Moments of Julian (16 page)

“
What is going on?” he and
I ask at the same time.

“
Lake!” I bellow before he
can start. “What are you guys going here?” And then of course
Lucian comes barreling into the room. He takes one giant leap and
lands on the bed between Julian and I. “Who’s you?” he asks
innocently.

“
Who’s this?” Lake echo’s
with a scowl. He’s staring daggers at Julian who has rolled to the
side of the bed and is pulling a shirt over his head. He gets his
pants on in less than two seconds.

“
Julian Dohring,” he says
as he crosses the room and extends a hand toward Lake.

“
What are you doing in my
sister’s bed?” Lake says, completely ignoring Julian’s hand. And
then of course Kale is in the door too, with a horrified expression
on his face when he sees Julian.

“
Did he sleep over?” Kale
asks with disbelief on his face.

“
Everyone just calm down!”
I bellow. Lucian gives a scared whimper. Feeling horrible for
ignoring him and then flipping out, I grab him and cuddle him up
into my arms. He wraps his arms around my neck and buries his face
into my chest.

“
Okay, first off, I’m a
twenty-seven year old woman, so if I want a man in my bed, that is
my business,” I say harshly but trying to keep it even for my
nephew’s sake. “Not that you deserve to know, but nothing happened.
We slept. End of discussion.”

I meet Kale’s eyes and even though he
still looks tense, I can tell he at least believes me.

“
Now that I had to
unnecessarily explain myself, what are you doing here Lake, and
where are Drake and Kaylee?”

Lake still looks ready to punch
Julian, but his eyes finally shift to me. “Kaylee started having
bad contractions this morning. They asked me to come take the kids
so she could go to the hospital.”

“
What?” I ask,
instinctively hugging Lucian tighter. “They don’t even know the
gender of the twins yet. It is way too early for them to come. They
wouldn’t make it.” I whisper this last part. Just then Pay’s little
face appears between Lake and Kale’s legs.

“
I don’t know,” Lake said,
shaking his head. “But I picked up the kids right away and they
tore out of there. All the kids wanted to do today was go to Aunt
Sage’s house.”

Pay pushes her way past the boys,
leaps onto the bed, and snuggles up into my side.

“
That’s because we love
Aunt Sage the most, huh guys?” I say playfully.

Pay gives a big smug smile and nod of
the head. Lucian scrunches his nose up though. “But Sage a girl! I
only love mommy!”

Everyone smiles and laughs at
that.

“
Have you guys had
breakfast?” I ask the kids. They vigorously shake their heads no.
“Well, let’s see what we have to make!”

They scramble off me in two seconds
flat and charge out the room. I shoo the guys out, including
Julian, and attend to the bathroom for a moment. I change into a
more covering sleep top and then join everyone in the
kitchen.

“
Do you know how to cook?”
I say quietly to Julian. He is standing in front of the open
pantry. There isn’t much to be found in it.

“
I haven’t made myself
much more than a bowl of cereal in years,” he mutters back. I
chuckle and cover my mouth, looking back at my brothers who are
seated at the bar alongside the kids.

“
What’s for breakfast,
Auntie Sage?” Kale asks, batting his bright eyes.

“
Well,” I say, moving over
to the fridge. I find a box of egg whites and a grand total of
three regular eggs. “How do scrambled eggs sound?”

“
I wub eggs!” Lucian
declares, pumping his fists into the air dramatically.

“
Eggs it is then!” I say,
pulling what little there is out.

“
And, how about some
bagels?” Julian says. He’s unearthed a bag of them from the
freezer. I scrunch my nose. Nuked bagels don’t sound appealing, but
I know the kids aren’t going to care. I grab a package of cream
cheese from the fridge.

“
This is going to take me
a few minutes to make, so do you guys want to watch cartoons for a
little while?” I’m being a bad aunt, I know, for letting them watch
TV, but Kale and Lake are practically drowning me with the
questions in their eyes.

