“I’ll go first,” Xander volunteered. “Jamie, I dare you to tell us the absolute most banana pants thing that happened while you were in England.”
“Met my father. Won a castle. Saved a duchess from certain death. Not in that order.” Jameson leaned back against the wall of the tree house, pretending—as the rest of them had all night—that it was still fully intact.
“Which one of those explains your face?” Nash asked Jameson. The bruises and swelling clearly suggested that their brother had been in one hell of a fight.
“Some faces need no explanation,” Jameson replied. He gestured to his own. “Work of art. And now it’s my turn. Nash.” The gleam in Jamie’s eyes was downright wicked. “I dare you to eat your hat.”
Grayson very nearly laughed but covered it with a cough.
“Excuse me?” Nash drawled.
Jameson leaned forward. “Literally. Eat. Your. Hat.”
For the first time since Gigi had found that picture of the passwords on his phone, Grayson almost smiled.
“A bite will do,” Jameson continued.
Nash ran his hand along the brim of his cowboy hat. “And how am I supposed to…”
“I brought utensils!” Xander volunteered, because of course he had. “And kitchen shears. You never know when you’re going to need kitchen shears.”
Nash looked to the murky liquid in the water bottle. Per the rules of the game, any player who failed to fulfill a dare had to take a nice, long swig, at least three seconds in duration. “Remind me what’s in there?”
“Milk, root beer, ketchup, pickle juice, oregano, chili powder, beef broth, and chocolate syrup,” Xander announced happily.
Nash removed his cowboy hat and narrowed his eyes at Jameson. “How big a bite are we talkin’ about here?”
Three hours later, Grayson had no shirt, and there was a giant face drawn on his stomach in permanent marker. Jameson’s eyebrows were neon purple. Nash still smelled like dog breath and peanut butter. And Xander had successfully built a Rube Goldberg machine the purpose of which was smacking his own ass.
The tightness in Grayson’s chest and the heaviness in the pit of his stomach were gone.
So, of course, Jameson took that as his cue to push things. “Grayson.” Green eyes met Grayson’s ice-blue ones. “I dare you to admit that you’re not okay.”
He wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. But a Hawthorne didn’t just admit such things—especially this Hawthorne. Grayson reached for the now half-empty bottle, but Nash swiped it before he could.
“This is a safe place,” Xander told him encouragingly. “Unless you’re my ass.”
Grayson snorted, then the snort turned to a laugh, and then the laugh turned to something else, this horrible, strangled sound in his throat. He’d known, when he sent that nine-one-one, that the end result wouldn’t be all fun and games.
“Well?” Jameson asked him. “What’s it going to be, Gray?”
I dare you to admit that you’re not okay.
“I’m not okay,” Grayson said. “My sisters will probably never speak to me again, and I’m not good at losing people.” Grayson paused. “Either that,” he continued hoarsely, “or I am exceptionally good at losing people.”
Every time he let someone in…
Every time he let his guard down…
Every time he was anything less than perfect…
“You haven’t lost us, little brother,” Nash said fiercely.
“Do you want to make fun of him for that?” Jameson asked Xander. “Or should I?”
Nash reached into one of the bags he’d brought and withdrew a stack of metal cups and some whiskey. “Just for that,” he told Jameson, “I’m not sharing—at least, not with you.”
Nash took one of the cups and poured himself a bit of whiskey, then did the same with a second cup and handed it to Grayson. Nash took a sip of his own, then looked out the tree house window. “A few years ago,” he said, his voice somehow a match for the whiskey, “when I realized that Alisa and I weren’t going to make it, I knew in my bones that it was because there was something wrong with me. Just look at me, I thought. No father. Skye’s never been the maternal type. Even the old man—he wasn’t for me what he was for you three. What did I know about trusting someone, relying on someone, being there? What did I know about staying put? How could someone like me even think the word forever?”