The next rumble Damie heard was even stronger, a patriarchal blade slicing past the chatter to call for quiet. He swallowed and blinked, his eyes flitting across every face until he found the man speaking.
He was a mountain, a solid piece of stone quarried from the slabs of Irish beauty around him, but his strength was left undiminished by time and the trials of life. Silver flecked the black hair at his temples, and while his eyes weren’t as brightly cerulean as the men around him, they were forged steel honed sharp by the passing years. He reached for them both, and his enormous hands closed over first Miki’s shoulder, then Damien’s, shielding them from the battering verbal storm brewing around them.
It was a different type of warmth. So very different from the encompassing wrap of Sionn around his soul or the beacon flash of starshine of Miki in his heart. This man, Damien realized, resonated with a fire hot enough to melt rock, and he would flow around those he loved, protecting them from anything they weren’t quite strong enough to withstand.
“Da… we don’t know if he’s… real.” Someone in the pack spoke up, but the man quelled him with a sharp look.
“Yer wrong, son. I’d know Mick’s brother anywhere. God knows I’ve seen him on Ryan’s walls now for years, and no one else could have brought that awe to Miki’s face. So shush, all of ye, and make way.” Now that man stood around him… for him and Miki… as he squeezed their shoulders reassuringly. “Come on, ye two. Let’s find ye someplace ye can have some peace and our Miki can welcome his Damie boy back.”
IT HAD been an ugly cry. There was no getting around that fact. Even knowing that, Damien was surprised to find himself feeling as if he’d drowned in the bay. His face was swollen, nearly tight to the touch, and everything tasted of salt. Sniffing, he was thirsty, but he didn’t want to move off the bed he was lying on. Especially since Miki was lying beside him, their sides touching as they nestled on a mound of pillows and stared through a sliding glass door to the darkness outside.
Donal had led them from the main house, letting the remains of Sinner’s Gin hole up in a small studio apartment behind the garage. It had to be someplace Miki hid in often, because the place smelled like him. Even the bed’s daisy-dotted cotton sheets, soft and worn from use, held a scent of the man next to him. As well as a cedar-citrus something else he now knew came from a man named Kane Morgan.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” It was Miki who murmured those words this time. When they could finally talk, exhausted from the tears and then the laughter of holding one another again, they’d passed them back and forth, breathing them in then exhaling the phrase back out, the words warmed between them. Miki’s fingers clasped over his and squeezed, reminding Damie his brother was next to him again. “Fucking hell. D. Dude.”
“I can’t believe you named your dog Dude.” He laughed at the sheer joy filling him. “Shit, I can’t believe you have a dog.”
“He kind of just moved in. He’s an asshole. Reminds me of you. He steals shit too. Like sneakers.” Miki inched even closer. “Kane kind of did too. Sort of. Moved in. Not steal my sneakers. His feet are damned huge. My shit wouldn’t fit him.”
“He’s nice,” Damien admitted slowly. “Can’t believe he didn’t tell you they’d found my fingerprint on that envelope.”
“Yeah, we’ll talk about that later.” Miki’s melodic voice turned dark. “They were arguing about it when I came in. I was so fucking confused, and then suddenly you were there. Fucking cops. Fucker told them. You believe that shit?”
“Hey, you married one. Sorta. Kinda.”
Kane was definitely a presence. The man hovered, watching Miki with fiery blue eyes whenever he moved about the room. He said very little, mostly small comforting phrases, then led Miki to the small apartment, reassuring them both the door would remain closed until they were ready to come out. He’d kissed Miki first with an intense passion, then simmered it with a reassuring slide of his lips up over Miki’s jaw to his ear. Sinjun laughed, pushing Kane away, then rubbing his earlobe where his lover’d bit him.
Miki’s laughter had been the happiest Damie’d ever heard from him. It was as if the happy Damie’d felt in the house had somehow found its way into Miki, and a tiny part of him was sad, mournful he’d not been able to put it there.
He wanted that kind of happy.
And he kind of wanted that kind of happy with Sionn.
Sinjun’s bashful smile and fierce hug chased his regret away, especially when they’d both fallen over onto the bed and begun talking.
After the tears. After the hugs. Then after the relieved laughter and a few heart-wrenching sobs, the words finally came.