“
Yes!” Pay squeals as she
scrambles off her stool and takes off toward the living room.
Lucian is in hot pursuit. “Mom never lets us watch TV in the
mornings!”

I may get an earful from my
sister-in-law later, but it’s easier for the moment on this
unexpectedly chaotic morning.

After very nicely telling them to not
touch anything besides the couch—because they’re obviously lava and
very hot, also breakable—I turn on the first show I find that looks
colorful and bright. They instantly zone in.

When I get back to the kitchen, the
air is swelling each moment with the awkward silence. Julian is
rifling around for something to cook the eggs in and the bagels are
on a plate in the microwave thawing. Lake and Kale are still
sitting at the bar.

“
Let me have it,” I say as
I round the bar and reach into a cupboard for a pan. I hand it to
Julian, grab him some non-stick spray, and turn to face my
brothers.

“
Where’d you guys meet?”
Kale first asks.

“
My work banquet, the one
about a month and a half ago?” I say, looking at Kale to see if
he’d remember.

“
And you two have been
dating this whole time without saying anything?” he asks. I can
tell he isn’t sure if he can trust me right now, not after our
conversation Wednesday on our way to pick up Lake. “That was like…a
month and a half ago.”

“
Things have been a little
hectic lately,” Julian says as he pours the egg whites into the
pan. “We’ve been seeing each other around, more like
it.”

We meet each other’s eyes, and there’s
an unspoken agreement made then and there. We will never tell my
brothers about Toronto.

“
So you’re not dating but
you feel fine sleeping in my sister’s bed?” Lake says. He crosses
his arms over his chest. He really is intimidating looking. Lake is
by far the biggest and most fit in our family. Crossed with his
military cropped hair and the dog tags around his neck, he isn’t
someone to mess with.

“
Lake,” I say in
exasperation.

“
It’s okay, Sage,” Julian
says as he sets the spatula down and turns and folds his arms over
his chest as well. “I think very highly of your sister. I like
pretty much everything about her. As much as I want to be dating
her in a more official capacity, time has yet to allow it. So for
the time being, we’re improvising in any way we can
find.”

“
Which means sleeping
together, but not having sex?” Lake raises an eyebrow at
us.

“
I respect Sage’s
boundaries,” Julian responds. His tone is even and calm. I’m
impressed with his ability to not get defensive considering the way
my brother is attacking him.

Lake stares him down hard for a few
long and heavy moments. Finally, his arms relax slightly. “So you
know this is the part where I have to say if you hurt her I will
kill you, right?”

“
And there are two more of
us that will kill you two times again once he’s done with you,”
Kale pipes up. He’s looking at Julian, but he’s fighting a smile
and one of his eyebrows is raised in a way that tells me he’s fine
now and Julian has passed into the cool range.

“
I’d expect nothing less,”
Julian says with a nod.

“
You boys are so
dramatic,” I say with a roll of my eyes. The microwave beeps and I
pull the bagels out and stick them into the toaster. “I’d think all
of you would know by now I can fend for myself against any
man.”

“
Seriously, Julian,” Kale
says with a chuckle. “You have my respect if you can hold your own
up against the likes of my sister.”

I look over at Julian and he meets my
eyes. A genuine smile spreads on his face and I can’t help it when
I smile back. “Who, Sage? She’s a peach.”

This finally makes both Kale and Lake
laugh.

All the adults pass on the food that
none of us know how to properly make, but the kids are called in
two minutes later and I set plates in front of them. They dig in
like ravenous wolves.

“
Who wants some real
food?” I say quietly so the kids don’t overhear.

Lake and Kale both raise their hands.
“I’m starving,” Kale adds.

“
I could eat,” Julian
says.

I duck into the mud room and grab my
keys from my purse and walk over to Julian. “Would you mind
grabbing us some stuff for breakfast? There’s a coffee shop just
down the street.”

