“Fracture? Skull fracture?” Connor chewed on his lower lip. He kept quiet about not being Forest’s partner much less boyfriend, and he shot Kiki a telling look before she could butt in. “How bad?”
“Very slight. Nothing deep, but still, just something we want him to let heal up with rest. You’ll have to watch him for any signs of dehydration. He might want to get out of bed and do laps around the block, but don’t let him. A week of rest would do him good. One of the nurses will let you know when you can see him. For right now, sit tight and maybe get some coffee down at the cafeteria. It’ll be about an hour and a half before you can see your partner.”
“We’re not—” The doctor was gone before Connor finished his sentence, and behind him, his younger sister suppressed a snorting giggle. Relief flooded through him, and a tightness he didn’t know he’d built up in his chest suddenly deflated, unraveling with the doctor’s prognosis, but his sister’s chortle annoyed him. “Shush it, Kiki. You’ve got nothing to be laughing at.”
“I can’t see you in any kind of domestic partnership, man or woman. You’re too much of a hardass.” She gave in and barked out a short guffaw. Her phone chirruped from her pocket, and Kiki glanced at it, moaning when she recognized the number. “Shit, it’s Mom.”
“Better answer it. I left the dinner early. She probably wants you to swing by and take home part of that fatted calf she had slaughtered for Damien and Miki.” Connor grinned at his sister’s wrinkled nose.
“I’m just going to head there.” Kiki pointed her finger at her brother. “Don’t think this is over. I’ll tell Mom you’re okay. I bet the phone call wasn’t so much about if I ate dinner as it was making sure you don’t need anything.”
“I think she already sent that cavalry,” Connor murmured with a slight grin. A familiar Morgan-shaped man ambled out of the elevator and spotted Connor. Waving as best he could while holding two large cups of steaming coffee, he headed over to the siblings, his attention flicking from side to side as he took in his surroundings. Con punched his brother on the arm when Quinn got within reach, scoffing at the younger man’s dramatic gasp of pain. “Look who the cat dragged in.”
“Mom’s cats wouldn’t drag anything in without chewing it up first,” Quinn murmured, leaning over to kiss their sister on the cheek. “Hello, Kiki.”
“Hi, Qbert.” She hugged Quinn, then tugged at the oddly striped long scarf wrapped several times around his neck. “Hate to tell you this, but this looks a little gay.”
“Really? I was going for very gay. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m wishy-washy about it.” Their soft-voiced middle sibling looked at the knitted wrap trailing down his long body, its tassels brushing his thighs. “Next time, I’ll wear the celery brooch Ryan gave me.”
“And on that note, you’re on your own with the family freak, Con,” Kiki said, slipping around their brother. “I’m going to go fight bad guys—right after I grab some dinner at the ’rents’ house.”
Connor caught the flicker of discomfort in Quinn’s green eyes as she passed. It was gone before Kiki turned to wave at them, but he’d seen it just the same. Unlike the rest of the Morgan clan, Quinn strayed from civil service and went straight into academia, riding on the glory of his doctorates and steel-trap brain. Still, there was no question he was a Morgan. He shared their father’s dark hair and bone structure, but his face and enormous emerald eyes leaned toward their mother’s ethereal beauty. His lanky body was muscular under the loose clothing he liked to wear, but in a clan of giants, Quinn was their runt—a six-foot-tall, lean poet amid battle-scarred, thickly built warriors.
He was also one of Con’s favorite siblings—and not just because he brought Con coffee.
Next to Kane, Quinn was the brother Connor simply liked. A curiosity of being an unobtrusive thinker in a strong-willed and loud family, Quinn watched and dissected, sometimes taking a well-honed word and using it to pierce through a family discussion. He was the cat among the wolves and one that wasn’t quite right in the head for most. Still, Connor was fond of his younger brother, amazed at the beat he marched to and the world only Quinn seemed to live in. He also knew the incredible darkness Quinn fought off at times, and had been there during the steepest of his brother’s malignant depressions.
Quinn was their most fragile Morgan—and yet the strongest, living life on a slant but refusing to slide down its hill.
Still, Kiki’s careless words found their mark.
“She didn’t mean to call you freak,” Con said softly.
“Sure she did,” Quinn refuted calmly. His voice didn’t waver, a simple acceptance of the label plastered on him by another sibling. “It’s one of the better F-words I’ve been called. Coffee?”