“You okay?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling even when he whispered.
I blew out a shaky breath and nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
He stepped closer to me, and I thought for a brief moment that he was going to kiss me—god, I loved the way he kissed—but all he did was pat and squeeze my biceps with one hand, then give me a tiny push, saying, “We should get back in there before Alaric and Grady think we’re having an orgy in the hallway.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively with this ridiculous grin on his face that I was pretty sure was meant to be sexy. Okay, it was sexy, but only because everything Raph did was sexy, even when he was being an idiot.
My eyes blinked in surprise, then went wide. “Was that… wow, Raph, was that supposed to be flirting?”
He snorted out a laugh. “That bad you have to ask, huh?”
“Wow, that’s… that was… um, impressive.”
“Oh?”
I gave a nod. “Impressively bad.”
He stuck out his bottom lip in a fake pout that should’ve been ridiculous on such a huge guy, but was still somehow adorable. “That’s mean.”
“Dude, you brought up an orgy and your brother in the same sentence. That’s about as bad as it gets.”
He tried to pout harder, but wound up laughing. “Okay, when you put it like that…”
“It was horrible. Terrible.”
“Okay, okay. You don’t have to keep saying it.”
I snickered as we walked back to the living room, but I leaned in and asked, “He’s okay, right?” I couldn’t stop picturing Isiah’s face before he’d gone up the stairs. I wish I knew what he’d been thinking.
Raph sent me a smile, that same sweet one, again. “Yeah, he’s fine. Going to sleep, as far as I can tell.”
Taking a deep breath, I gave a nod. “Good.”
We walked into the living room, and Grady gave me the look. You know, the one that indicated that we’d be having words later. I rolled my eyes at him, but I honestly couldn’t blame him. I’d want to know what the hell was going on if I were him, too. Actually, even being in the middle of all this, I’d still love for someone else to explain it.
Raph sorta guided me over to the couch, so I wound up sitting beside him, but I kept a good foot between us. Even though I really want to scoot into his side and rest my head on that huge, muscular shoulder of his.
Alaric asked, “Is Isiah alright?”
Raph smiled at his little brother. “Yeah, he’s good. It’s been a long few weeks and this weekend turned into a shitstorm, so he’s exhausted and needs to catch up on a little sleep.”
Alaric eyed Raph for a moment but nodded and changed the subject. “You’re going to be able to stay for Thanksgiving, right?”
Raph rolled his eyes. “Yes, little runt. I’ve told you a thousand times that we’re staying all week. Izzy’s going Black Friday shopping with Grady, too.”
Grady said, “With me and Laz, you mean.”
Raph side-eyed me. “Yeah, with you both.”
“I wish you were coming to my family’s Thanksgiving. We’re doing a sorta brunch thing on Thursday,” I said.
Before anyone else could respond, Grady said, “Maybe next year. But you’ll be here for Thanksgiving dinner, right?”
I shot him a grin. “Yep.” Grady had been adopted by my family a long time ago. Not literally, although, I was sure my mother would’ve liked to when we were in high school. But I’d been bringing him to all my family holidays for years. He’d never had a family to spend time with, and as much as it sucked for him, I loved that he was a part of my family. Now that he had a family—Alaric, Raph, and Izzy—my family was adopting them as well.
Raph leaned back on the couch and draped his arms over the back of it. Since I was already leaning back, his hand brushed my neck. At first, I’d thought it was an accident, but when he placed his hand on my shoulder, I knew he’d done it on purpose. And when his thumb started rubbing up and down the back of neck, I really knew he’d meant it.
Grady’s eyes narrowed at me, but I only shrugged. I had no idea what Raph’s plan was right now. I’d seen how casually he touched Izzy all the time, and they were only friends—family— but not romantically involved, so perhaps he was a handsy kind of guy.
Or maybe he was looking for a repeat performance of two summers ago.
Which was… great, really. We’d had fun, and he certainly knew what he was doing in bed.
But was a casual hookup really what I was looking for? Or did I want something more?
Especially if… especially if we took Isiah’s feelings into consideration.
He’d once told me that he was used to seeing Raph with other people but that it sometimes still hurt to see it.
Did I want to risk hurting him? Just for another roll in the sack?
No. No, I didn’t.
But if Raph wanted more?
I… part of me wanted to say absolutely not, but another part—the part that had felt a strange connection to Raphael since the moment I’d met him—that part longed for a relationship. It longed for me to lean into him right now. It longed for that kind of partnership with someone.
But then there was Isiah.
I felt the same strange pull to the man, and I didn’t understand it.
We had a good friendship going now, and I didn’t want to hurt him. I never wanted that.
Even though I was dying to lean back into Raph, I couldn’t do that to Izzy, not when I knew it’d hurt him.
So I did the hardest thing I could possibly do. I pulled away. I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees as if I was concentrating on something, and I lost the feel of Raph’s finger on my skin and the weight of his hand on my shoulder.
He tensed beside me, and I knocked my knee into his to alleviate the brush off a little. I didn’t want to hurt him, either.
Grady and Alaric both noticed the move, but I didn’t care. They weren’t the ones throwing their feelings all over me right now. Well, they were, but I wasn’t at risk of hurting either one of them with every little move I made.
Luckily, Raph, Izzy, and Alaric’s familiars chose that moment to rush into the room. Tiberius, Alaric’s owl, flew right over to him, landing on the back of the chair he was sitting on. Jezebel, Raph’s cat, ran in and leapt onto his lap. She had leaves stuck on her fur, and Raph chuckled as he plucked them off. Obviously, they’d been playing outside. Nadia, Izzy’s crow, flew over, and I thought she was going to land on Raph’s arm, but she bypassed him and landed on the couch beside me. To my surprise, and the surprise of everyone else, she nudged my arm out of the way until I sat up again, and then she crawled onto my lap and rubbed her head against my chest, clearly wanting me to scratch her.
I complied, amazed that she wanted me at all. Then Jezebel pushed her way onto my lap as well. Nadia pecked at her—not meanly, just trying to get her to move—but Jezebel ignored her. The two ended up curled around each other on my lap. Every time I stopped petting Nadia, she gave me the evil eye, so I chuckled and kept up the pets.
Raph shoulder-bumped me, saying, “They like you.”
“I’m surprised. I didn’t think they did,” I said. When Raph and Izzy had stayed with me as my guards last year, their familiars hardly paid me any attention. Tonight, they were all over me.