Julian looks from me to my brothers
and back again. Finally, he stands, takes the keys from me and
presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I’ll be back in a few. Don’t
let them plot my demise in too heavy detail while I’m
gone.”

“
Only the bloody parts,”
Lake says as Julian walks toward the garage. Thankfully, he says it
with a smile, or I’d be really worried.

“
Lay off,” I say just as I
hear Julian walk out and close the door. I’m actually genuinely
nervous about handing the keys to my very expensive car to Julian,
considering I have never once seen him drive and have never seen
him behind the wheel of his own.

“
I’m just having fun,
Sage,” Lake says with a chuckle.

“
You’re a little scary
when you get like this,” I say with a shake of my head. “Don’t make
me hurt you.”

“
Fine, I’ll quit,” Lake
says. “But I need more intel. What does he do for a
living?”

“
Seriously,” I say,
glaring at him from under my eyelashes. “Are you going to grill me
all morning?”

“
You’re the only girl in a
family with three boys,” Kale says. “You may be a pain in
everyone’s ass sometimes, but we still don’t want the wrong guys in
your bed.”

“
I’ve made some pretty
good life decisions up to this point,” I say, even though my
sourness is starting to fade. It’s hard to be annoyed when my
brothers are trying to protect me out of love. “Pretty sure I can
be trusted on this one too. But, if you have to know, he’s some
kind of a computer tech guy. I don’t know a whole lot of details,
but he works on his own and his schedule gets pretty hairy
sometimes. Like right now. He shouldn’t be taking time off right
now, but we wanted to see each other.”

“
Aw,” Kale mocks. “How
adorable.”

“
Shut up!” I hiss. “You
who is out until who knows when with some chick!”

“
Shut up is a bad word!”
Pay yells louder than all of us.

“
Sorry, Pay!” I say,
feeling my face flush. Nothing like getting reprimanded by a four
year old.

Tired of the grilling and
defensiveness, I leave my brothers at the bar and go to sit with
the kids at the table. Paisley keeps me entertained with her
grandiose stories of her adventures at preschool. Lucian starts
babbling as well, and I can only understand about half of what he
says. But it is adorable.

Julian gets back twenty minutes later.
He’s brought an enormous green smoothie for me, three breakfast
sandwiches for him and my brothers, a huge orange juice and two
coffees.

“
You’re my savior,” Kale
says in awe as Julian hands him the orange juice. “I drank the last
of my stash last night and I’m already going through withdrawals
this morning.”

Julian smiles and hands a coffee to
Lake. “Sage mentioned something a while back about you being an
addict.”

“
It’s a serious
condition,” Kale says as he swallows a huge swig. “But I haven’t
gotten sick in any form since I was in seventh grade. I am an
ox.”

“
It’s true,” I say. “He
may be immortal now.”

Lake’s phone starts vibrating on the
bar and he snatches it up.

“
It’s Drake,” he says,
waving a hand for us to be quiet. “Hello?”

We are all dead silent as we try to
discern anything from this one-sided conversation. “Okay, I’ll let
everyone know.”

He hangs up and everyone looks
expectantly at him.

“
The twins are fine for
now,” Lake says, his face serious. “Apparently this isn’t uncommon
with twins. The doctors gave her something to stop the contractions
and they’ll be sending her home this afternoon if everything looks
good. She’ll be on bed rest for at least a week. If things go well,
she can go back to normal, if not, she’ll be on bed rest for a
while.”

“
What a relief,” I say
with a huge expel of breath. “I’m glad they’re all okay for
now.”

“
Drake also said they did
an ultrasound,” Lake says, a smile starting to curl on his lips.
“The twins are girls.”

“
I’m gonna have sisters?!”
Pay squeals so loud my ears actually hurt.

“
Looks like it sweetie!” I
say as I wrap my arms around her and squeeze her tight.

“
Aw!” Lucian whines. “I
wanned broders.” He then bursts into tears.