“It isn’t going to happen. Evan is straight as a line,” Ethan said, hushed and careful to make sure no one could hear him besides me.
“Don’t suck the fun out of it,” I said, watching as Evan leaned in, closer.
Closer.
And closer.
I held my breath.
Ethan shook his head, and right as I thought Evan was going to lay one on Oliver, he dodged his lips and kissed Oliver’s cheek, stealing his coffee off the tray.
“You didn’t say where I had to kiss.” Evan sounded cheeky and opened the lid of his coffee to pour a small creamer in it.
Oliver stuck out his bottom lip. “You are such a tease.”
“You are pushy. Sorry, Oliver. I’m not gay.” Evan sounded exasperated.
“So you say, but I won’t go down without a fight.”
“Your funeral,” Evan said.
“Your regret.” Oliver tossed his long blonde hair over his shoulder and swished his hips as he walked away, and all Evan did was shake his head, hiding a smile as he chewed on a bagel.
This. I loved this dynamic, and when I got home, I knew I could have it all the time, but a dark cloud lingered. One that would suck the fun out of everything. Easton. He’d try to ruin my relationship with his brothers and moving home might be the worst decision I ever made.
Easton was about to become a problem again; I just had to make sure that I was the solution. I couldn’t let him affect me this time.
Not now.
Not ever.
Chapter Two
Easton
Like all of the men in my family, I stayed in public service. A few of my brothers were cops, one was a fish and game wildlife officer, but I was a firefighter, along with Ethan. Our small town didn’t get too much action. It was quaint. Everyone was so kind and the scenery? It was beautiful. Everyone said hi to everyone with a smile or a hug. It was peaceful living, which sometimes made a job as a firefighter a little tough.
Most of the time, we got calls to go pull cats out of a tree or help someone put out a grease fire. I had only ever fought one big fire in the five years that I had been a firefighter, and that had been a fire that had started at the old.
The Hampton mansion had been there for hundreds of years and had been in the Hampton family for generations up until the last Hampton died a year before I was born. Growing up, the Hampton mansion had become the ghost story everyone told, the dare no one acted on, and the road no one walked down because everyone was afraid to see the ghost of Glenn Hampton, the last living heir. Apparently, he died under ‘questionable’ circumstances, and the case
was never solved.
Rumor had it, Glenn still haunted the grounds to bring justice to his death by killing anyone that dared entered the doors.
When the fire department was called to go extinguish the fire, none of us died, but half of the home had been destroyed, which I thought was a real shame considering its historical value to the town. It was the one place that had always been here, no matter what, and now half of it laid in ash.
It had been up for sale now for a few years, and no one wanted to buy it, considering that it was ‘haunted’, but for some reason, I had my eye on it. I wanted it. I wanted to build it from the ground up and make it my own. And if Glenn was still around, maybe he wanted a buddy.
Ghost stories never scared me.
There was only one person that I knew that got scared of anything ‘out of the ordinary’, and that was Luna Nightingale. I remembered her cuddling her favorite teddy bear as I held the flashlight against my face and told the story about the ghost of an old ax murderer that still took its victims off the main highway.
I completely made it up like all my stories, but she hung on every word with her unruly curly hair falling in her face and big green eyes as wide as saucers.
On my life, I fucking missed her so much it felt like my life was in jeopardy every time I breathed in. I ruined the best friendship I ever had because I was an idiot teenager wanting fame and glory from his peers. There wasn’t an excuse for what I did. I was an asshole, and I never deserved her friendship after I discarded her like that.
It was the one regret I had. I wished I had the chance to apologize, to tell her how sorry I was, but she blocked my number, and her parents wouldn’t talk to me either. Whenever I saw her best friend’s, London and Oliver, I always waved, but London gave me the stink eye, and Oliver flipped me off.