Shane (Mallick Brothers 1)

Shane’s arm tightened when I called myself a Mallick and it made my heart do a weird squeezing thing in my chest.

So then we were led to our table and had a nice dinner.

And every God damn time we stepped foot in that restaurant from that point on, that hostess made sure her eyes didn’t linger more than a second or two.Shane- 5 monthsThe top floor was done. I’d been working on it for weeks at night when Lea was at work, doing her fake moaning thing. Every night as soon as she left, my brothers and Pops showed up and we all went up and got the work done. The top floor had never really had a plan before, that was why I had always just left it as it was. I didn’t need more than what I had.

But when Lea said she wanted to have my kids some day, yeah, it got me working. I knew it was a while off and I knew that most normal people wouldn’t insist on living in a warehouse when they decided to have a family. But I wasn’t normal and because she chose to be with me, neither was she. The warehouse was safe from both weather and breaching. It would be even safer once we finally finished the lower floor as well. But the exterminator was having a sweet fucking time raking me over the coals as he trapped and relocated the fucking rats.

The top floor had been mapped out and made into a master bed and bath with three smaller bedrooms and a hall bath that they shared.

I figured three bedrooms was plenty, no matter how many kids we decided to have.

“So you got a living space and you got a storage space and you got a bed space,” Mark said, wiping his brow after finishing the coat of paint in one of the bedrooms, doing so in a grayish-blue Fee had picked out because she said it would work for either sex when we eventually did have a kid. “So what are you going to use the bottom floor for?”

“If you’re smart,” Hunter broke in, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest, “you’ll just leave it as an open space to eventually store toys.”

“An entire floor for…” Mark started to object.

Hunt cut him off, giving me an intense look. “Trust me. Toy storage. Indoor bike riding space when the weather is shitty. Whatever it takes to keep them busy and away from TV screens. Especially if you end up having a bunch of boys as shit-starting as we all were.”

“How far back does this plot of land go?” Pops asked, trying to scrub some paint off his hands with a rag, only spreading it out.

I shrugged, shaking my head. “I think I have about an acre back.”

“The weather is warming up, we should think about starting to break up the concrete and plant some grass. You’re gonna need at least a small yard, you know.”

I felt my lips curl upward at that, shaking my head in a bit of disbelief.

“What?” Eli asked, watching me.

“What fucking world is this?” I asked.

I never gave much thought to settling down. I had always known I wanted kids one day, wanted to continue the family name, wanted to pass on some of the things my parents had given me. But I had always been too busy living life, fucking around, believing I had all the time in the world, figuring I would get around to it eventually.

Then there was Lea.

Fuckin’ crazy how a woman could change everything just by existing.

“Shit,” Mark said, rolling his eyes. “Now he’s gonna be telling the rest of us how we need to find ourselves some women and settle down and have kids too.”

“Been telling you boys that for years,” Pops said, pushing into Mark’s shoulder. “But only if you find the right girls.”

“You mean batshit crazy and uncontrollable like Fee and Lea?” Mark asked, lips twitching.

“And let’s not forget your mother,” Pops added, making everyone agree.

“So are you ever going to tell Lea that you did this?” Eli asked, gesturing around.

“Sure,” I said with a nod, “once I get her to agree to marry me.”Lea- 8 monthsThe building was nothing to write home about. It looked like any of the other buildings in the industrial part of town, sturdily built way back when the economy had been booming and the buildings had been places of industry. It was three stories, all some kind of dark stone that I knew fuck-all about such things to recognize. The donations had allowed for the windows to all get repaired and a big fence to be built around the back where a bunch of plastic, outdoor kid toys were all set up. There was no sign out front, a security measure, the people who ran the place had insisted. There was a small gold plaque on the front with the address and that was it.