Chapter 10

The problem with reaching for the stars is that it leaves your balls unprotected and vulnerable. Trust me, I know. FYI – my brothers are douches.

-Hancock’s secret thoughts

Hancock

I was sitting comfortably in my La-Z-Boy recliner, my eyes closed, and Sway humming along in my kitchen when I heard it.

It was a distinct sound.

Really distinct.

The sound of keys in my door.

My eyes snapped open and I glared at the doorknob, hoping beyond hope it wasn’t who I thought it was.

But, like always, I wasn’t given the reprieve I needed.

My brothers, three out of the four of them, walked in the next moment, followed shortly by my parents.

“Oh, baby,” my momma cried as she rushed to me. “Your throat looks horrible!”

I barely resisted the urge to sigh.

She would catch it, and then she would get all hurt that I wasn’t letting her mother me like I ‘should’ be letting her. It was her God-given right, after all.

Something she told me all the time when I refused her attentions.

“I have strep throat,” I told my brothers. “I hope you all get it.”

Harrison, Holden and Hunter all stared at me.

“Where do you think you got it from, dumbass?” Harrison asked.

I gritted my teeth.

“Y’all know damn well y’all are supposed to stay the fuck away from me when you’re sick,” I growled. “This could’ve been detrimental.”

“You look like you’re running a fever right now,” my mom, Sally, frowned. “I’m going to go make you some chicken noodle soup.”

She froze when I said what I said next.

“My woman’s in there making me soup.”

She turned only her head and stared at me with frightening eyes.

“Woman?” she asked carefully.

I nodded my head, wincing when the movement caused my head to hurt even more than it was already hurting.

“When did you get a woman?” Holden asked skeptically.

“Oh,” Sway gasped in surprise. “Hello!”

I turned to find her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her eyes taking in my brothers and my parents in one long sweep.

Then without pausing, she walked into the room and over to me, setting a steaming bowl of French onion soup—her specialty, she’d assured me—on the coffee table in front of me.

“My name’s Sway,” she held her hand out to the closest brother, which happened to be Hunter.

My mom had five boys, Harrison, Holden, Hunter, Hannibal and then me. She had us all one right after the other, starting with Harrison and ending with Hannibal and I, who were identical twins.

Hannibal and I were the only ones left who weren’t married with kids. I was the only one who hadn’t experienced psycho mom when it came to my serious girlfriends because I never had serious girlfriends before.

Never wanted them.

Until Sway.

Now I wanted a lot of things, most of those things being Sway in my bed, naked underneath me.

Forever, if possible.

But I hadn’t told her that yet. I wouldn’t be. Not until she was well and truly trapped.

If it wasn’t immoral and a tad bit archaic, I’d just get her pregnant and play on her conscience to stay with me for the rest of her life.

I knew I could make her happy.

Hell, I knew she made me happy.

“Well, hello!” Hunter drawled, taking her hand in his and caressing the outside of it while he stared into her eyes. “Aren’t you pretty?”

She blushed and pulled on her hand, and my brother had no other option but to let it go or look like a creepy motherfucker.

So, he chose to let it go.

That didn’t stop him from moving closer to her.

“Hunter,” I growled. “I’ll tell Stella that you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself,” I warned when Sway moved to my father.

Hunter shot me a grin, but he backed up until he hit my chair, and then slammed his hip into it.

I grunted as pain burst through my body.

“Fucker,” I grumbled, my hand going to my neck in reaction.

My mother’s eyes were glaring daggers at Sway as she moved from person to person, introducing herself.

“Isn’t it kind of rude that you’re not introducing us?” Harrison drawled from where he was standing next to my mom.

I sighed, long and loud, and turned to Sway.

“That’s my mom, Sally. My brothers, Harrison, Holden, and Hunter. And that man you’re standing next to is my pop, Drake.”

Sway’s smile was brilliant.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” she said genuinely. Then ruined it with a lie. “Hancock’s told me so much about you.”

