When Aaron woke up late on Sunday, his first thought was of Rob. Not breakfast, work, going for a run, or what was happening in the news. Nope. His first thoughts were all about Rob.

The kissing was hot.

The press of him too perfect.

And that was dangerous. There were too many messy feelings caught up in their casual hookups, and he didn’t know what to make of them. Also, he couldn’t act on the hot, insistent need to visit the enigmatic man, because Saul would kill him if he didn’t turn up for the family dinner. Saul didn’t ask for much, but he’d been quiet ever since Michaela had died, so it was an easy decision to make. Anyway, it was little Elizabeth’s first official family dinner, and family always came first.

Still, last night had been the fourth hookup, and each time was better. The first time had been getting off with no idea what Rob liked, but last night had been intense. Aaron had taken control of it all and had held Rob on the edge for so long he’d sagged against Aaron when he’d finished. There was a power in that, in being able to take a man like Rob and make him feel everything.

They’d actually talked a little. Words that weren’t sarcastic or aimed at creating the most hurt. Of course, it had been little more than him asking Rob about the kids, and Rob replying they were fine and could Aaron get the fuck on with sucking his cock.

But, yeah, words.

He headed out to Carters really early when he’d run out of things to do at home, feeling lighter knowing he’d see everyone, but knowing he wouldn’t be saying anything about Rob. He imagined explaining that he was intrigued by a secretive man who refused to give him any emotional connection. That would go down well. They'd all give him advice about how to talk Rob into a real bed and how Aaron should really grow up already and get a relationship that involved more than sex. They would talk about how Elijah had been gone a long time now and that Aaron needed to move on. Then they would agree collectively that Elijah had been a good man and that it must have hurt for Aaron to lose him.

So, not telling the family was a good thing.

“What the hell are you doing here already?” Saul asked immediately. “Go away and come back when it’s time.”

“No way. I’m here to see my big brother.” He knew he was two hours early, but that usually didn’t matter. In fact, some of the best conversations he’d had with Saul were when they were alone prepping Sunday dinner. Or rather, Saul prepped, and he hung around drinking coffee.

“Please just go,” Saul said, and Aaron got a good look at his brother’s face, at the exhaustion marking his eyes, and the pain in his expression.

“What’s wrong?” Aaron asked immediately.

Saul glanced at the door to his apartment, and Aaron knew that expression, the one that said Saul had a friend upstairs in his apartment. That was good news. Saul didn’t take enough time for himself. Although with the way Saul was smacking steak around, it didn’t seem as if he’d worked off his stress with hot, sweaty sex.

“Who is it?” Aaron asked and sneaked a carrot from a pile. “Whoever it is, she should stay for dinner.”

Saul cursed under his breath but didn’t repeat it loud enough for Aaron to hear.

“Seriously, we all know you’re seeing someone. You should ask her to stay. Tell her we’ll be nice and that we won’t argue too much, and we’ll even keep the kids quiet, and tell her—”

“I ask her every Sunday to come here, okay? She always says no,” Saul snapped and rapped the back of Aaron’s hand with a spoon.

“Ow, what was that for?”

“I weighed those fucking carrots,” he snapped and pulled another one out of the pantry, placing it with the pile and chopping it with a knife so sharp that Aaron was concerned it would take a finger off. “Just leave, please.”

“What crawled up your ass and died?”

Saul ignored him, so Aaron pressed ahead with the questions about the mystery lady.

“Why doesn’t she stay, then?”

“Seriously, you need to leave,” Saul said and opened the back door, pointing out to the yard. “Come back in an hour.”

Aaron stood his ground. Something wasn’t right here. Saul was defeated as if the weight of the world wasn’t just on his shoulders, but was pressing the life out of him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked and hooked a stool to sit at the counter.

“Nothing,” Saul lied and decimated a head of broccoli, shoving it to one side, then bracing his arms on the counter. He side-eyed Aaron. “Everything.”

Saul’s apartment’s internal door opened, and he looked over, ready to be on his best behavior for whomever Saul was seeing. Only it was Grace who walked in from Saul’s room. Not in the EMT uniform he was used to seeing her in, but in soft jeans and a cornflower-blue shirt with tears streaking her face.

Aaron's first instinct was that Grace was here to see him, some work thing maybe, but then it hit him that she’d walked out of Saul’s private apartment, that there was no reason for her to be here today and she was certainly not to see him. So, was this Saul’s mystery woman?

“Grace? Did you…? Wait, you and Saul…?”

She tilted her chin. “We’re not talking about this, Aaron.”

It was one of those conversations when more was said with body language than actual words. She had her arms crossed over her chest, daring him to say a damn thing. Sue him, but he needed to get an idea as to what the hell was happening here.

