The Love We Hate

CHAPTER 2

“When are you finally going to talk about it?”

The sound of Trick’s voice snapped Trey’s mind away from his wandering thoughts. He had actually forgotten that he was not alone. He looked up with a confused frown and blinked at his friend. It took another beat for Trick’s words to register in his brain and gain meaning. His frown deepened. “Talk about what?”

“Whatever it is that’s bothering you, that’s what.”

“Nothing is bothering me,” he responded with a little bite in his voice he couldn’t completely suppress, no matter how hard he tried. He almost cringed when he heard it.

Trick regarded him for a moment, then nodded with a thoughtful frown. “Huh-uh… And Gabriel is very mature,” he deadpanned. “But we know both these sentences are false.”

“Hey! Why am I getting mentioned in this?” Gabriel pointed a finger at Trick as he entered the room on feet as quiet as a mouse. “And I take offense at that.”

Trey rolled his eyes even before Trick responded to Gabriel. He could already tell from the smirk on Trick’s face that whatever he had to say would result in them bickering like two old ladies in a retirement home. Three seconds later, his prediction was proved right.

Trick leaned back into the couch and folded his arms behind his head. “This conversation requires calm maturity and, Gabriel…” The smirk now planted more firmly around his lips, he continued, “You are neither fish, flesh, nor red herring.”

“Using an old as f**k idiom doesn’t make you appear more mature, geek,” Gabriel retorted. He threw himself on the empty seat next to Trey. In a flash, as though a switch had just been flipped in his brain, Gabriel’s attention went from bickering with Trick, to giving Trey a serious look. “So, what’s going on with you, man?”

Eish. Trey thought even as he worked to keep the irritation off his face. He knew they meant well and he really shouldn’t have thought he could fool them for long, but he still wasn’t ready for the interrogation he could see coming his way like an out-of-control roller coaster. He wasn’t ready to share his thoughts on this.

It wasn’t that he doubted his friends would have his back. Hell, Lorenzo, Edward, Trick, and Gabriel were more family than friends. They had all been together for over two decades.

When they met under the worst possible circumstances as malnourished, scared boys to be used as drug mules, none of them could have imagined their lives would take such a turn for the better. All it had taken was for a fourteen-year-old Lorenzo to do the unthinkable and save all their asses. Trey mused in silence.

Of course, things hadn’t been milk and honey all the time. Far from it. That was to be expected considering the kind of people they had associated with over the years. Trey had taken more than one bullet, literally, for them. And he would do it again without blinking an eye. Family meant everything to him.

The family dynamics were quite interesting. The five boys that had changed their destiny against all odds were now grown men. However, Lorenzo still held the parental role, even though the age difference among them was barely three years. Trey actually thought Lorenzo’s mama bear personality had gotten worse ever since he met and married Abigail. And now, with a son of their own, Arlo, Lorenzo was paranoid about keeping them all safe.

Edward had also gone caveman protective after Talia entered their lives some months ago. The only people who still maintained a laid-back personality were Trick and Gabriel, but Trey wasn’t fooled. The two were also obsessively protective of everyone at the drop of a hat.

With a crowd like that, he knew that if he had a problem, they would be there. If he needed advice, they would give it. And if by any chance he just needed to be kicked in the ass so his brain screwed on properly and stopped thinking about irrelevant things, one of them would gladly do it. But he wasn’t going to get into it.

Trey raised the beer bottle in his hand and took a sip to buy himself some time. He wasn’t fooling anyone, of course.

“Are you feeling okay?” Gabriel pressed; the doctor in him was on full alert. He c****d his head with concern and scanned Trey with his eyes like he could detect whatever the problem was that way.

“I’m fine.”

The problem wasn’t the wounds healing in his body, as his friend probably assumed. The aches and bruises actually helped him to remember how dangerous their life got and the need to think rationally.

Trey looked at the TV that was showing the cooking channel. He ran restaurants, so there was nothing strange about him watching the food channel. What was strange was the fact that he wasn’t paying attention like he usually would. It all passed like a blur of images without meaning. Trey wasn’t even sure what the chef on the show was preparing. Or when they changed into a man. He was certain he had been watching a female chef prepare some form of pasta just a second ago. A nerve ticked at his temple at his own irritation and inability to stay focused.

It was all because of Danielle Marvick. He now knew her name after going through Trick’s notes on the Marvick family. He had even had the privilege of seeing a photograph of her. The picture looked like it had been taken while she had been walking out of a coffee shop looking so carefree and beautiful and nothing like the daughter of a dangerous criminal who went sneaking around the forest with a gun threatening to kill people. But there was no doubt she was the woman who he had met in the forest that night.

Trey frowned. He still wondered what she had been up to, and it was part of the unanswered questions that kept him thinking about her, even when he didn’t want to.

Just then, movement on his left broke through his thoughts and disrupted the studying gaze Gabriel kept on him like a hawk.

Edward walked in with a plate of food and set it down on the coffee table in front of Trey. All eyes went to the plate. Trey could see it was a plate of spicy rice and fried prawns. The aroma immediately filled the air around them as steam floated above the plate.

“Taste that,” Edward ordered, looking at Trey.

Trey raised a suspicious brow. “Why?”

