Lush (The King Cousins Book 1) (The King Brothers 4)

by K. D. Elizabeth

  Griffin ignores me, instead continuing to stare at the bar like it holds the secrets to the universe. Yeah right. Far worse men than Griffin have already tried that and failed miserably.

  Apparently, drastic measures are necessary. I head over to the door, flip the sign from open to closed, then unplug the neon Bud Light sign hanging in the window. I turn back to find Griffin staring at me in confusion. Well at least that’s better than total devastation.

  “Aren’t you just opening?”

  “Not today,” I say. “We have something more important to do.”

  “And what could be more important than doing your job? Not that I can talk.”

  Returning to the bar, I pour two glasses of Old Abe’s.

  “We’re having a memorial for Alice,” I say. “It’s high time we celebrated her.”

  Griffin’s face twists in the kind of pain I would imagine is reserved for only the most desolate of regrets. He grabs his glass, but before he takes a drink, I raise mine and say, “To Alice.”

  Griffin’s glass wobbles slightly as he chokes out, “To Alice.”

  “May wherever she is now be as wild as the old broad was when alive.”

  Griffin snorts, then takes a sip, so lost in thought he fails to notice the fact that I’ve just given him some of my own label, which he usually obsesses over whenever I deign to give him some. The guy really is gone.

  “She is … was quite the character,” he says.

  I clap Griffin on the shoulder. “I’m half convinced the main reason all of us—well, apart from you, of course—turned out so crazy had more to do with her goading us on than any inherent defect on our part.”

  “I wouldn’t exclude me from that list. I am, after all, the reason she’s dead. I can’t be that angelic.”

  I slam my hand down on the bar. “Now let’s quit that defeatist, guilt-ridden bullshit. You couldn’t have prevented her death even if you’d tried. You tested her for any signs of a stroke and there were none. What else were you supposed to do? Alice would never have wanted you to beat yourself up over her death like this.”

  “Don’t tell me what she would or would not have wanted. I’m pretty sure she didn’t want to be dead.”

  “Fine, then assume she’d want you miserable and self-loathing for the rest of your life. I, however, am not going to live like that.” I pull my phone out, then start tapping furiously away on the screen.

  “What are you doing?” Griffin says, his tone whinier than I’ve ever heard it before.

  “Christ, you’re positively a bore ever since you tried to sleep with Cassie. What you need is a nice, long lay. Or five. Chills a guy right out.”

  I sure would like a good fuck right about now. Between Griffin’s moping, Alice’s death, and the whole saga with Jude, more than anything I’d like to unwind balls-deep inside a woman. Preferably inside Jude, of course, but while she now thinks of me as a human being, she’s still resisting our fuck-hot chemistry. For now, my hand will have to suffice.

  Not to mention I’m still waiting on those test results. Speaking of which. “Did you get those results of mine back yet?”

  Griffin squints at me. “Huh?”

  “My STD results,” I say in a hushed voice, even though we’re alone in the bar.

  He grunts. “Oh. Those. Came back clean. You’re negative.”

  Thank you everything that is holy. “Can I have them?”

  “Sure, why not just email them?” says Griffin. “It’s not like I’m following any other rules, either.”

  He makes a few quick taps on his phone and an instant later, I have the results in an email. While logically I shouldn’t have been that concerned in the first place, that doesn’t stop the tidal wave of relief cascading through me.

  “So whatever happened with Cassie, anyway?” I ask. “Did you kiss and make up yet?”

  Griffin actually squirms in his seat, avoiding my gaze. My eyes widen, my phone clattering to the table.

  “You did! You totally slept with her. Little Griffy’s all grown up. I am so proud—”

  “Oh, shut it. You’re more annoying than witty, you know.”

  “So Jude tells me.”

  “Who’s Jude?”

  Now it’s my turn to squirm. Griffin’s only just found out about my company; I certainly haven’t told him about Jude. And he certainly doesn’t know she’s the reason I requested those tests.

  “Does she have anything to do with the company you’re starting?”

  “I’ll tell you when everyone gets here.”

