27. Boston

CHAPTER 27

BOSTON

The closer it got to my trip home, the less I wanted to go, but I'd committed myself to the visit. If for nothing else, to confirm the suspicions that had started to take root since things had gotten serious with Ford.

I no longer missed the farm because everything that used to feel like home now felt like him. He'd ingrained himself in my days and nights, whether it was sly text messages or coffee in bed. Ford was so much more than I imagined and I also thought he was more than he'd ever let himself believe. I found myself falling in love with him, but the trip to California would either confirm or deny those feelings one way or another.

The space would do us good, I figured. It was impossible to think around him because it was so easy to let him think for me. From where we ate to what we did to when we went to bed, Ford took care of me in ways I never knew I wanted—or needed. On my knees for him at The Black Door, I'd learned a thing or two, not just about myself but also about him.

Staring at the clothes thrown across my bed and the open suitcase on the floor, I frowned down at the entire scene. I hadn't booked a return flight because I feared if I gave myself a week, I wouldn't make it more than two days. I didn't want to be stuck there longer than necessary…only long enough to know. The problem with that, though, was I had no idea how much to pack.

An unexpected knock on my door pulled me out of the haze, and I found myself smiling as I headed to the front door. Ford had texted around lunch and said he was working late, which was why I'd taken advantage of the downtime to pack for my trip. The thought of him coming after a long day had all sorts of ideas racing through my head for the rest of the night. I wanted to care for him in the same ways he tended me. I wanted to make sure he ate and drank and then take him into the shower after our orgasms and let him press me against a wall and kiss his way up my neck. I wanted to feel the weight of his cock in my mouth again, the way he'd fucked my throat like he was desperate for the heat of it.

But it wasn't Ford at my door. It was my brother.

Thankfully, the sight of him was like a bucket of cold water on what had been a quickly thickening erection. Clearing my throat and hoping I didn't look too surprised to see him, I stepped out of the way to let him into the narrow entryway.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, shrugging out of his pea coat and hanging it on the rack behind my door.

"Why would you say that?" I turned away from him quickly and went for my bedroom. Kale detoured into the kitchen to get himself a drink, and then he was pushing my clothes out of the way to sit down at the foot of my bed. I wondered if my bedroom smelled like sex, if we'd left lube or tangled ties out, if there were any signs that would give our secret away prematurely.

"You're flushed." Kale surveyed the mess in my room and the half-empty suitcase at my feet. "Like you ran a mile."

"I'm just here packing." I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket and checked in with Ford, sending a quick message to let him know my brother had shown up unannounced so he didn't do the same.

"Boston." My brother sighed, shifting so one of his legs bent at the knee and rested on the comforter and an old t-shirt I'd stolen from him after college. Worry knit together between his brows, and my breath caught in my throat.

"Kale," I said back to him.

"You're coming home, aren't you?"

The breath that had twisted itself into a knot unwound as fast as if it had been shot out of a cannon, falling out of my mouth in a strangled-sounding gasp. I coughed and pounded my fist against my chest, clearing my throat to bring myself back to normal before sitting on my bed and mirroring my brother's pose.

"Of course I'm coming home," I said, tilting my head to the side. "Why wouldn't I?"

He shook his head, trying to play off his earlier concern, but he was my brother, my twin , and I knew him as well as I knew myself sometimes. I could see the doubt and the worry etched deep into his features. I reached out and patted the side of his knee with my hand, and he slammed his down over mine, holding it against the rich fabric of his slacks.

"Before I hired you on at my office, you were definitely talking like you didn't want to stay in the city."

"I know you only gave me the job to keep me here longer," I said.

"I thought I had more time." Kale frowned.

"I'm coming home, Kale," I said to him again.

"Then why did you book a one-way flight?" he asked, shoving my hand off his leg and standing up so abruptly the stolen t-shirt stuck to his leg and fell onto the floor. With a muttered apology, he bent down to pick it up off the floor, eyes narrowing when he recognized the faded USC logo. "This is mine."

"It was." I snatched it back from him and dropped it into the open suitcase before he could take it back.

"Why didn't you book a return flight?" he asked, bracing his hands against his hips and glaring at me, the same look he always affected when he wanted to try and flaunt his four minutes of seniority over me.

"I didn't know how long I wanted to stay for," I answered.

"A week or two, tops."

"I don't even know if I want to be gone that long."

I tugged on the cuff of a pair of black joggers, folding them haphazardly before dropping them into the suitcase and moving on to a pair of jeans. They were the cheapest ones I owned and they'd still cost me a few hundred dollars. After one morning on the farm, they'd be ruined beyond repair, and I found myself wondering when I'd morphed from being cut out for farm life to a cookie cutter city boy. I folded them anyway, dropping them onto the joggers.

"You miss it there," he said carefully.

I bit the inside of my cheek, thinking very carefully about what I wanted to say next so I didn't incriminate myself. But for as much as I knew Kale's tells, he also knew mine .

Kale raised a brow and smacked his lips, pointing at me with one well-manicured, judgmental finger. "Is this about the man you're seeing? The one who works in our building?"

"No," I said quickly, shaking my head and walking out of the bedroom before I even had time to realize I'd lost track of the half-truth I told my brother the last time we had lunch together in his office.

