Page 1 of Cain

CHAPTER ONE

Cain

“Watch out!” Ronan called, making me turn to find an actual fucking keg rolling through the clubhouse.

“Looks empty,” Spike said from my side, shrugging. “Shouldn’t do much damage.” Then we watched it roll into a shelf, sending a dozen beer bottles crashing to the ground. “Welp. Called that one wrong.”

“Wait,” I called, throwing out an arm when a neon pink bikini-clad girl rushed through the clubhouse. “Shoes, babe,” I said, nodding toward the glass.

“Oh, hey,” she said, looping an arm around me and leaning in close, her bleary eyes slow blinking up at me. “We’re going to The Hallows tomorrow,” she told me. “Are you coming?”

The garden center fall extravaganza had been open for several weeks already, but the club had yet to do our yearly trip to trek through the haunted woods full of actors with knives and chainsaws. Or the haunted house with animatronic creatures that leap out and scare the shit out of the girls.

It was a surprising aphrodisiac for them. Last year, I’d been dragged out of the haunted house and into the maze for a quickie with some pretty blonde wearing a ghost-printed dress.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Babe,” Ronan said. He walked up holding a giant inflatable baton and a pair of low-slung white board shorts.

Ronan, like his father Virgin, was tall and fit with rich sepia skin, short black hair, a neat, short beard, and brown eyes.

He paused to look at, then immediately disregard, the mess he’d made with the keg, and turn back to the girl curled in at my side. “You’re up next on my shoulders.”

The pool was somehow still open in the middle of October. I would imagine because the guys kept “forgetting” to call the pool guy. And because it was heated, no one was ready to give up their fun in it yet.

The girl rushed off to follow him, making Spike shoot me a smirk.

“Losing girls to the kids. Must be getting old, man.”

To be fair, I was the oldest person still living at the clubhouse.

“You’re not that far behind me,” I reminded him.

Our age wasn’t something we ever considered before the three legacy kids finally started to prospect at the club. Who wouldn’t feel old with three kids many years younger than us running around on joints that didn’t ache and staying up for twenty-plus hours without feeling half dead?

Ronan and his brother Carver had joined up at almost the exact same time as Vas—Rune and Croft’s little brother.

It’d been kind of amusing to watch the usually carefree Croft suddenly keeping an eye on his little brother and nagging him about shit that Croft had been doing himself just a few months before.

And, on the plus side, all the new prospects meant that Spike and I finally graduated to our own rooms. I’d almost forgotten how nice it was to have a door.

“We’re supposed to call him back and make him clean up the glass,” Spike said, watching Ronan leave out the back door.

“Yeah,” I agreed, sighing.

“But you’re not going to.”

“They’re having more fun than I am. Why ruin it?” I asked. I chugged the rest of my drink before making my way to the cleaning closet.

When I came back, Spike had already moved the keg and placed it out front.

“Never thought I’d see the day when I was the responsible one,” Spike said, shaking his head.

“Responsible for what?” Croft asked, coming in from his room. “Did Vas do that?” he asked, throwing a hand at the mess. “I’ll get him to—”

“No. It was Ronan,” I said, grabbing the broom. “But it’s fine. I got it.”

Without a word, he went to grab the vacuum to get any shards I missed. And it was as he was plugging it in that the door flew open.