  Griffin squints at me. “When who gets here?”

  I laugh. “The rest of our family, of course. What, did you think the two of us were just going to sit here and get drunk alone?”

  By the time the rest of my brothers show up, Griffin and I are well on our way to getting wasted. Well, Griffin is doing his best to get absolutely blasted and I’m mostly going along for the ride. Jackson, my second oldest brother and Ovid’s realtor, arrives with Noah when we’ve already put away half a bottle of Old Abe’s.

  “I hear we’re sending old Alice off in style,” says Jackson, clapping his hands on Griffin’s shoulders and giving him a little shake.

  “That we are, bro.” I say.

  Noah glances around. “Didn’t you at least invite Alice’s husband? We’re the only ones here. Or is this just a degenerate get-together of the King brothers?”

  “I called Larry this afternoon,” I say. “I wanted to go over and visit for a bit, tell him we planned to raise a glass to his wife here, but he’s gone down to Savannah to stay with his sister for a while. I got the sense that he wants to be surrounded by his remaining family right now. It didn’t seem my place to organize something official without checking with him first. But, um, Griffin showed up, and I figured maybe we could still do something for just us to remember her tonight.”

  “When’s the funeral?” asks Griffin, his voice hoarse.

  I glance at him sharply. Jackson and I share a look while Noah answers cautiously, “It’s my understanding that Larry plans on cremating her remains. He’s going to have a small service in the fall during the foliage season to sprinkle her ashes along the Blue Ridge Parkway. You know that was her favorite place on earth, and they road-tripped a week there every November.”

  Griffin downs his drinks. “So we’re not even going to get to say goodbye.”

  Well, hell. When he puts it that way. We need way more alcohol for this conversation. Pulling out glasses for Jackson and Noah, I fill them with Old Abe’s and then top up Griffin’s and my glasses.

  “I’m sure he’ll invite us,” says Jackson quietly.

  “And we can hold something official at the bar when he gets back, like Nate suggested,” Noah adds.

  Griffin just stares at his glass. Noah meets my gaze over Griffin’s head. I shrug. Griffin’s not in the mood to be cheered up right now. He’s going to have to get better on his own time.

  We lapse into quiet, taking sips of our drinks instead of saying anything. For hell’s sake, my plan wasn’t to get him more depressed. This is making it worse for Grif.

  What we need is a distraction.

  “I have to admit, Jackson, I’m a little surprised not to see Rory,” I say into the sudden quiet, settling on a topic that won’t make any of us slit our throats. “You two are practically fused together these days.”

  “Oh, she should be parking my truck out back,” says Jackson quickly, a look of relief on his face. “She’s driving us home so that I can get uproariously shit-faced remembering my surrogate grannie.”

  “Her death isn’t funny, Jackson,” Griffin snaps.

  Jackson frowns at him. “I’m not a huge fan of this new smartass side of you, Grif.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  “Griffin’s still laboring under the belief that Alice’s death is his fault,” I supply because someone needs to get through to him, and I’ve already failed.

  Jackson’s jaw tightens, but Noah actuall
y grabs Griffin and jerks him around on the barstool to face him. “You need to stop this right now. None of this is your fault. She was old. She had a stroke. She died. That’s life. Get over it.”

  I wince. Noah isn’t exactly known for being touchy-feely, but that was a little harsh, even for him.

  But then I catch the look in Noah’s eyes and see the devastation. The helplessness. Noah believes the only way he can help Griffin is to verbally smack him out of his misery.

  Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t going to work. At all.

  “Guess who I found,” a voice calls.

  Rory steps through the doorway, Cassie in tow. Jackson places his glass on the bar and silently takes Rory’s hand. Kissing her forehead, he pulls her into his arms and tucks her under his chin. Rory frowns sadly and clutches him tightly.

  Cassie, on the other hand, has eyes only for Griffin. I don’t have to be in the middle of a committed relationship to tell she’s worried about him. He hasn’t even bothered to get off the chair to go to her—a first. That boy usually would rather gnaw his own arm off than do anything to upset her.

