Razed (Barnes Brothers #2)(50)

Dinner.

He’d deal with dinner. Putting up the groceries he’d grabbed.

Mundane stuff.

He even managed to make it all the way to the top floor by thinking about that mundane stuff. Then one of the bags he was juggling started to slide out of his grip. Swearing, he tried to scramble everything together before the elevator door opened, and he’d almost managed it, too.

The booted foot stopped the door from closing. “Z, you know, Mom said you’d outgrow that clumsy thing,” a wry voice said.

Zane grimaced and shot a look up.

The sight of the man in front of him would normally make him smile.

Normally.

But he wasn’t feeling social enough to deal with another brother. Especially not Travis. The son of a bitch saw too much.

If it had been more than five years ago, just about everybody else on the planet would have had an impossible time figuring out which twin they were looking at.

Zane hadn’t had that problem, not that he’d let on.

The twins were identical, right down to the mole each of them had just a little below and to the side of their right eye. Side by side, you could tell it was in a slightly different spot—and Denise Barnes alone knew which was which by the position of that little discoloration.

But then Trey’s wife had died and that had caused a change in him.

Zane had always been able to tell, because Travis looked at things in a weird sort of way. Zane couldn’t define it really. He just noticed it because while he looked at people and places and things the same way he’d look at them if he was going to photograph them, Travis looked at them like he was trying to figure them out.

Life was one unending puzzle for Travis Barnes, although he hid that facet of his personality behind the sly humor that had matched his twin’s.

Eying his younger brother, Zane managed to get the bags back into position as Travis scooped up the few items he’d dropped.

“Trav. Long time no see,” he said, somehow making it to his feet, the bags precariously balanced in his arms.

“Yeah. All of three months. You got to kiss the bride and I got shafted there because my nephew insisted I take him to the bathroom.” Travis lifted a brow as he studied the bags. “You have your hands full.”

“As always, your powers of deduction astound me, kid. You must make a killing in the accounting field—that very fascinating field.”

Travis snorted out a laugh and reached out, grabbing one of the bags. “Hey, it’s more fun than you think. And some women think it’s a hella sexy. One even asked if I could fingerprint her.”

Zane stared at Travis. “Fingerprint her.”

“Yep. Cuz that’s what a forensic accountant does. We fingerprint balance sheets and 1040s and W-9s.” He gave Zane a sober look. “Didn’t you know that?”

“You need to start talking to women who have actual brains in their heads.” He tried to imagine his genius brother spending his life fingerprinting balance sheets and tax forms. “Maybe at least look for somebody with an IQ higher than her bra size,” Zane muttered, shaking his head. He unlocked the door and then started to swear as another bag went on a downward slide.

“Your grace astounds me. How can you tote around cameras that cost ten grand without dropping them, but give you groceries and you’re all thumbs?” Travis took another bag and came in after Zane, kicking the door shut. “At least you don’t come home with a black eye once every other week all because you were in the way of somebody’s elbow during basketball.”

Zane grimaced, studiously keeping his gaze averted. Yeah. There is that. “I’ll have you know I only drop stuff once a week and twice on Saturdays now. Just out of habit.” Dumping the bags on the island, he looked at his brother.

Trey and Travis—the twins—were a couple of years younger than Zach. Out of all of his brothers, Travis was the one he saw the least. It was the job—and no matter what Travis said, it still sounded boring as hell. But it kept him busy and he traveled a lot. Consulting, according to Travis.

“What brings you to Arizona?” he asked.

Travis shrugged and started to unpack the bags. “Just visiting. I have to head to Europe for a while, wanted to see everybody before I headed to Virginia. I’ll hang with Trey a few days, then disappear. Hey, did you hear he was doing a thing at a bookstore in a couple of weeks?”

“Ohhhh . . . yeah.” Zane ran his tongue around his teeth. Trey hadn’t done anything book-related, well, other than writing, since his wife’s death several years earlier. “I about had a heart attack over that one. Mom mentioned it when I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago. And the conference a few weeks after? Who in the hell blackmailed him into that?”

Travis shot him a grin. “Mom? That’s my best guess.” He shrugged. “I called him to rib him about it, but he wouldn’t say much. Clay keeps asking to go visit Mom and Dad . . . and I think he’s trying to adjust to the little guy starting school soon.”

“He’ll be fine,” Zane said.

They both knew he wasn’t talking about the kid.

Trey had all but shut down. His entire focus was the boy and that boy was moving closer and closer to starting school.

Trey didn’t even like leaving the kid with a babysitter. It was going to rip a hole in him to send that kid to school the first day.