Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,154

a file held loosely in his hand. "This is the moment isn't it?"

"What moment?" I asked dryly.

"The moment when the great Saint Memphis realises that he isn't actually a superhero. When you have to admit that you can't actually do this alone. That you need help." He looked far too pleased at that guess and I huffed out a breath as I stacked my gloved hands together on the desk. We'd taken our masks off when we began our search so I could see his expression plainly enough and quite frankly, I was tempted to smack the look off of his face.

"I have never claimed to be able to do everything alone," I said in a low voice. "The four of you have proved yourselves more than valuable to me in countless ways. I appreciate that I am not well suited to every task, nor capable of doing everything myself. But there are certain things which I excel at-"

"Name one thing you don't excel at," he challenged, his tone teasing like he believed there wasn't anything, but if he truly thought that I was so deluded then he was very wrong indeed.

"I am not a person who is easily liked, let alone loved," I replied matter of factly. "I don't perform well in most social situations and I don't make friends easily. I don't even like very many people to wish for them to be my friend anyway - but that in itself is likely a flaw."

"I didn’t realise you’d admit that was a flaw. I just assumed you enjoyed being an overbearing asshole who terrifies almost everyone you meet," he said, seeming intrigued by my candid response.

"I don't hate it," I admitted. "But sometimes..." I sighed, knowing this wasn't the time for this conversation and yet needing the momentary reprieve from my task to allow my brain some space to think. "Sometimes, I watch the way the four of you are and I can see that I...don't fit. Not in the same way."

Nash blew out a breath and shrugged. "You feel like the outsider? Try being the guy who joined up last. Who used to be your teacher. Who comes from a poor family and the foster system while all of you just shit dollar bills and flush them away like they're meaningless. If any of us doesn’t fit, it's me."

A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. "And yet you do," I pointed out. "Besides, you had something growing up which I can never lay claim to."

"You have love now," he objected, knowing exactly what I meant. "We all have love now. Tatum gave us that."

"Yes. Our family is the one truest light in an otherwise very dark world. I'm proud to call you my brother, Nash,” I said honestly.

"Well, I suppose brothers are meant to drive you mad half the time, so that label fits my feelings for you rather well," he admitted, looking a little surprised by the fact. "Though I'm glad there's no blood that binds us because I've witnessed way too much of you having sex for that."

"Come now," I said with a knowing smirk. "You don’t just witness these things. I think we both know you and Kyan passed the point of merely sharing Tatum last week. I saw the marks on your neck. Clearly you've moved into the territory of touching each other during it rather than just watching."

Nash barked a laugh and tossed the file he'd been holding down onto the desk as he turned back to continue looking through the cabinets. "I might have let him choke me a bit, but don't go getting caught up in any fantasies of me actually fucking him."

"No, you're far too linear for that," I agreed, my gaze skimming over the computer as I switched it on and waited for it to load up. "Though I have to admit that if a few of us experimented with a little interaction between each other it would give poor Tatum a break from having so many of us vying for her attention all at once."

"I think Tatum likes having the four of us vying for her attention just fine," Nash replied. "That girl was practically made for us. All of us. But if you think Blake and Kyan might like to start hooking up with each other, then feel free to encourage them all you like."

I laughed, knowing as well as he did that there wasn't any chance of any of us turning our attention