Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 122206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“What’d I do to piss ye off?” I quizzed. “I literally just got here.”
“That’s the fuckin’ problem, dumbarse.” Gavin rolled his eyes. “Ye were supposed to help me clear yesterday’s backlog, but I had to do it meself because ye were … what were ye doin’ that caused ye to be so late?”
I beamed a smile in response, and Gavin couldn’t help but laugh.
“Ye were with a woman.” He shook his head. “I should’ve feckin’ known.”
He really should have.
“She turned off me phone, so I missed me alarm.”
“Why’d she go and do that?”
My grin deepened. “I told her last night that I had to be out of me apartment at twenty to nine to make it to work at nine, and she obviously didn’t want that to happen, so she turned me phone off and woke me up with sex. I fell asleep again after she left without checkin’ me phone, and I didn’t stir until JJ woke me.”
“As far as excuses go, it’s not terrible.”
I leaned against a post of the nearest lift.
“I couldn’t make this shite up if I tried, fella.”
I flinched when I heard a sudden wail come from the reception.
“Who was that?”
“Jax,” Gavin answered. “He’s bein’ a little shite today, and Aideen’s just about had it up to here with him. Locke is so chill. He just stares at them like they’re a pair of spanners. I don’t know how Kane copes. I’m losin’ the run of it, and I don’t even live with them.”
I stared at him blankly.
“That’s not very comfortin’, considerin’ you are gonna be the first Collins’ daddy.”
Gavin was twenty-six, the pampered baby of my family, and he was about to become a father for the first time. He had gotten a woman pregnant when they had a fling a few months ago, and now he would have to deal with the responsibility of having unprotected sex. I figured it was better him than me because I could never imagine myself with kids. The idea seemed too far-fetched.
I was thirty-two, and my longest relationship wasn’t even a relationship. I was a fuck buddy to a woman who I thought I could have a future with, but I wasn’t the man she was supposed to end up with. She had him, he had her, and I had endless one-night stands, which was fine. It wasn’t like I even wanted a real relationship, anyway. I didn’t have the time for any of that rubbish.
Keep telling yourself that.
Gavin raised an eyebrow. “I swung by your gaf last night but left before even knockin’ ’cause I thought I heard a woman screamin’ “daddy”. So it looks like I’m not the first daddy in our family, after all.”
I burst into laughter, and my brother followed suit. He was taking the piss because our apartments were close to soundproof, and he knew it. That was the benefit of living in a top-of-the-line apartment building owned by your brother-in-law.
“I can handle me own kid,” Gavin continued. “I love our nephews, God knows I do, but Jax is a little torment. I swear he bullies me, too. He’s like the Slater twins, a loose fuckin’ cannon.”
I snickered at the mention of our nephew’s other uncles as I shoved my brother away and jogged to the reception. I entered the foyer and lingered by the doorway for a moment. I watched my little sister—she was only a year younger than me, but she was still little—with her husband, Kane Slater, and felt my lips curve upward when I saw how she gazed up at him. She always had that same sappy love-drunk expression on her pretty face whenever she saw the man, and I was always amused by it. I wondered if I looked the same way at cars—scratch that; I knew I looked the same way at vehicles. Engines were my one true love, and everyone knew it.
Every. One.
It’d take some woman to take that spot … a hell of a woman.
CHAPTER TWO
Date
* * *
“Date.”
I jumped when Kane suddenly said my name, making him snort. Aideen put Jax down, and he instantly took off at a run down the hallway that led towards the office. My sister all but sprinted after him. The tiny terror fell over and let out a wail. I heard my father soothing him, but all the boy wanted was his ma. Kane crossed the room to me and shook my hand in greeting.
“What’s happening, man?” he asked. “D’you think you’ll figure out what’s wrong with the car today?”
Kane Slater, my mind pondered. Where did I start when it came to him?
I had known him for a few years. He knocked my little sister up, then dated and eventually married her. I knew him before he and my sister got involved, too. He was a big man who looked menacing. Scars, both thick and thin, marred his face, neck, and even his hands and arms. When he wasn’t smiling, he looked like he was furious at the world.