I barely contained the urge to snort.

Instead, I busied myself with leaning forward and eating the soup she’d made.

My diet was shot to hell this week, and I promised myself that I’d try to do better.

“Darling, do you need some bread with that?” my mom asked.

I had just opened my mouth to reply to that when Sway jumped.

“Oh!” she clapped. “My mom brought some of hers over earlier. Let me go get you some.”

My mother glared at her back the entire way into the kitchen.

Once she was completely in the kitchen, the questions started.

“When did you meet her?” Hunter asked.

“Where did you meet?” Holden questioned.

“She’s cute,” my father grinned.

“Isn’t she the athletic trainer I saw helping you when you got hit in the throat at the game?” Harrison asked.

“What is she wearing?”

That was my mother.

I turned to survey my mom.

“She’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt. What does it look like she’s wearing?” I snapped at her.

My mother sniffed.

“I can see too much cleavage,” she hissed.

I rolled my eyes, which only seemed to infuriate her more.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me, boy.” She pointed her finger at me. “I’ll have you know that I brought you into this world, and I sure can take you out of it.”

Holden laughed, as did my dad.

“Take a chill pill, Sally,” my father said as he took a seat on the couch and lifted his feet to the coffee table I was eating on.

“Dad, you have cow shit on your boots,” I told him. “Please remove them from my face.”

Dad didn’t remove his boots.

He never did.

Everyone, even me, was used to cow shit.

When you owned a ranch, shit was normally part of the equation.

It just wasn’t in my fucking house, which was why I picked my soup up and walked to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living area.

Each step I took jarred my head.

My throat felt like fire, and my eyes were getting heavy.

I would eat, though, because I knew if I didn’t, I’d likely wake up in the middle of the night starving.

The moment I sat down I could see into the kitchen, and my head tilted as I watched Sway stare blankly out the window. Her eyes watched the river flow, and I wondered if she liked my sanctuary as much as I did.

Then a rough cough tore from between my lips.

“Oh,” Sway jumped, startled when she turned around. “I was just about to bring this out to you.”

She held up a couple of slices of bread.

“Just one, please.” I held out my hand for it. “I’m not sure I can swallow it.”

She smiled and came unstuck from where I’d caught her contemplating the lake.

“What’s wrong?” I asked once she was close enough.

She shook her head, and before she could retreat from handing me my bread, I grabbed her hand and pulled her to me.

She couldn’t get very close, but it was close enough that I didn’t worry that my family would overhear what I had to say next.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” I demanded gruffly.

She pursed her lips.

“I just think it’s time for me to leave,” she admitted. “Now that your mom is here, I don’t think you need me anymore.”

“Do you need to leave?” I tilted my head.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Do you want to leave?” I continued.

She shook her head, not replying this time.

“Then stay.”

“But your mom,” she whispered, looking over my shoulder. “She doesn’t look like she wants me here.”

“My mom’s like this with all the new women that enter her boys’ lives,” I told her bluntly. “It’s like she wants to test their will or something. See if they have any gumption.”

I had no doubt that, by the end of the night, Sway would have my mother wrapped around her finger.

Sway was easily the funniest and sweetest woman I knew.

Not to mention she wasn’t a gold digger like the rest of the ladies I met nowadays.

I’d never met someone that I wanted to spend more time with…not until Sway.

When I woke up in the hospital and saw that she was no longer with me, I demanded for her to be brought back to me for over thirty minutes.

The only reason she had been brought back to me was after the doctor overheard. Then he’d intervened on my behalf and demanded the nurse go and get ‘my fiancée.’

Not that Sway had heard that little tidbit.

“Hey,” Holden called as he marched up to my side. “Do you have any extra of that?”

He pointed to my soup, and she nodded.

“I do. Do you want some?” she asked.

“Yep.” He sat down. “Order up.”

I elbowed Holden in the ribs and gave Sway an apologetic look.

