Chapter Six
Max
I stared at my brother the next morning as he took a bite of toast and scanned the business section, oblivious to my inspection. It had been too long since our last visit—longer than we’d ever been apart. Marriages beginning and ending, careers growing? babies born, family obligations, and a myriad of other obstacles had kept me from England and him from the States. Though I was only ten months older than him, seeing him here brought back the older-brother protectiveness his calm stoicism had always triggered in me.
Because he rarely said otherwise, I needed to make sure he really was doing all right.
He looked thinner, but fitter, too. I meant it when I said divorce suited him. Instead of seeming beat down by the taxing drag of the proceedings, it seemed as if a literal weight had been removed from his shoulders. His face was less shadowed, mouth less drawn. He smiled easily again.
Of all my siblings, Niall and I were the most similar physically but dissimilar mentally. We were both tall, had tended toward athletic builds, and had our father’s lighter brown hair. But whereas it had taken me years to get my head on straight about school and birds and the bleeding enormous what-to-do-with-my-life decisions, Niall was born thinking like a little engineer: logical, calm, meticulous. I’d worked my way through most of Manhattan’s single women; he’d married the first girl he kissed. I had barely found a single job I loved until I met Will and we started the firm together; Niall had excelled in civil engineering so early he’d been the second in command at the London Underground when he was only twenty-eight before being wooed away to a private firm. I spoke freely, shared too readily, loved perhaps too openly. Niall considered every word before he let it out, held his private truths close to his chest, and had never been with a woman who let him love openly at all.
“How’s the ex-monster?” I asked.
“Portia’s mostly off doing whatever it is she does,” he told me, letting out a quiet laugh. “I get the occasional note about needing to fix this or that at the flat.”
I felt the familiar protective heat rise in my chest. “She can hire out for that. Lord knows she has enough of her own money? as well as yours.”
“She can, indeed,” he agreed with the genuine smile of a man finally liberated.
I hated what Portia had done to him. She’d started with a shy, sweet, and devoted teenage Niall and left us with a deeply emotionally reserved version of the same man. I didn’t mind his reserve; I didn’t even mind his new emotional discipline. I missed the lad with the easy dimpled smile and enormous, curious eyes.
But fuck it. He was here in my flat, finally coming back to life.
“You should have fucked Teena Smith at Robbie’s party when I told you to,” I said to him.
He barely missed a beat: “Oi, this again. I was already with—”
“Oh, fuck Portia. Teena would have bounced on your knob for days.”
He laughed, scratching his jaw. “A bit too eager, though, yeah?”
“Eager with a cocksucking mouth and great tits.”
“Great tits,” he agreed ruefully. “Bloody great tits.”
“Who had great tits?” Sara asked, walking into the kitchen to grab her coffee.
“Teena,” Niall and I answered in unison.
“The one I should have shagged,” Niall explained further.
“And it’s unfortunate he didn’t,” I explained. “Portia would have married that insufferable arse Richard, and Niall would have been a sex god in uni instead of saddled with a wife and mortgage.”
He hummed, blowing over the surface of his hot tea as his eyes returned to the paper. “Maybe.”
Sara looked at us with a sweetly quizzical grin before leaving again.
“So.” I brought my coffee to my lips.
He smiled without looking up. “Hmm?”
“Good to have you visit.”
My brother nodded, sipping his tea. “Been too long.”
“Everything good across the pond?”
Shrugging, he said, “Same, I suppose? There’s a chance I’ll be back in a few weeks’ time for a summit here.”
“Yeah?” I said, a little more eagerly than I’d intended.
He nodded. “I’ll be around a bit more, you see. So you might as well just bring up whatever it is you’re working up to.”
“Oh, you mean the thing about how you’re watching the child tonight while I take my woman out for some fun?”
He brought his toast to his mouth and smiled around it, “Yes, that thing.”
“We’ll be out late,” I warned.
“I certainly hope so.” He maintained eye contact, eyes wry and knowing as he chewed, swallowed.
“I’m not going to tell you what we’re doing, if that’s what you think.”
He laughed, shaking his head as he poured some more tea. “Well, until you said that, I assumed it was just dinner. Now I think maybe I’d rather not know.”
Sara brought Anna out into the kitchen, making her way over to me, but Niall wiped his mouth and his hands with a napkin before he reached for the baby. “Come here, love. Guess who gets to watch you tonight?”
Sara folded the baby in his arms and turned to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of milk. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Might kick you out myself.”
She smiled at him gratefully. “Well, I’m leaving around six, but there’s plenty of bottles in here for the rest of the night,” she said, looking at him over her shoulder. “We use this bottle warmer. See?” She put the bottle in, pushed the button, and we all watched as it began to steam, and then beeped when it was done. “Easy.”
“We’ll manage fine,” he said, taking the bottle and expertly shaking it to warm the milk evenly as he looked down at Anna again. “Won’t we, princess?”
Watching him like this, I realized how much more experience he had with babies than I did: between our eight siblings there were seventeen nieces and nephews, and Niall was the favorite uncle to them all.
Sara put her hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for doing this.”
He waved her off, making one of his stiff, dismissive grunts.
“That’s awkward Brit for ‘you’re welcome,’ ” I said, laughing as I waited for Anna to push the bottle away and cry for Sara.
Niall gazed down at her as he offered her the milk. “That’s a girl. Who’s a good baby?” He bent and kissed her forehead. “Ah, but she’s a hungry one, isn’t she?”
I gaped at him, at her tiny hand clutching his thumb as she drank happily.
Bloody hell.
If my daughter had one superpower it would be the ability to locate her mum from several rooms away. If Sara were anywhere in the house, Anna wouldn’t dare take a bottle from me.
I scowled at Niall. “You must smell like a woman.”
“Piss off,” he said to me, still using his baby-soothing voice. “Why is your daddy such a wanker, hmm? I’ve got a hundred nieces and nephews and he expects I can’t give this tiny miss a bottle?”
Laughing, I stood and cleared our dishes.
“Baby girl knows which uncle’s gonna spoil her rotten,” Niall whispered just loud enough for me to hear. “Who wants a pony? Is it you? You do? I’ll make sure you get a pony.”
I groaned, smacking the back of his head as I walked past him to go find Sara.
“You’re welcome, wanker,” he sang sweetly.