Razed (Barnes Brothers #2)(52)

“I think I can handle it,” Zane said mildly.

Travis absently stroked his thumb across the neat goatee he’d grown over the past year, his eyes still staring over into nothing. “It’s not about you handling it. He wants you to be happy. With the job, with Keelie. With everything.”

“That’s why I’m doing this.” Zane shrugged.

“I know. He’ll figure it out, too.” Travis took a long pull of his beer and then leaned back against the counter. “So. Keelie. You took long enough.”

Zane snorted. “You’re not exactly one to comment about my lack of social life. When was the last time you were serious about somebody?”

“Never.” He shrugged and focused on Zane. “But it’s not like I’ve got a job that actually allows for it. I travel all over the place and I never really meet anybody. But, hey, it could be worse . . .”

A sly grin lit his face and Zane lifted a brow at it, a mix of curiosity and dread mingling inside him.

“Yeah? How is that?” he asked.

“I could been floundering at the door, fighting to get my damn dick in my jeans because the zipper is stuck while some ditzy extra is trying to understand why I’m panicking over the sound of somebody calling my name at the door.” Travis took another drink from the bottle and lowered it, sighing in satisfaction, a devilish grin on his face.

The word extra had Zane cocking a brow.

“Just what has Sebastian gotten into now?”

A gleam appeared in Travis’s eyes. “He forgot Mom was coming over a few weeks ago—she let herself in and if she hadn’t pulled a mom thing and started picking up some his clothes, fussing at him in the middle of it, she would have walked in right while he was having some one-on-one time with some cute extra they hired for the new action flick he just finished shooting.”

“And what’s this thing about his zipper?”

“Now that’s the best part,” Travis said, laughing. “I think fate was giving him a much-needed reminder to come down to earth—Mom said she heard him yelp all the way across the house.”

“Oh. Son of a bitch.” Zane damn near clapped his hands over his cock protectively. And Travis stood there laughing about it. “Kid, you are evil.”

“Yeah. You tell people that all the time. Nobody believes you.” Travis’s blue eyes gleamed as he said it.


*

Zane eyed the apartment in front of him, still not quite able to make this place fit.

Keelie lived here.

And it didn’t fit.

Zach’s loft—or his old loft—wasn’t exactly luxury, but it was pretty sweet. Yeah, maybe Zane’s little brother still had money from the TV show, but he’d also mentioned that Steel Ink turned a decent profit. Hadn’t the first few years, but most small businesses struggled at first.

It was doing well now, though. Zach talked about it enough, with enough pride in his voice, that he knew the place did well.

Javi made decent money—he was talking about the bike he’d just bought and was working on restoring. He’d had the money to pay half the fee needed to send his daughter on an expensive workshop to DC.

They had a couple of full-time artists and Zach was even talking like he might open a second location in Phoenix.

The place was doing pretty well.

So why was Keelie living somewhere that looked like it was going to fall down around her ears?

This place . . . it didn’t fit. Or rather, it was like she’d made it fit. He frowned as that idea settled itself in his mind. It settled there, took root, and he couldn’t push it aside. Sighing, he climbed out and looked around, eying the car next door, propped on cinderblocks. There was somebody attempting to clean some graffiti off the door and he nodded at Zane. “Hi there.”

“Hey.” Zane smiled as he headed for the door.

Screaming broke out in the other building and from the corner of his eye, Zane saw the man dealing with the graffiti lift his face to the sky, like he was praying for patience.

A second later, the front door flew open. A skinny man—just barely old enough to be called a man—came out, his jeans riding way too low on his hips. On his heels, there was a woman, and when he turned around to glare at her, the woman slapped him. “Is that the f*cking best you can do? I give you two f*cking kids and you make a lousy two hundred a week?”

Zane looked over.

“Yeah. That’s the best I can do.”

“Why isn’t there any money left now? Where did it all go?” the woman demanded.

“Bills. Water. Electricity. The sitter. My truck,” the guy said, without looking back.

“We don’t need a f*cking sitter!”

“We do if you’re drinking when the kids are here.”

The door in front of Zane opened.

He swung his head around and, for a minute, the screaming coming from the other apartment faded away. The spit dried in his mouth and he went still.

Keelie stood there, and if she’d struck him across the head with a two-by-four, it might have had about the same impact. There was a faint smile on her lips—lips painted a dark, lush red. Her eyes were shadowed, dark, made up in a way that complemented both the blue eye and the brown. Her head cocked as she studied him, a fringe of black falling down to frame her face. The rest of it was scooped back, leaving the elegant line of her neck, and the brilliant color of the tattoos there unobstructed.