’s wail lights up the baby monitor, Army having moved him into Liv’s room last night for some privacy.

Army jerks, groaning as his head crashes back onto the pillow. I turn down the volume on his nightstand and start to rise. “I’ll check on him.”

“No.” He pulls me back. “I got it.”

“I left my phone downstairs anyway.” I need it in case my brother or sister calls. “I’ll check on him. If he’s messy, I’m waking you up, though.”

He chuckles into the pillow. “Thank you.”

I know he’s exhausted, and I’m sure it’s as much emotional as physical. What Macon did to him last night might’ve been the most Army has ever been hurt, not counting his parents’ deaths.

I find a pair of his boxers in a drawer and pull them on, and then I grab his gray hoodie off the chair, slipping it over my head. Walking for the door, I tie my hair up into a ponytail, seeing Army roll over onto his stomach and hug one of his pillows.

I close the door behind me and tiptoe next door to Liv’s room. Cracking open the door, I see Dex standing up in a Pack ’n Play, looking at me over the top.

I reach down and pick him up. “You’re over a year old, man,” I whisper, holding him in my arms. “You should be sleeping through the night.”

But then, he’s also a Jaeger. He was born restless.

He stares up at me, and I feel his diaper, remembering what a full one feels like with Paisleigh. Not that I ever changed one.

He’s dry, though. Just wide-eyed and staring at me.

“Don’t look at me like that, or I’ll be wrapped around your finger, too.”

He gurgles some baby noises, and I start to rock him. “‘Shout, shout,’” I sing. “‘Let it all out.’”

I keep going, gently murmuring the lyrics I know, and humming the tune for the parts I don’t. His head falls to my chest as I sway back and forth, probably smelling his dad on the hoodie. I smooth his dark hair at the back of his head, my heart swelling at the feel of his little body against my chest. I smooth his dark strands through my fingers, feeling him grow heavy and surrender to sleep, but I sing the song again, holding him a bit longer.

Laying him face up, I find his pacifier and give it to him. His eyes are still open but only a little. I cover him with the blanket and rub his chest.

Leaving the room as quietly as I can, I head down the stairs, still feeling his hair, as soft as water, between my fingers.

Mothers. Even when you’re not, Macon had said.

I shake my head and enter the living room, looking for my backpack. My phone is probably dead.

Grabbing it from the pocket, I veer into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water.

I gaze out the window at the pitch-black night, finding yellow eyes peering back from somewhere beyond the pool, as the palm trees, dark blue in the moonlight, dance in the breeze. Snoring hits my ears, and I look up at the ceiling, legit hearing Trace all the way down here.

Whispers of a wind whirl about the house, shaking shutters, like we’re in a vortex around which storms always brew, and I close my eyes—I love it here at night the best. Everything talks. Even the floorboards.

A draft sends a lock of my hair floating in front of my face, and I feel him. Behind me.

“In the Marines …” he says, his breath on my ear.

But it’s not Army.

“We’d call you a barracks rat,” Macon tells me. “A girl who just moves from room to room to room.”

My chest caves, and I open my eyes to see him reach around me and set a bottle of Jim Beam on the counter. He grips the neck with his hand as he hovers at my back.

Drawing in a breath, I lift my gaze back out the window and take another drink of water. “In my world,” I tell him, “men call women names, too. I can’t say that I’m shocked that there’s little difference between you and Milo Price. Or you and Callum Ames. Or you and my father.”

I don’t want to piss him off, because then he’ll make everyone miserable, but I’m not family. I don’t have to love him no matter what.

I turn around, taking inventory of the shadows beneath his eyes, getting darker every day, but I pause, noticing the sallow color to his cheeks. There was anger in his voice, but his expression falters, like he’s just trying hard to be angry. Like it’s the last emotion he can muster, and I’m the only one who’s left.

I blink, glancing at the bottle and then back to him. “That shit isn’t doing you a bit of good.”

He sneers. “Every single brother of mine you’ve fucked drinks.”

“They drink for fun. You don’t.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong.” He backs off me and drops into a chair at the table, still fisting the bottle. “Right now, I’m hungry for food,” he tells me. “I want to eat, and that feels really good.”

I listen. He’s talking, and I want him to talk.

“Little things please me,” he says, his voice gravelly. “The scent coming in through the windows. The cooler temperature tonight. The slight humidity weighing on my skin.” He swallows, and I watch the lump move down his throat. “The sound of the wind outside, and how it always felt like this house grew out of the land just like the trees.”

I grip the edge of the sink behind me.

“I don’t want to be anywhere else right now.” He almost smiles. “In this chair on this floor that’s still stained with coffee grounds caked in the cracks from when Liv broke the pot when she was four while wrestling with Army.”

He drops his eyes, his long jean-clad legs spread in front of him as he leans back in his seat.

“Next to the stove my father cooked at,” he whispers, “and always made sure I watched and learned, because he knew I’d need to know someday.”

He goes on. “I’m not worried about the Bay and how a year from now Trace will be a fucking greenskeeper at the country club they’ll build on the land his ancestors settled. Army will be living in a trailer. We’ll never see Dallas again, and Iron will be perpetually in and out of prison for the rest of his life, because no matter what I did”—he pauses, and I hear the strain in his voice—“I failed at making any kind of a difference.”

My eyes sting.

None of that will happen. It can’t.

“I love them a little more tonight, and dislike you a little less.” He raises the bottle, takes a swig, and sets it back on the table, letting his eyes fall down my body. “And maybe I can almost see what they like about you.”

The heat of his gaze warms my skin.

“And where will you be?” I ask him.

He meets my eyes again.

“You said Army will be in a trailer,” I remind him. “Iron in prison. Dallas will leave … Where are you during all of this?”

He goes still, like a statue. Then he picks up the bottle again. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll stick around here much longer, either.”

My stomach knots. If he leaves, everything will end.

He rises, heading out of the kitchen, and I stand there as his footfalls hit the stairs. There’s a moment of silence, and then his bedroom door finally closes.

I lock my jaw, closing my eyes. What the hell did that mean?

What does he mean?

I walk, drifting up the stairs, and stop, taking a look at the pictures on the wall. Family photos, not one of them professionally done or in a studio.

In the swamp. On boats. At the beach. In the living room. First cars. Birthday parties.

Not one of them taken in the past eight years, though. None of them with Liv or Trace as teenagers. Dallas had long hair at about ten years old, it looks like.

Macon and Army are in so many, because they were completely raised by their parents, who took pictures.

Army with his beautiful green eyes.

Macon with his mother’s brown ones.

Their mother. I find her in one of the pictures. Long dark hair just like Liv, and a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. Eyes that are still beautiful, despite the dark circles.

Just like Macon’s.

I scan the photographs, noticing fewer with her in them as the kids grew up, but in each one, she’s losing more and more weight.

A tear spills down my cheek, and I walk to Army’s room, but I don’t go in. Instead, I cross the hall to Macon’s.

Leaning back into the wall next to his door, I slide to the floor and listen for him in the room where she died.