“You and Saul,” he repeated.

“What?” she shouted. “You have a problem with that, too? Want to make some comment about how your big brother is too old for me, that he’s going to be seventy when my baby is in college? Or maybe that you think he’s right when he says I need to find someone closer to my age? Well, look how well that worked out for him and me.” She pressed a hand to her belly, and tears started to flow.

Aaron stood, thinking he should pull Grace in for a hug or something. Now the story of the on-off relationship from Saul, and the added bit from Grace about being sent away and having a one-night stand, made sense.

Saul’s shoulders sagged, and that one action let Aaron see more than Saul probably wanted him to. It seemed he'd walked into a whole mess of arguments here.

“Saul, wait, are you the father…is the baby…?”

“No,” Grace snapped.

“No,” Saul said at the same time, his words broken.

"Then…" Aaron was utterly lost for words, but he saw the pain in Saul’s eyes and tears in Grace’s. “I’m so happy for you two,” he finally said because that was the truth of the matter, even if it made Grace cry harder and for devastation to cross Saul’s face. “I don’t think Saul is too old for you.”

“Don’t be happy for us,” Grace sobbed and dropped her hands to her sides, before pointing at Saul. “Because he says we’re done.”

Saul hung his head, but he didn’t make a move to stop her as she left, slamming the door behind her.

For a few moments, there was silence.

“Saul—”

“Don’t, okay? It’s for the best. We’ve only been seeing each other again for a few weeks, so it’s not like it’s going to break her heart.”

“Did you not see her face? The tears? What the hell did you say to her?”

Saul sat heavily on the nearest stool. “Shit.” He scrubbed his face with his hands and wouldn’t meet Aaron’s gaze. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“You need to go after her.”

“No, this way is for the best.”

“That sounds like self-sacrificing bullshit, Saul. Jesus, how long have you been seeing Grace?”

“There’s nothing selfless about it, and we’ve been seeing each other on and off for a few years. Mostly off.”

Grace never struck him as an on-off person, more like the kind of woman who was looking for Mr. Right. He tried to recall when he’d seen her with a boyfriend of any kind, and he couldn’t think of anything concrete. Was that because she’d been hiding the fact that she’d been seeing his brother? Hell, was it Aaron’s fault this was all a secret? Saul was suspiciously quiet. How had Aaron not seen this before?

“Keep talking, Saul.”

“We broke up. I sent her away, told her she needed to find someone her own age, and she did, and it was once, and she got pregnant. But that is okay because I’m twenty years older than her. You see that, right? You can see that I’m right about it. The baby will grow up without me. I can’t be a dad. The barriers are too big. I’m giving her the chance to be with someone who can grow old with her and not two decades years faster.”

Saul had that stubborn expression, the one that his brothers were used to when he fought battles for them. So why wasn’t he fighting for Grace now?

The back door slammed open again, and Grace stormed in. Evidently, she’d decided that she wasn’t leaving at all and today was the time to have this out.

“You can’t do this. You can’t send me away! I’m not going without a fight,” she shouted, and Aaron was stuck in the kitchen in what seemed like a showdown between his brother and his work partner. There was a lot of shouting, which Aaron tried not to listen to as he edged around them to get out of the other door to the upstairs apartment. It was Ryan's old place and would have a sofa or something.

“I don’t want to fight!” Saul said.

“I love you!”

“And I love you.”

She subsided, and tears rolled down her face. “I know you can never love the baby, but—”

“What! I love you. I’ll love the baby.”

“Then why are we even shouting at each other?”

Saul made a broken sound. “I don’t know.”

But everything abruptly went quiet, the shouting stopped, and Aaron chanced a look at the two of them.

They were smiling uncertainly at each other, and it was so beautiful it made Aaron’s chest tighten. He’d seen Saul with women before but never with this much love and affection in his expression.

“Pretend I’m not here,” Aaron said. “I’ve seen nothing.”

She flushed even more, and Saul shoved him, going to her side and then both of them going out into the yard. Probably to say goodbye in a proper kissing kind of way.

Saul came back in after a short while and carried on with preparing the meat and said nothing at all.

“So? Don’t leave me in suspense. Are we going to talk about what just happened?” Aaron asked when they’d worked in silence for a while, him halfheartedly chopping the remaining carrots, and Saul humming along to a song on the radio.

“Probably not. I mean, she’s gone home to get changed and to come back for dinner. And, oh yeah, I asked her to marry me,” Saul said evenly.

“Holy shit!” Aaron shouted and pulled his brother in for a hug.

When they were young, when Saul had taken responsibility for his brothers, the youngest, Ryan, had been only one. Saul had become a father overnight. He’d never asked a woman to marry him. This was a big freaking deal.

