Chapter Twenty

Blake

Dean was sitting in a wicker chair in the backyard when we got to Helena’s house, his green hair piled on top of his head, his back to us. Maverick rushed to his brother, dropping down to his knees in front of him and whispering in a hushed voice. A soft sob escaped Dean’s throat before Maverick was moving to wrap him in a hug. This felt wrong. Like a moment that belonged to the two of them, only when I turned around, Killian gripped my arm to stop me. His blue eyes were filled with worry when I looked up at him.

“He’s okay. He came to Helena because he trusts her,” I assured him.

Killian glanced over his shoulder before he spoke. “Yeah, but I’ve never seen Dean like this before.”

“Then talk to him. Tell him you’re here if he needs you. Be the friend he needs.” I saw the fear written all over his face. “Kill, open up to him like you did to me a couple of days ago.”

Killian worried his lip between his teeth. “It’s Dean.”

“Exactly, Dean. Your best friend. The man who saved your life. Now do the same for him.” I dropped my chin to stare at him.

“Uh, I’m sorry if I scared you guys.” Dean coughed nervously. “I just... I needed Helena.”

Killian grunted. “You could have come to me.”

“You were busy.” Dean dropped his gaze. “You all were. I didn’t want to interrupt that. Helena told me if I needed to talk, if I needed anything, just to text her. So I did.”

“You could have come to me, too. You know that. I’m your best friend. I know that I wasn’t always honest with you, dude, but I am now. Please don’t hide from me,” Killian begged, then took a couple of steps toward him. “I was an asshole before. When Matthias and I first got together. And then when we were apart. Don’t be me, Dean. Please don’t be like that. Whatever your sexuality is, we don’t care.”

Maverick leaned into his brother. “Please don’t be like us.”

“I’m not going to... I’m absolutely pansexual. That’s not the issue. The issue is that I love Beau, and he doesn’t love me. I don’t know what it’s going to be like when I see him at the wedding. I don’t...” Tears glistened in his eyes, and Maverick to wrapped his arms around him in a hug again.

“I’m going to kill that fucker. I don’t care if it’s a wedding. No one will see or hear anything,” Killian hissed from between clenched teeth. “Don’t look at me like that, Mav. He’s a thirty-eight-year-old man who’s acting like a child. I won’t ruin anything.”

Maverick flipped him the bird. “It’s my wedding day, Kill. Don’t you dare make a scene. I want it to be special. No, it will be special, and I will murder you if you ruin that for me.”

Dean snorted. “Don’t.”

“Wait, are you laughing right now?” Killian asked. “You scared the shit out of all of us, especially your brother, and this is funny to you?”

Dean pressed his face into Maverick’s shoulder. “Because you’re threatening to kill Beau, and Maverick is going all bridezilla on your ass.”

“I’m not a...” Maverick’s lips curved up into a smile before he burst out laughing. “Bridezilla.”

Killian smirked. “You’re totally a bridezilla. Ha! You thought I was going to be one when it’s been you the entire time.” He folded his tattooed arms across his thick chest.

“Maybe I’m a little bit of a bridezilla, but honestly, I deserve it. Right?” Maverick hooked his arm around his brother’s shoulders.

“I mean, sure, but don’t we all? We all deserve our special day,” Killian noted.

Dean nudged Maverick. “No one is going to ruin your day, Mav. I’m not even going to look in Beau’s direction, and Killian isn’t going to murder anyone. I want you and Jax to have an extra special wedding after everything the two of you went through. It’s the first Mulligan wedding. It has to be perfect.”

“What about you, Blake. You planning on committing any crimes in the near future?” Maverick grinned at me.

I waved a hand in front of myself. “What about this face screams going to commit a crime ?”

“Mm, right. Like you and Tommy weren’t doing things that could have gotten you arrested when he was in school.” Killian wiggled his brows at me.

I flushed. “You want to have a talk about sex right now, Hampton?”

“No,” he snarled, and his ears turned bright red.

“You sure? Because I think I remember the time I heard you screaming Matty’s name—”

Killian slapped his hand over my mouth, and Maverick and Dean started laughing.

He pointed a finger at them. “No one talks about him, got it? Not like that, not ever.” He turned his blues back to me. “If I remove my hand, you had better not even mention a word about my fiancé and our sex life, or I will remove your tongue and feed it to you.”

“You’re so touchy.” I held up my hands, palm first, when Killian growled at me.

“Respect Matthias, Blake, that’s all I ask. Just like Tom told me I needed to do for you.” He glared at me until I had to look away from those piercing blue eyes.

Then I remembered the time Tommy said the same thing to Killian. How upset he had been when Kill hadn’t treated me the way he thought I should be treated.

“That’s Blake Duncan, your bass player and friend you’re talking to. You’re not the only one writing the songs. It’s time you start showing him some respect.”

“You’re right, Kill. I’m sorry.” His brows lifted. “I know you love him, and I won’t do that anymore.”

“Jesus Christ, I thought you two were going to start dueling,” Maverick muttered, and when Killian snorted with laughter before throwing his arms around me, I couldn’t help but join in.

Dean untangled himself from his brother to hug Killian and me. “I think that the four of us should go out. Like an unofficial band breakfast. When was the last time we did that? No boyfriends, fiancés, or soon to be husbands.”

“But—” Killian started to object.

“No, Kill. Not even Matthias. I think you can survive a couple of hours without him. He’ll be fine. Let him hang out with Jax, Tom, and Helena.”

Killian pouted. “Fine.”

“You’re so whipped,” I teased.

He bared his teeth at me.

