Page 40 of Uncharted

“If he does,” my mother said, and when I made an outraged noise, she smiled. “Sweetheart, it’s okay if you don’t get married.”

“Says the woman worryin’ about my love life all the time,” I muttered, glad they were giving me shit rather than focusing on my brush with death. Not that I’d expect anything different, my family was warm, caring, playful, and loving, but we weren’t the type to worry when it wasn’t necessary. Well, except Darren. My mom said her brother, my late uncle, had been the same with her and her sisters growing up, but always had this little gleam in her eye like she thought he had good reason.

“Because I’d love for you to find someone to spend your life with is all. That doesn’t mean you have to do it,” she said with a frown, running a finger over my brow gently. “Someone who can look at you, who…sees you, and doesn’t want you to be anythin’ more than you are.”

“Good luck finding a woman willing to put up with an adrenaline junkie who doesn’t know how to slow down or stop taking stupid risks,” Darren said with a huff.

“Excuse me?” Lauren piped up, leaning over to look our brother in the eye. “What was that?”

Darren rolled his eyes. “Just because this family is a bunch of those exact people doesn’t make it normal.”

“Last I checked, you’re the only one in this family fretting like an old lady,” Lauren shot back and I snorted when she kicked her foot out and her slip-on shoe shot across the room and only missed Darren because he expected it and smacked it out of the air. “So maybe you’re the one not normal.”

“I’ll take that any day, thanks,” he said with a smirk and tossed the shoe to the other side of the room. “Fetch.”

“Bitch,” she muttered as she got up to fetch her shoe.

“Ah, family life,” I heard a voice pipe up from the doorway, and I perked up.

“Reno!” I said, staring at him and looking him over as best I could as he walked into the room to take stock of everyone. Despite having gone into the river, he had come out with the least number of injuries compared to the rest of us. Aidan had gotten banged up pretty badly, but Reno came out with some bruising, a dislocation, a few stitches, and a bump on his head. He looked rough though, so I could only imagine how bad I looked. “Ya supposed to be down here?”

“I’ve been discharged,” he said, giving me a dirty look. “You’re as bad as Colin.”

“Which one was that?” my mother asked.

Before I could answer, Darren spoke up. “One of the new faces, not the big blond, the other one. The quiet talker who’s dating their boss.”

Reno’s head snapped toward Darren and then winced, putting his hand to his neck. “What?”

“Uh…did you not know?” my brother asked warily.

“We…did,” Reno said slowly, looking at me. “But we didn’t realize they were that obvious.”

Darren shrugged. “When people experience a cataclysmic or dangerous event in their lives, they cling closer to the people in their lives. It can mean dropping your guard when normally it would have been up. They weren’t blatant, but they kept close to one another, never letting the other out of their sight,” he explained and then frowned. “Speaking of that big blond…there’s a dark-haired man, smaller than him, looks pissed off all the time⁠—”

“Mav,” Lauren said. “I remember him from the last time I was visiting Jake.”

Reno and I exchanged glances. “They’re close. But I don’t think they’re like…a thing. Pretty sure they’re both straight too.”

Our gazes lingered on each other for a moment longer, and I didn’t need to be a mind reader to guess our thoughts were in the same place. After all, not that long ago we had been perfectly straight as well, and now…well, I didn’t know what followed that. I knew there was more to both of us than we thought, but I also knew Reno wasn’t sure what to do about that.

I wasn’t nearly as bothered by the whole thing, even if it was, as my mother would have probably described it, peculiar. Except, weird, wild, and crazy shit had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. There was a point where you had to figure out if you wanted to slip some reins over that madness and see if you could tame it, or if you were going to flop on your back and see where the current took you. I was the second one, and while Reno was more the second than his brother, there were still parts of him that couldn’t help but try to make sense of everything and, in a way, control it, or at least predict it.

And neither of us had predicted what had happened.

Reno looked away. “Have any of you slept?”

“Am I about to get mothered?” my mother asked in amusement.

“It’s like…ten at night and every time I’ve checked in, you’ve been down here,” Reno said with a frown. “You all need to get some sleep. He’s still going to be here in the morning. Trust me, I made sure Colin parsed through all the shi…crap the doctors were saying. And barring an act of God, he’s going to be fine.”

My mother stared back at him. “You’ll stay?”

“Duh,” he said, wrinkling his nose as if it were the most ridiculous and offensive thing he had ever heard.

There was another pause before she nodded. “I suppose we should get some use out of the hotel rooms. And if Darren doesn’t get any sleep, he gets cranky.”

“Mom,” he groaned.