“My brothers are heathens,” I told her. “Ignore them if you need to.”

She grinned, but got my brother some soup, and then sliced him off his own slice of bread before placing both in front of him.

I took a sip of my own soup as I tried hard to swallow it.

It wasn’t that it was bad. It was that my throat hurt like a motherfucker.

Even water was a killer to swallow.

“Do I have any ice cream in that freezer?” I asked Sway.

She shrugged and turned, presenting me with her lush ass as she bent over and looked into the pullout freezer.

Never before had I wanted to give an appliance a hug, but there was certainly a first time for everything.

She nodded and unearthed a carton of Blue Bell Great Divide, which was a Texan’s term for chocolate and vanilla, and set it on the counter.

“Which kind do you want?” she asked me, raising her eyebrows in question.

“Both,” I said. “Otherwise they’ll be uneven, and I’ll have to buy a new carton.”

She looked at me strangely, and I crossed my arms as I waited for what I knew was coming.

“That’s the oddest thing I’ve ever heard,” she finally said. “But it’s not unusual. My brother does the same thing. We call him the Divide King.”

I snorted and watched as she struggled to spoon the ice cream out.

“Can you help her, dillweed?” I nudged my brother.

Holden sighed long and loud, but got up and easily scooped the ice cream out.

“Can I have some, too?” Sway’s eyes were pleading.

Holden nodded and started scooping again.

After two scoops, one from each side, she held her hand up.

“That’s enough,” she ordered. “If I have more than that, it’ll go straight to my hips.”

My eyes went down to the hips in question and I barely contained the urge to moan.

Even sick as a dog, she had a way to make my dick hard.

“Well, if Holden’s passing out ice cream, I want some!” Harrison yelled loudly as he walked around the counter into the kitchen.

He walked straight to the cabinet with the bowls, lifted another out, and then held it out to Holden.

Holden ignored him as he left the spoon where it was and went to the sink to wash his hands.

“Asshole,” Harrison growled.

“I don’t know how your mother does it,” Sway interrupted Harrison’s fit. “Y’all all look so much alike. I’m already lost on who’s who.”

“I do it because I know my kids,” my mother sniffed, placing her hand on my back. “And I’ve got about thirty years of experience on you.”

I was glad to see that my mother was at least addressing Sway now, but that might have a lot to do with the talk I could hear my father having with her while I was trying to choke down the soup.

“You don’t like your soup?” my mom asked hopefully.

I nodded my head.

“I like it,” I told her. “But it hurts to swallow it. I’m going to try ice cream.”

She patted my back like I’d done the right thing. I was sure it was more because she was happy I wasn’t enjoying the soup that Sway had made especially for me.

“Oh, my God,” Holden moaned. “This soup is the bomb!”

My mother’s hand stopped patting my back, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was now glaring at Holden.

“You should try this, y’all,” Holden urged. “I’ve never tasted anything so good in my life. And this bread is to die for.”

“You sound like you’re having an orgasm,” Harrison muttered. “Oh, God. It’s so good! Harder, Sway!”

I stopped with my spoon halfway to my mouth, dumped the ice cream back into the bowl, and launched the spoon at my brother’s head.

It hit him in the forehead, causing him to cry out, but continue to laugh.

“Oww!” he yelled between bellows of laughter. “You asshole! I was only teasing!”

I rolled my eyes and took the spoon that Sway handed me.

“To be honest,” Sway surmised as she looked at the welt rising up on my brother’s head. “I would’ve left the ice cream on it when I threw it. At least he did you that favor.”

I winked at Sway, then returned to licking my ice cream.

“Well…” my dad said. “I have to take a shit, so I’ll let y’all deal with this while I commune with the gods.”

I closed my eyes as a laugh built in my throat.

When I opened my eyes again, it was to find Sway’s smiling eyes on me.

“If you think this is bad…” she grinned. “I can’t wait for you to meet my family.”