Despite the humor he tried to inject into the remark, I couldn’t find it in me to smile, not when I saw the pain flash in his eyes.
“In the hospital, you said you thought of us like that… as friends…”
“I do,” I said when he hesitated. It was painful to watch a grown man deal with such deep-seated insecurity. He reminded me so much of Nash. But whereas Nash had turned his pain inward and used it to drive himself to succeed, it seemed like Reese’s pain was what kept him floundering. He’d had glimpses of what it was like to be seen as a man outside of his father’s shadow, but I had a feeling he was still trying to find something he could really hang onto. I really hoped that thing was Ronan’s group.
Reese managed another nod. Clearly, the admission had been difficult. “Thank you. I… I can’t promise I’ll be any good at it… the friend thing. They were kind of in short supply when I was growing up… or ever,” he explained.
“Yeah, I can’t even imagine what that was like for you,” I murmured. “Not knowing who your friends really were when your dad’s the—”
“Yeah,” Reese interjected.
Sensing that was as much as he wanted to say on the matter, I switched topics. “Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, Reese. And once you do go home, I know my family and I would like it if you came back for whatever country’s culinary classics are on the menu for that week, or to listen to my daughter impart her strangely spot-on wisdom from whatever mythical creature has her attention at the time,” – I motioned to Fat Cat – “or to just have a really overweight cat sit on your lap.”
“I’d like that,” Reese said.
We were interrupted by the back door opening, but it wasn’t Charlie. Nash trudged into the room and held out the egg basket. “Where do you want these?” he asked.
My insides heated when his eyes met mine. We did a good job of not reacting to one another beyond casual politeness when we were anywhere but the guest house, but I had to admit, it was getting more and more difficult to not be able to touch him whenever I wanted.
“Were you checking my chicken coop for intruders, Agent Nash?” I drawled.
Since Reese was looking at Nash and not me, I sent him a little smirk right before I closed my lips over the edge of my coffee cup and made a big production of swallowing. Nash’s jaw ticked briefly, and I knew he was remembering the blow job I’d given him the night before as Everett had slowly fucked him from behind.
“No, your daughter asked me to bring them inside. Something about a chicken gone rogue? You’ve got some seriously fucked-up animals, Fortier,” he said, even as he reached down to pat Happy’s head.
“I second that,” Reese said with a smile.
I rolled my eyes at him and said to Nash, “You can just leave those on the counter. There’s coffee.”
“Thanks. Do you want me to go with Charlie?” Nash asked. “She said something about finding ‘that darn chicken’ before it ended up in someone’s stew pot?”
I laughed. “No, she knows not to leave the property, and Zeus is out there. He’ll keep an eye on her.”
Nash grabbed a cup of coffee and came to the table. I barely suppressed a smile when he sat down next to me. It was all I could do not to react when his leg deliberately brushed mine beneath the table and stayed there.
“Where’s Everett?” I asked.
“He wanted to lie down for a bit. Guess all that gardening wore him out,” Nash said innocently as he took a sip of his coffee.
“Seems to be going around,” Reese murmured as he continued snapping the ends off the beans.
Nash and I both looked at each other, but managed to refrain from reacting to the comment.
“Your dad was telling me that you grew up in this house,” Reese said. “Was it like this when you were a kid?” he asked as he motioned toward the back yard.
“No, not at first. My parents bought this place right after they got married. To save money, my mother thought it might make sense to try and live off the land as much as they could. The vegetable garden was pretty straightforward, but things got complicated when she bought a few chickens from the farmer who lived down the road.”
“How was that complicated?” Nash asked.
“After the chickens stopped producing eggs, the plan was to slaughter them for meat. Only, she and my father had made the mistake of naming the chickens. Since chickens can live several years after they stop producing eggs, my parents knew they’d be losing money to house and feed them. So they tried to follow through on the plan.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “It didn’t go so well. The first chicken who stopped laying eggs was named Sunshine.”