“You’ll make such a good husband and dad,” Aaron finally offered.

Saul smiled. “Thank you.”

Everyone else arrived, but Grace hadn’t come back just yet, probably to give Saul some time with his family. As soon as everyone was in the kitchen, Saul began to talk.

“I wanted to get some—” Saul started and then stopped. Aaron was tuned into Saul, but the others hadn’t heard the soft words. “Can I have some time to say…?”

“Guys!” Aaron said and whistled until everyone stopped talking. “Saul has something to say.”

The glare Saul shot him wasn’t one of gratitude. Instead, he was wary. Maybe he’d deliberately pitched his voice lower so that no one would listen to him. Well, tough. In this family, the brothers lived and died by the Carter rule of honesty and openness, and Saul was no exception.

“I’ve been seeing someone. It's Grace, Aaron’s partner.” He pushed ahead before anyone could say anything. “She’s only thirty-four, and as you all know, she’s pregnant, but I’m not the dad, and before you ask, that is her story to tell, and I’m fifty-four so I'm twenty years older than her, but I love her, and I asked her to marry me.” He paused from saying all of that on one long breath. “So. Yeah. Now you know.”

Silence. One brother looking at the next. Ryan serious. Eddie smirking. Jason open-mouthed.

“Hang on a minute,” Ryan said. “Grace is only thirty-four? Wow, she looks much younger than that.”

"Thirty-three at least," Eddie said seriously.

“It doesn’t matter, because twenty years is nothing. I once read a story about this hundred-year-old guy who was a new dad.” Jason was thoughtful. “That guy from Star Trek.”

“Scottie, James Doohan, and he was seventy-nine or eighty,” Ryan confirmed.

Eddie thumped him on the arm. “You’re such a nerd.”

Ryan shoved him back.

“Oh my god, even more diapers at Sunday dinner!” Jason faked being horrified.

“You think Grace can put up with Saul’s snoring?”

“No one can do that.”

"Who will be the best man?" Jason mused. “I guess Eddie is the second eldest, but I would look way better in a suit.”

“Not as good as me,” Eddie replied.

“We should ask Jordan,” Ryan said. “I have one sexy boyfriend who looks hella good in a suit.”

Aaron smiled as he listened to his brothers, and saw Saul’s expression relax a little. None of what Saul had said worried them or shocked them, and in their own way, they were making things easier for him,

So it was his turn to talk. “What my idiot brothers are trying to say is that we guess you love her, and we’re so happy that our family is adding someone else.”

Saul nodded. “Yes.”

“Yep,” Jason agreed. “Grace is cool, and you’re the best dad we ever had.”

“What he said,” Eddie added.

“Me three,” Ryan said.

Aaron rested a hand on Saul’s. “Me four.”

The time it took before a nervous Grace arrived meant dinner was cold before anyone actually ate. The congratulations were loud, the questions many, and Saul announced the best man would have to be chosen by lottery unless everyone shut the hell up right the hell now.

When dinner was finished, Aaron collected up his niece and nephew for their normal horse riding and felt the tug of wanting to see Rob again. In daylight. Face-to-face and not fucking each other up against a tree in the dark. He had one long hour to himself, and seeing Rob? Yep, this sounded good.

He made a big show of being dragged from the house by Milly and Jake, but the anticipation was delicious, and they made it to Crooked Tree in good time. He dropped his niece and nephew with Luke, then hurried down the hill and to Rob’s place, only slowing down when he got closer so he didn’t appear too eager. He sauntered around the back, finding Rob exactly where he’d thought. There was no sign of the kids, but that didn’t mean anything.

“Hey.”

Rob stood immediately and opened the door into the cabin, but this time he didn’t close and lock it. He left it wide open and waited in the shadows.

“Sam took the boys for lunch ten minutes ago. They’ll be gone for a while,” he said, and that was enough to get Aaron moving. They were in each other’s arms as soon as the door closed, the kisses heated. Aaron had his hands in Rob’s pants as soon as he could, but he wanted this slow. He wanted more than just a quick fuck and done.

For a second they stared at each other.

Aaron’s tongue darted out to dampen his lips, and Rob stared at the action. He closed the distance between them and curled his hand around the back of Aaron’s head.

“Don’t think for one minute you are controlling what happens here,” Aaron stated.

“And you think you are?” Rob said and laughed as he gripped Aaron’s neck tighter.

Aaron pushed Rob back, and it was so on. They kissed, even as they fought to control the kiss, and Aaron pushed his knee between Rob's spread legs, widening them, then shifting a little, so Rob was pushed up, the weight of his groin on Aaron's thigh. He was pinned, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t balance himself, and it was Aaron who had all the control.