Too Sweet (Hayes Brothers #3)(2)

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, an argh, fuck look crossing his face. “Sorry, bro,” he says, but there’s nothing apologetic about that sorry. “There’s been a small incident, and Mia—”

“You brought a drunk chick in here to puke?!” I toss the keys into a decorative bowl on the side table by the staircase. “This is the last party you’re hosting in my house. Get her the fuck out of here before I do.”

He lunges forward, clamping his jaw as he drops everything he held to the floor to free his hands. He grips a fistful of my shirt, shoving me toward the living room, his eyes narrowed, chest heaving. “She’s not drunk. She’s scared, so you better shut up and let us handle it.”

I glance at where he holds me, wrinkling the fabric. That’s the first time he dared to get in my face. I can’t decide if I’m proud he’s got the balls to threaten me or if I’m pissed off he’s got the nerve to touch me.

I think, most of all, I’m confused. “Scared? She’s puking because she’s scared?”

Colt nods, opening his fist before stepping away, his back arrow straight. “Just give us a few minutes to calm her down, alright?”

How scared does a girl need to be to throw up?

A few scenarios fill my mind. The anger stirring within me like a thunderstorm morphs into a full-blown tornado.

Maybe someone died: drowned in my pool, and the cops are on their way, led by my eldest brother, Shawn.

“What the hell happened? I swear, if you tell me someone died, you’ll be packing your shit in five minutes.”

“Died?” Colt’s eyebrows shoot up, and he snorts a derisive laugh. “Drama Queen much? No one died.”

“Then what got this puking chick scared?”

“Brandon forced her into his lap. She elbowed his face and broke his nose. Just get on with whatever you came here for. We’ll calm her down and get her out of here.”

I imagine a tall, overweight woman with a black belt in karate because there’s no way any other woman could take on Brandon Price. He’s a quarterback. Built like a true quarterback, too.

Relieved as I am that no one’s leaving the party in a body bag, I can’t draw a link between Brandon’s broken nose and the girl’s fear. She should be proud.

Colt’s gone before I ask any supporting questions, and I realize that I don’t give a fuck. My focus is on leaving the house as fast as possible without looking out the windows to assess the mayhem in my garden.

So that’s what I do. My phone rings when I’m halfway up the stairs. I slide my thumb across the screen, pressing it to my ear. “I need fifteen minutes, Theo.”

“Hurry up,” he yells, excited like a kid on Christmas Eve. “We’re on our way.”

Since Theo married Thalia, Logan knocked up Cassidy, and Shawn adopted Josh, we rarely catch up. Now that we finally planned a night away from the usual bullshit, I’m buzzing at the thought of spending the evening with my brothers.

It’s been too long.

I climb another flight of stairs to my bedroom. It spans the whole second floor of the six-bedroom house: my private bachelor pad with the largest bed money can buy, a showcase shower, and a stand-alone bathtub.

This space used to be a recording studio for some up-and-coming-never-made-it pop star, so it’s soundproof. I hardly take advantage of that fact because I don’t bring women home often but considering all the chicks my brothers fuck in their rooms one floor down, a soundproof bedroom is a blessing.

I hit the shower, then squeeze into a gray, long-sleeved t-shirt, pairing it with black jeans. A silver watch, bracelets, cologne, sneakers, then an AirPod in my left ear, my Spotify playlist soothing my mind on low volume.

My job—my life—is overly demanding. My thoughts rush at a hundred miles an hour, never stopping. Music is the only thing keeping me relatively sane. The only thing that keeps me grounded. Without it, I would’ve ended up in the looney bin years ago.

I force my hair into submission, raking my hand through it on my way downstairs. The second I exit the comfort of my soundproof bedroom, my temper flares, flashing bright red inside my head.

Someone’s playing my piano.

The two hundred grand Model C Steinway in the living room. The piano my mother bought, hoping I’d keep playing after I moved out of the family home ten years ago. She has seven sons, but to this day, she claims only I inherited her musical talent. The story has it I crawled onto her lap before I could walk, watching her fingers glide across the keyboard.

I call bullshit. It’s a tale my mother made up as a means of encouragement so I’d sit through those torturous lessons. I love the sound of a piano, but I hated playing, and when the time came to get my own house, I stopped.

Deep breaths, man. Calm down.

Yeah, as if that’ll work. Anger dances in my gut, stewing like a wasp trapped in a matchbox.

My mother and the older gentleman who tunes it once a year are the only two people allowed to touch my piano.

Normally, I’d unplug the sound system, scream my head off at the triplets and kick every kid out of the garden, but before I reach the stairs that’ll take me to the ground floor, the anger bubbling in my veins fades, leaving no trace.

A piano does that to me. It quietens my mind to the point where I don’t need an earphone, and this song could drag me out of the darkest place.