He caught up to me in the kitchen before I even had a chance to get a drink poured out, and he snatched the bottle out of my hand, holding it above my head like it was a video game controller and we were seven all over again.

"Don't lie to me," he said.

I smacked him and wrestled his arm back down, stealing the bottle out of his grip and turning away at the same time as I jutted my leg out with the intent to kick his kneecap out. Kale dodged, laughing at me.

"You're predictable and you're a bad liar."

I poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass and rolled my eyes at him.

"I'm not lying to you," I said, washing the lie down with a mouthful of the spicy, amber-colored liquor.

Kale stole the glass out of my hand and took a drink for himself, glancing sideways at the bottle I'd set safely back on the counter.

"I didn't know you liked Pappy Van Winkle." He made a show of smacking his lips before taking another sip, and I turned away because I knew what was coming next. "It's Ford's favorite."

"What does that have to do with me?" I asked, screwing my eyes closed and waiting for him to redirect his line of questioning back to the mystery man in our office.

"Something is going on with you," he said, tapping my shoulder.

I groaned, turning back toward him and stealing back the drink out of his hands. I took a sip to buy myself time, not realizing what a bad idea it was because he wasn't wrong. It was Ford's favorite whiskey. That's how a bottle of it had ended up in my kitchen, and I definitely wasn't having a Pavlovian response to the taste of it because my brain already associated the rich flavor with kisses from the man I was falling in love with.

"I'm just re-thinking this trip," I admitted.

"Because of that man."

I let out a long breath. "Because of that man."

"What's his name, Boston?" my brother pressed, bumping his shoulder into me and walking us out of the kitchen and into my living room.

I sat down on the couch without prompting, making silent note of the way Ford had stacked my magazines into a neat pile against the far edge.

"Doesn't matter," I said, taking a drink before passing the glass back to him. "It's still new and I don't know if it's going to last. I'd rather…rather wait before you get invested in my relationship on my behalf."

"I don't want to get invested. I want to run a background check."

"I'm not a child, Kale." I held out my hand and he passed the whiskey back to me. "I'm not making bad decisions."

"Have you slept with him?" he asked.

"Would you ask me that if he was a woman?"

Kale scrunched his nose a little at the question, then huffed out a breath indicating I'd bested him at his current line of questioning.

My brother was a skilled negotiator, though, and quick on his feet. It didn't take him more than five seconds to redirect. "You've been missing home for years, Boston." He turned toward me, face a little sad and a lot serious. "I've honestly just been waiting for you to decide you wanted to leave New York and go back there for good."

I'd been waiting for myself to make the same decision for as long as my brother, but everything was different now. It was complicated and wonderful and messy, and I wanted to be right in the middle of it. But our parents were excited to see me, and I still needed to test the theory for myself.

I needed to be sure.

"I know I have, but lately I've been wondering if what I missed was a place or a feeling."

"And your trip is going to help determine that?" he asked.

"Stop worrying about him," I said. "Things with him are very new and before I tell you anything about him, I want to make sure it lasts. The two things are not entirely related."

"Don't let this new man cloud your vision, Boston," he warned.

"Isn't that what happened for you and Christian?"

"Christian had a slew of obligations he needed to get in line. That's why he had to go home. Otherwise, I never would have let him out of my house," Kale said with a smirk that danced right up into the dark pools of his eyes. "There was nothing cloudy about it."

I fidgeted with my glasses, the weight of the lie to my brother beginning to wear on me as much as the rest of it. Hopefully after I returned home from California, Ford and I would be better positioned to decide how to come clean to him about what we'd been doing.

"I don't like being away from him," Kale went on. "He has to go back for a few days to visit his nephews and I'm not looking forward to it."

"Love has made you a sap." I handed off the glass with the remaining whiskey because he looked like he needed it more than me. "How long is he gone for?"

"Ten days."

I swallowed, the thought of being away from Ford for ten days was enough to draw out a cold sweat on the back of my neck.

"You look like you want to die," Kale said, finishing off the whiskey and carrying the glass into my kitchen. I heard him run the water and then the familiar clink of crystal against marble as he set it on the counter beside the bottle. "When do you leave again?"

"Tomorrow night," I called out to him.

"I give you three days, tops."

I blinked quickly, wondering if I was even going to make it two.

Kale came out from the kitchen, head cocked to the side as he gave me a knowing look, then he shook his head and laughed.

"What's funny now?" I forced myself up from the couch to follow Kale to the front door. Apparently, he decided he'd had enough of me and was ready to go home and bury himself balls deep into his prince. I couldn't blame him for that, because it was definitely the same thing I wanted to do to his best friend as soon as our schedules allowed.

Kale slipped his coat on and fastened the buttons, then shoved his hands into the pockets with a quick jerk of his wrists. "It's just that Ford's gonna cry when he finds out you're in love with someone else."

I bit my lips between my teeth, cheeks immediately burning red, but not for the reason my brother would have suspected.

"I doubt that," I murmured, reaching around Kale to open the door for him. "I'll see you at work in the morning, Kale."

"Make sure you spend some quality time with your mystery man before your trip, if you know what I mean," he said, backing out into the hallway.

"I need you to make up your mind about if you want me to sleep with men or not."

"I want you to sleep with whomever you want," he said with a lopsided smile. "Just not Ford. See you tomorrow, Boston."