Maverick clapped his hands. “I think that’s a great idea.”

Killian rolled his eyes, only to lunge forward to hug me. “I love the three of you like brothers.” He winked at Maverick before he reached over to grab him, and then Dean wiggled in so that the four of us were embracing.

“For the record, I still think that this is the worst idea ever.”

“Whipped.” Dean coughed and then bolted inside the house.

“I’ll get you, asshole!” Killian shouted, then he grinned. “I’m so whipped for Matthias, and I don’t even care who knows it. Let’s go get breakfast. Oh, and just so you know, I’m telling my fiancé that you wouldn’t let him come with us.”

***

The last time the four of us had sat down to eat was in Boston. Maverick and Killian had had a huge fight where I’d stomped out of the restaurant, embarrassed and scared he was going to tell everyone about Tommy. Now we were sitting here laughing and telling stories about things we had done on tour, the first time we kissed our significant others, and the future of Mulligan Downtown.

“I thought you all knew about Jax. I swear, that night when he invited Matty to the party, he wouldn’t stop touching me when we were packing up my car.” Maverick blushed.

I thought back to that night, before Tommy and I were together, when all everyone thought about was Kilian avoiding Matty. “I didn’t. I just thought you two were close.”

“Really close.” Dean snickered.

Maverick turned even redder. “You kept egging Kill on, pushing about Matthias, and I was so jealous when Jackson invited him that party. He was supposed to teach me how to give him a blowjob. I thought Jax wanted Matty.”

“Jax what?” Killian growled deep in his chest.

Maverick balled up his napkin so he could throw it at him. “He didn’t, killer, relax. He wanted the two of you together.” He giggled when Killian batted the napkin back at him.

“I don’t want to tour anymore,” Killian announced as he dumped sugar into his coffee. “What? Don’t look at me like that. I hate it. Makes my brain all scrambled.”

I glanced at Dean. “Is the band breaking up now?”

“No.” Maverick shook his head. “Just no more touring. It’s too much. We can still record music.”

Dean tilted his head as he thought about it. “The two of you already discussed this.”

“We did, but if you want to tour, we will.” Maverick nudged our singer. “Tell them.”

Killian shook his head. “You tell them.”

“One of you needs to tell us.” I sighed. “If you’re sick of us or the band or whatever this is, fine. But now that we all like one another again, it would be a terrible time to break up.”

“I never hated you,” Maverick blurted. “It was my anxiety and missing Jackson. I just need stability. We need to stability.” He waved his hand between himself and Killian. “That last tour we did for the album nearly killed us. We spent a lot of time trying to hold our mental health together.”

Killian nodded. “I’m building a recording studio at my house. All of you can come down there, stay with us, and then go home when it’s done.”

“That sounds... actually, that sounds pretty good. We could do live streams and stuff. The fans would like that. It would be more intimate.” Dean sat back in his chair.

“It does,” I agreed. My conversation with Tommy came back to me. I could move here with him. Or somewhere else. Like North Carolina.

Maverick grinned. “I told you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you were right.” Killian rolled his eyes. “This guy, right? I mean, if he wasn’t getting married, I might kiss him.”

Maverick’s entire face turned bright red. “Kill, you can’t say stuff like that to me. What would Matty think?”

“Remember that time I caught the two of you in the tree house?” Dean chuckled when Killian held up his middle finger. “You two were so going to fuck.”

Killian popped his jaw. “We were not going to fuck, asshole. I kissed him, and you know what? Shut your trap. Tell me about your Beau and when he kissed you, huh? What was that like?”

“Perfect.” Dean dropped his chin. “The best kiss I ever had, actually.”

I made a slashing motion against my neck. “Stop.” I mouthed at Killian.

“Really?” Killian whispered.

Dean nodded. “He didn’t want to do anything other than kiss, but I pushed him for more. He was very polite about it. He was just going to help me dye my hair.”

“That’s when you went back to white for a while.” Maverick reached over to squeeze his arm. “That was something when you showed up looking exactly like me. Green is your color.”

Dean gave a faint smile. “He said his sister was a hairdresser.”

“Sam,” Maverick answered. “She’s coming to the wedding. She’s doing my hair.”

“Maybe she could cut mine for me. I don’t like it this long anymore.” Dean’s voice was barely a whisper. “He did, though. He liked it long, which is why I was growing it out, but I don’t think that—”

“Don’t cut it. This look suits you.”

All of us looked up at to find a tall, blue-eyed man with inky black hair standing behind Maverick. I recognized him immediately as Beau Whitlock.

“Dean?” He said his name like a lyric to a love song, and my guitar player’s eyes softened. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Dean climbed to his feet. “I’ll be fine, Kill. Put your knives away,” he promised before he followed Beau outside.

Maverick grabbed Killian’s arm. “Leave it.”

“Was it Jax?” I asked as the waitress brought our food over to the table.

Maverick smiled. “I have my ways, too, you know.”

“It was you then.” Killian unwrapped his silverware and scowled at it like it had done him wrong.

Maverick winked. “When I was still trying to figure my shit out, Sam helped me by getting in touch with Beau so Jax could come get me. This time, I returned the favor by reaching out to her. I just want my brother to be happy. If that means getting him the closure he needs, then so be it. But...” He glanced behind him to see Dean and Beau talking outside the restaurant. “Something tells me it might be more than closure.”

We all watched as Beau shook his head at something Dean said, and when his hand came up to cup his cheek, Dean immediately took a step back before he lunged forward to wrap his arms around the hockey player’s waist. Beau hugged him back, and I couldn’t help but smile. Dean deserved happiness.

What we all had now.