What Remains by Bailey Bradford (to read list txt) 📕

Sev blinked stupidly as Alma said goodbye. What did she mean, it was time for ‘us’ to start being a family? Sev thought they were family, just a fucked up one. He’d seen his siblings—some of them, anyway—exactly once since he’d moved to McKinton. That was when he’d taken a consulting case with San Antonio PD.

He’d figured since he was in San Antonio, he might as well see his brothers and sisters. Only Alma and Berto had been home when he’d called. Sev had got to stop in for a short visit with each of them before the case had gone ass up and he’d been inundated with spirits trying to either help or hinder him.

Once he’d managed to pry enough information out of the spirit of one of the killers’ deceased victims, Sev had been physically and mentally exhausted. All he’d wanted was to return home to Laine, which was what he’d done.

That had been over a year ago. None of his family had ever met Laine, and to be honest, Sev didn’t think Laine was too keen on meeting them. While he never said it, Sev knew Laine thought his siblings were jerks or worse for leaving the bulk of the responsibility for their relationships on Sev’s shoulders.

Sometimes Sev agreed, but he reminded himself his brothers and sisters hadn’t, for a long period of time, known where Sev was going to be from one day to the next. That was why Sev was the one to instigate phone calls and such.

The fact he’d been in the same place for over three years now and his siblings hadn’t bothered to alter their established pattern wasn’t good, but it wasn’t entirely their fault, either. Sev hadn’t asked them to visit more than a couple of times. He understood they had their own lives, their own families to take care of.

And he understood, all the way down to his still bruised heart, that his brothers and sisters also had their parents to consider.

Sev didn’t. With his clean hand, he touched the silver necklace he always wore. It was a gift his grandmother had given him years ago, when he’d been a terrified, emotionally damaged kid. An abandoned kid.

Once his parents had him committed as a child, preferring to believe he was mentally ill instead of psychic, they’d disowned him. If it hadn’t been for his grandmother getting him out of that place, he’d probably still be there. Or he’d be dead.

Being gay only compounded his parents’ dislike of him. Really, Sev was amazed any of his siblings talked to him, what with the vitriol he was sure they heard spewed about him. Not to mention his parents were wealthy now, his father having inherited all of Grandmother’s estate when she passed. As much as she loved Sev and despised what her son and daughter-in-law had done, she had still been very traditional.

It wasn’t difficult for Sev to picture his father using money to control his family. In fact, it was likely. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, though. He wasn’t rich, and even if he was, he wouldn’t try to buy his family. Sev did miss them, though. Not his parents—what they’d done to him had cut too deep, but he would like to have something more with his siblings, if possible.

He was almost afraid to hope for it, though. Sev sighed and moved over to the couch where he dropped down bonelessly into the plush cushions. The weird feeling he’d had off and on all day returned and he squirmed deeper into the couch, shifting some of the throw pillows around until he felt sufficiently comfortable.

The pressing need to touch Laine, feel his thick cock spearing into him, had lessened somewhat to a slow simmer in Sev’s veins. They wouldn’t be having sex the instant Laine walked in the door, not now. That was definitely a bummer, but it didn’t seem right to jump the man then shatter that lovely afterglow by bringing up Alma’s phone call.

Not that Laine would object to her and her family coming out, he wasn’t that sort of man. But he would be wary, and Sev couldn’t blame him. He was more than a little wary himself.

Chapter Two

All he could figure was, word of Loretta’s refusal to make coffee had spread like wildfire. By the time Laine pulled into the long driveway of the home he and Sev had bought together, he was damn near jittery from all the caffeine.

There’d been half a dozen people who’d stopped in to drop off steaming cups of coffee, and Zeke and Brendon had brought two big thermoses of the stuff. Laine couldn’t see letting such an offering go to waste, and the consequences of that, besides feeling like he was hyped up on meth, was that he’d pissed more today than he possibly ever had in his life.

Not that he was the only one. It’d got so ridiculous the he and Matt had started tagging each other, like some warped wrestling team, each time they passed one another coming and going from the restroom.

The good part of all this caffeine-induced energy, however, was how he planned to burn it off—deep inside Sev’s tight little ass. The way he was feeling right now, he’d be able to go at least a couple of rounds before he crashed and slept like the dead.

Except, some of them didn’t really ‘sleep’, did they? No, they hung around and in some cases, scared the shit out of the living.

Laine tossed his hat in the passenger seat, knowing the Stetson was going to be in the way shortly, then he parked the truck and shut it off. He was unbuckled and out of the door a second or two later, anticipation ratcheting up the edginess brought on by the caffeine. He didn’t slow down to admire the pretty landscaped yard like he usually did. The yard was Sev’s domain—Laine had