Dominic sighed. “Bronagh would know it was one of us, and she would kick my ass.”
Alec considered this, and said, “We’ll just have to accept you as a casualty. Every war has them.”
I laughed and shook my head. “How does she have a boyfriend? I don’t understand. She’s fifteen.”
“We had sex a hell of a lot of times by fifteen,” Dominic reminded me. “That’s why I’m so torn up. I don’t want her having sex. It makes me sick.”
“Me too,” Kane said. “It’s not right. She’s the only girl of all our kids. She has twenty-four males looking out for her ... This little fucker should have been terrified to look her way.”
“Maybe he thought being your kids’ cousin gave him a pass.”
“Yeah,” Alec butted in. “This is all Aideen’s fault with her stupid family.”
I laughed again, and this time, the others joined me. I got a round of drinks in, and halfway through those pints, we still couldn’t wrap our heads around what was happening.
“Someone tell me something shitty about their kids so this doesn’t seem so awful, please.”
Kane groaned. “I’ve got a fucking kicker.”
“Jax mentioned that you’d have something to tell me earlier.”
“I fucking do,” Kane grunted. “Me and Ado got home from shopping earlier, and we heard a noise coming from one of the kids’ bedroom. Everyone was supposed to be out, so I assumed it was an intruder, but it turns out Jax was just getting it on with some girl.”
“Get the fuck outta here!” Ryder stated. “For real?”
“For real.” Kane shook his head. “We showed up before he could finish, thank God. Aideen was all kinds of upset, but we’ve talked about it, and he is aware of the dangers of sex past a pregnancy.”
“Man.” Alec whistled. “That’s rough.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I don’t have anything kid related, but I did save my wife from a man-eating spider that died, came back to life, then died again because I squashed the shit out of it.”
We all looked at Alec and laughed. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned.
“I’ve something kid related,” Ryder chimed in. “I came home together from the boys’ soccer game to kid Branna throwing water on Nixon and Jules in an attempt to stop them from beating the shit out of one another on the kitchen floor. They stopped when I shouted, and it turns out it was over a girl. Jules has a girlfriend who kissed Nixon because she thought he was Jules, and Jules overreacted before Nixon could explain. It all ended in apologies, but fuck, this is only the beginning. I know it.”
I shook my head. “That’s a doozy.”
Dominic looked at me. “Do you have a kid related story?”
“Yeah, but it’s nothing bad. I got to the bottom of why Kailen has been so out of character these past few months, and it turns out he’s bisexual and has a boyfriend who Leland absolutely hates.”
Alec focused on me. “Did he tell you that—”
“That you know? Yeah, he did.”
My brothers looked back and forth between us silently.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “I get it. He felt comfortable talking to you about it ‘cause you’re bi too. I understand that you had to respect his decision on when to tell people. I’m just glad he could turn to you. I feel like crap that he felt scared to tell me.”
“He knew deep down you wouldn’t care. It’s just the initial fear that stopped him.”
“I know.” I nodded. “He told his brothers at dinner, so all of your kids will be next. He’s worried they won’t accept him.”
“What?” Kane blinked. “Our kids love each other. If anything, they’ll protect Kailen just because they’ll know other people can be assholes about non-straight people.”
“I know.” I smiled. “I’m not worried.”
“Funnily enough,” Dominic chimed in. “I’m not worried about Georgie either, I trust her.”
“It still sucks,” Alec said. “Thank God in heaven she was the only girl. I couldn’t go through this more than once.”
“Amen,” we all agreed, then laughed.
We talked about anything and everything then, our stories cracking each other up, our teasing going one step too far when Alec threatened to sleep with all our wives ... once he got Keela’s permission, of course, to adding new chapters to Dominic’s Man Bible. We simply talked and enjoyed each other’s company just as we always had. We had a bond that no one could sever, and those who tried over the years only made the bond stronger. We all came from a dark past, but each of us had bright futures and we all knew it.
“A toast,” Ryder announced. “To our wives.”
“To our kids,” Kane added.
“To our health,” Dominic said.
I smiled. “To our happiness.”
“To sex,” Alec shouted. “And to Manchester United!”
We laughed as we all raised our glasses and together, we toasted to the most important thing in our crazy, blessed lives.
Family.