Everything for You (Bergman Brothers #5)(21)

I stand, stunned as he steps back, sweeps up his bag, and strolls right out the back door.





6





OLIVER





Playlist: “Let It All Out (10:05),” COIN





Two days. I’ve spent two days fuming. Being civil with Gavin, who’s watching me like I’m a bomb that’s both about to go off and that he’d like to punt into the next universe. I’m seething. And I’m done. I’m done being shit on by someone who needs me as much as I need him. Gavin loses his captaincy if we don’t smooth things over, and I’m almost angry enough at him to sabotage us both.

But the bigger part of me loves this honor too much, cherishes this opportunity too deeply, to ruin it simply to spite him, knowing what it would cost me, too.

I’m going to save this captaincy. And I will have my spite. Somehow. Some way.

I just haven’t figured it out yet. So, beneath the lemon tree that dominates the backyard of Freya and Aiden’s Culver City bungalow, I sit, stewing. Which is not what I should be doing. I should be happy, celebrating. I have a brand-new nephew. My sister had a smooth, uncomplicated delivery.

Which kicked into gear right after I stormed out of Gavin’s house, got in the car, and was about to call Ren, who lives nearby, about crashing at his place while I waited for Viggo to come and let me into my own damn house. I’d just plugged in my phone when I got Aiden’s text that Freya had gone into labor (a few weeks early, though not so early to cause major concern).

So, instead, I went over to their house and distracted Linnea while Freya made really intense groaning noises and swore a lot as Aiden helped her out to the car. I was the only one available to watch Linnie, and I wasn’t complaining, spending the evening coloring, making lemonade from the lemons we picked out back, jamming to the Encanto soundtrack (“We Don’t Talk About Bruno” lives rent free in my head).

My mom met Freya and Aiden at the hospital because Freya wanted Mom there for support while she labored. Dad, while finally retired from practicing medicine, still has his hands in a dozen health-related organizations and was at some board meeting up at Stanford and was trying to get the first flight home.

Both Ziggy and Ren were traveling with their teams for training and away games, respectively. Frankie, Ren’s fiancée, was flying back after a visit out east to see her mom, sister, brother-in-law, and baby niece who’d just been born. Ryder and his fiancée, Willa, Axel and his wife, Rooney, all live up in Washington State, and while they’ve now flown down to meet the baby, they were a three-hour flight away at the time.

And Viggo, the asshole, was driving up from Escondido with keys to the new locks he put on my house after my latest move in our never-ending sibling prank war.

It probably sounds juvenile, and maybe it is, to be twenty-four and still doing things like sticking a turd-shaped Tootsie Roll in your brother’s coffee or filling his toothpaste with sour cream—yes, that’s as labor intensive as it sounds—but it’s just how we are, and frankly, I need it, some sort of sinister outlet. I spend so much time with the team, being so good, being kind and positive, all while Gavin, the giant grump, craps on it left and right.

And I’ve reached my limit. I’m at the point that not even juvenile antics with Viggo and expensive cheese indulgences can diffuse my anger. My frustration with Gavin, my resentment toward him, it’s poisoning everything.

Like this evening. Right now. I want to be relaxed, present, positive. My sister’s home, feeling good. Baby Theo is here safe and beyond precious. My mom’s cooked up a Swedish smorgasbord (her specialty, since Sweden is where she’s from) for all of us to eat, and the freezer is filled with meals we all brought so Freya and Aiden have one less thing to worry about while they get used to being parents of two.

Now that everyone’s grown up, our lives full and busy and spread across the West Coast; it’s not often that we’re all in one place, gathered over good food and for such a happy occasion. I want to soak it up, the comfort of being together, the soothing sounds of my family’s voices and laughter through the open windows as we drift in and out of the house.

But all I can do is glare up at a lemon tree, legs wiggling, something building inside me that feels dangerously explosive.

“Okay, Honey Bunches of Oats.” Viggo slaps my thigh as he sits beside me. “What’s going on?”

I don’t answer him. I’m so close to yelling or crying or both, I don’t trust myself to open my mouth.

“Dude,” Viggo says. “Don’t you think I’ve paid enough without getting the silent treatment? I still look like an Oompa Loompa.”

I slant him a glance and feel a smile unwittingly crack my mouth. The orange tint of his skin is mostly faded, but against his brown hair and pale blue eyes, what remains of the color tingeing his complexion still jumps out. “What good is a half-finished bio-chem major,” I tell him, “if I can’t use it for the ultimate prank revenge?”

Viggo grumbles to himself before biting into his sandwich.

Willa plops down at the outdoor table across from us, brown curly waves tangled up into a bun that bobs as she tucks into Mom’s Swedish meatballs. “Goddamn, these are good,” she says around a bite. “They may actually be a smidge better than Ryder’s, but don’t tell him.”