  Instead, Cassie practically wraps herself around him, whispering something in his ear. Griffin holds her tightly, mumbling something into her chest. It would be sickeningly sweet if it weren’t so terribly sad.

  “Where’s Axel?” I ask.

  Noah shrugs. “Ever since he fired Andrea two days ago, he’s been a nutcase. Can you believe he actually blamed her for the fire? Well, no. It’s way worse than that. First Axel caught Howard sabotaging the sale, so he fired him. Then Axel finds out Howard was the one who instituted the cigarette bucket that started the blaze—even though Axel banned smoking on the premises years ago—so Axel decided it was also Howard’s fault for the fire even though he wasn’t even on the premises at the time.

  “And then, as if that weren’t bad enough, moments after the fire’s put out, Axel catches Andrea trying to rehire Howard behind Axel’s back at Margaux’s cafe. In his anger, Axel decided Andrea trying to rehire Howard without his permission meant she had a hand in it, too. So he fired her on the spot. In front of the whole town.”

  Jackson winces. “Boy. That’s a recipe for regret if I ever heard one.”

  “Oh, he already regrets it,” says Noah. “Hasn’t left the farm, is barely eating. He’s been calling Andrea every day, but she won’t talk to him. I’m not even sure he’s aware that Alice has died. His men are threatening to quit if he doesn’t get Andrea back soon.”

  “And Andrea?”

  “I saw her,” Rory says.

  We stare at her. Even Jackson looks surprised. When she notices us staring, she huffs and says, “What? I’m running the new portion of Axel’s farm—which used to belong to me, I might remind you—and figured I needed to get to know the rest of the staff. And Andrea’s clearly the only person capable of keeping Axel under control. We’ve been talking.

  “When I heard he fired her, I went over to her house to see if she was okay. Let me tell you, the woman is furious. The reason she went to find Howard in the cafe was to see if anyone could bring water to the fire faster than the volunteer fire department. Howard’s the one who suggested Montgomery’s tanker, since he’s one of Axel’s neighbors, without which they wouldn’t have gotten the fire under control.

  “So yeah. Andrea’s pissed. You think I get surly, Jackson? Ha. Not even I’ve been that irate in a long time—and that’s saying something,” she says, poking him in the chest. Jackson captures her finger and kisses it, then whispers something in her ear. It must be a real doozy because her face turns bright red, and she positively melts against him. It’s disgustingly sappy.

  I want disgustingly sappy.

  My heart seizes. Did I really just think that? Holy shit, I did. I do want what Jackson has, what’s blooming between Griffin and Cassie, and what I suspect Axel and Andrea will become before the week is out—if he can get his head out of his ass and apologize to her.

  And I don’t have it. The overwhelming urgency of the desire hurts more than any schoolyard injury, any bar brawl bruising I’ve sustained. It’s bone deep, impossible to carve out of my soul.

  Just weeks ago, such thoughts would have never occurred to me. In fact, the thought would have been utterly laughable. But looking at the four of them, it’s all I can think about.

  It terrifies me. Years ago, I swore I would never let what happened to my father happen to me. I’d never love a woman to self-destruction. My mother died and my father died with her. The day she died he became a phantom, haunting our farm until he, too, finally faded away.

  That won’t happen to me. I refuse to let it. Until now, it hasn’t even been a hard oath to follow. But this has been a long week. The longest, really. I’ve never questioned that vow until now.

  I sneak a glance at Noah. He’s also staring at our older brothers, his expression a mask of seeming indifference.

  But for once, I see right through him. Noah is lonely. Devastatingly so. He, too, yearns for what I now do—this happiness that has fallen right into our brothers’ laps. And as much as I’ve wanted to stay single, my conviction pales in comparison to Noah’s.

  The guy is a mystery. We all thought he was gay for years, he played things so close to the chest. That would have been fine, almost preferable, really, because at least then we’d know he had the capacity to love someone.

  He must have gotten wind of our brotherly gossip because eventually he started being seen around town with a few women. Never anything serious, though. And what little I know about his profession is enough to suspect his life is too dangerous to have a partner.

