Page 107 of Shattered Oaths

NOAH

Growing up on a ranch with two older brothers is certainly a humbling experience. There are many stages in life that a male goes through, but going through them years behind your brothers and getting tortured by the both of them definitely plays a huge hand in character building.

I remember the day Hunter woke up with a deep voice and thinking I couldn’t wait until mine done the same. I remember the day I walked into Grayson’s bedroom and heard him telling Rueben all about his girlfriend and I had run to Hunter and asked him what a girlfriend was.

I remember the day the both of them left to attend the same party and crying because I couldn’t hang out with them.

But I also remember the day my brothers threw their arms around me and let me tag along with them. The day they took me to my first rodeo and let me have my first beer. The day they sat me down and told me what sex was.

My favourite memories, however, are the ones where I got to watch my brothers individually fall in love, settle down with their women and start their families.

And today, I get to watch my oldest brother marry one of those women.

“You ready?” I ask Hunter as me, Grayson and Killian enter the room. He’s standing in the mirror, adjusting his tie and his eyes find mine in the reflection.

“Been ready, man,” he says, his voice void of any nerves.

I nod, my smile wide as I clap him on the back. “Let’s go then.”

All four of us climb into Grayson’s truck and head over to the barn we’ve been working on for weeks in the build up to this very moment.

Killian and I are in the back and other than that conversation we had at his house last week and the few words we exchanged when I offered him my condolences at the hospital, this is the first time we’ve been in each other’s space.

It’s too early to tell if our friendship will ever be the same as it once was, but I figured time heals all wounds and eventually, I hope to earn his trust back again.

I’ve been so preoccupied with fixing things with Bella, that mending my lifelong friendship has taken a back seat and it dawns on me, that while I’ve been worried for her, he also lost his mother.

Christ, I’m a shitty friend.

I turn to look at him, finding his stormy eyes already fixed on me and swallow thickly. “How are you holding up?”

Killian scrubs a hand over the scruff on his jaw. “I’m okay. I was just about to ask you how Bella’s doing?”

“She’s doing okay. Getting better with every day,” I tell him.

He nods his head thoughtfully, his shoulders relaxing in a way that tells me he’s been worried about her too.

“She forgiven you yet?” He asks, and the humour in his tone takes me by surprise.

I chuckle. “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

“Hmm,” he hums. His gaze drifts away from me for a beat before moving back again. “You gonna marry her?”

My eyebrows almost hit my hairline and I blink at him. “Uh… that depends.”

“On what?”

“If she forgives me,” I say honestly.

Killian shakes his head, his chest rumbling with a laugh. “That was the wrong answer.”

I swear, by the end of this conversation I’m going to need botox with the way my facial muscles are working. I frown at him and tilt my head. “What was the right answer?”

“If you had my blessing,” he replies.

The front of the truck is completely silent and it’s now that I realise Hunter and Gray are listening intently.

Fuckers.