Edward folded his arms over his chest. If Trey didn’t know just how dangerous his friend was, he would have pointed out how the guy looked like a moody teenager. Trey bit his tongue and tried to pay attention to Edward’s response instead.

“Talia’s upset with me. Last time she put salt in my coffee.” He pinched his lips as though he could still taste it, then continued, “I want to be sure there is nothing wrong with this food.”

Every man in the living room gave Edward an incredulous look. Trey looked at the plate before staring up at his friend again. “And I’m the guinea pig. How?”

Gabriel and Trick immediately doubled over in laughter, unable to contain themselves. They laughed until tears collected in their eyes. Even so, that didn’t convince them to sober up.

To his credit, his eyes didn’t even dart towards the laughing hyenas. “You know food,” Edward responded seriously.

Trey shook his head and sipped his beer. “Go eat your poison in peace, man. It will teach you not to piss off the woman.”

His friend was clearly not happy with his answer. Edward frowned. “Some brother you are,” he grumbled, looking down at the food intently but not picking it up.

This only made Gabriel and Trick crackle some more.

When it was obvious Edward wouldn’t leave with his food, Trey finally shuffled to the edge of the couch and gave the plate a closer look. He could have easily ignored Edward and his petty problem, but as amusing as it was, they were always there for each other, even in the silly things.

Besides, they all knew Talia wouldn’t poison Edward, regardless of what the man did. And he often did a lot. It took the patience of a saint to still love the man, Trey thought with humor.

Looking at the food, he reasoned the worst it could be was an overdose of salt or paprika. If she was feeling particularly creative, maybe she had added sugar to the food instead, or vinegar. There was only one way to find out. He picked up the fork and poked at a well-fried prawn. Trey brought it close to his face and gave it a whiff before finally stuffing it into his mouth and enjoying the savory blend of spices and seafood.

“Well?” Edward asked. Even Trick and Gabriel had paused in their impersonation of hyenas and waited for Trey to give a verdict.

Trey faked a deeply thoughtful expression before he took the entire plate off the coffee table and sat back comfortably. He took three fork fulls into his mouth before Edward caught on and quickly moved in to take the plate back.

“What the hell, man?”

This time, when Trick and Gabriel laughed, Trey joined in even as he chewed the food in his mouth.

Edward glared, but it didn’t hold much heat. He settled down on the vacant couch and dug into his food like a starved man.

“What did you do, anyway?” Trey asked after washing down the food with his beer.

“She’s just being difficult.”

Trey shook his head. Talia and Edward were still getting to know each other, so there were a lot of misunderstandings, but he knew as much as anyone else in the room that the two were meant to be and nothing could separate them. Not even a little salt in a cup of coffee. Some things were just like that, he thought.

Fate clashed two people together, and they were stuck together for eternity. Just like Abigail and Lorenzo. Who would have thought Lorenzo would marry the woman he had abducted and locked up in his room? The start had certainly been crazy, but they were meant to be.

Like a ghost that was determined to haunt him, somehow Trey’s mind traveled back to Danielle Marvick. A frown immediately formed on his face. He wondered if it was fate that had made them meet in the forest. And fate that had prevented her from shooting him.

Nothing could have stopped her from shooting him. Trey knew he had been at a disadvantage. But she hadn’t done it. Danielle Marvick hadn’t shot him. Days had passed and still, it bothered his mind. He had many questions and very few answers.

“Trey?”

Trey snapped out of his thoughts. Damn it, he had done it again; he realized. And his friends were on to him if the look in their eyes was anything to go by.

It wasn’t easy to hide from people you practically lived with. The top floor of Edward’s largest hotel had been divided into three large penthouses. Edward and Talia occupied one. The other was the home of Lorenzo, Abigail, Arlo, and Gabriel. Which left the last one for Trick and Trey.

They were not always around at the same time, since they all still owned other houses, both within the city and out. There was also the forest house, the hidden, off-the-radar house they went to when things got too hot.

But when they wanted to be together but away from the forest, the arrangement was perfect. Except for right now, when he didn’t want anyone poking him for information, Trey thought with a frown.

“What?” he asked at last, and lifted the bottle to his lips, belatedly realizing that it was empty. Trey didn’t even know at which point he had finished his beer.

“Seriously, man. Maybe Gabriel should check you over… Something is definitely not right with you,” Trick said with concern.

Trey stood up. “There is nothing wrong with me. I’m getting another beer. Who wants one?” He was already leaving the living room before any of them even responded, so it looked like it wasn’t really an offer to get anyone a beer but a quick getaway.

True, something was wrong with him. But it wasn’t something Gabriel’s medical experience would solve. An exorcism would have better luck at this point, he thought. Because he was being haunted by a woman he had no business thinking about.

He was almost in the kitchen when he heard Trick tell the others. “I don’t like this. If Trey has a problem, he should be able to come to us.”

Guilt hit Trey like a punch in his stomach. Trick was right. They never hide anything from each other. No matter how ridiculous the matter may be. But he wasn’t sure how to bring this up just yet. It was no hidden fact that anything related to the Marvick name was hated passionately by his family. And with good reason, considering all that had happened. So he couldn’t say anything. Not until he figured it out.

Until he did, he would just keep it all to himself.