  So for the first time, Noah and I now know the true cost of the choices we’ve made. How could we not? It’s literally staring us in the face. Soon our brothers’ lives are going to surpass ours. The thought actually hurts.

  And no matter how close our twin bond might be, this is a need we can’t fulfill for each other.

  Lovely.

  Needing a damn good distraction, I pour everyone a glass of Old Abe’s, except for Cassie, who can never handle the hard stuff. She gets a glass of Riesling. Then I slide a glass of lemonade to Rory, who nods in thanks.

  When everyone has their glass, I lift mine high and say, “To the best surrogate grandmother in all of Ovid. If not for her, we never would have grown up civilized after the deaths of our parents. May Alice be someplace better, full of bake sales and other young people whose lives she can meddle in.”

  My brothers mumble in agreement and drink. Cassie and Rory share a sad look and take a much smaller sip of their own drinks.

  Jackson hops up on the bar, staring at the lot of us as he proclaims that no one could ever be as great as Alice, and proceeds to swallow his drink in one gulp. I cheer; Griffin takes another large swig. Noah just sips sedately, as usual.

  “I have a confession,” Cassie suddenly says.

  “What is it? What’s wrong,” says Griffin, his face paling.

  Cassie fiddles with her glass, her face torn. “There’s nothing wrong, exactly. It’s just that … well, I don’t know how to say this, but I got the money to start my bakery.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” says Jackson.

  Rory pulls Cassie into a huge hug. I slap Cassie on the back; it’s great she’s finally opening her bakery. She’s worked hard for years trying to open the place and totally deserves the success. Mostly, though, I’m just glad I’ll be able to procure a steady supply of her baked goods. They’re damn delicious.

  Even Noah smiles at the news, which is really saying something, because the guy isn’t really big on the whole smiling thing.

  But Griffin leaps off the barstool, practically shoving Rory out of the way to grab Cassie’s shoulders.

  “What? You did? Just what did you promise that bastard banker to get the money?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t get the money from the bank.”

  What the
hell is she talking about? Ovid First National Bank is the only one in town. I glance at everyone else, wondering if they have a single clue, because I’m beyond confused.

  “Where did you get the money?” Griffin says.

  Cassie sighs. “From Alice.”

  Whoa. Whoaaaa. Now that one I didn’t see coming. Even Noah’s surprised. Rory actually gasps.

  Griffin looks like he’s been punched. “H-how?”

  Cassie sinks onto a barstool. “She left all her money to me in her will and specifically requested that it be used to start my bakery. It can’t be disbursed for any other purpose. She must have … I think she watched me all those years failing to get the loan and figured she’d be the one to fix it.

  “I feel like … like I should give it away or something. I feel terrible that I finally got my dream because someone died.”

  Rory rubs Cassie’s back comfortingly. “She probably had this planned long ago, Cass. It’s not like she wrote it into the will the night before she died.”

  “I know. It just feels like I’m accepting blood money. Shouldn’t it have gone to Larry? Her own husband?”

  Griffin pales and scrubs a hand over his face. “Christ, no wonder he went to Savannah.”

  “What did Larry say about it?” says Noah.

  Cassie shrugs. “He seemed happy about it, but still sad. He told me that they discussed giving me the money since they don’t have any heirs and knew it was unlikely Lipton was ever going to give me a loan. And she was such great friends with my grandma that she considered me like a daughter, anyway.

  “I tried giving it back, but he refused, said he wanted me to have my bakery. That it was what Alice wanted more than anything. He just wished she could have been alive to see it. Besides, Tristan practically burst a blood vessel when I tried to refuse signing the documents.”

  A collective shudder runs through our group. Tristan King really is a huge asshole. Not in a steal-little-children kind of way, but rather in a corporate-raider-mega-lawyer sort of situation. I don’t dislike the guy necessarily—as much as Teddy and I might joke otherwise—but I definitely try to minimize my time around him. Fortunately for me, Abernathy’s isn’t exactly up to his anal standards.