You Have Us... Always.

Chapter 22- Oh, I did it again.

"Yeah, you really missed me that much?" Callan chuckled, swinging his little sister a little and smiling into her hair.

Said little sister nodded into his dress shirt and gripped the back of his blazer.

Callan chuckled, "yeah? Miss my awesome cooking?" Brynn responded with another affirmative nod.

"And did you have nutritious meals while I was away?" The nodding stilled.

Callan smirked. "So all those boxes of takeout in the trash are because I told Ezra not to order them, hm?" Squeezing Brynn a little tighter, causing a small sound to escape her.

"Hm, that's what I thought."

Brynn changed the topic of conversation with something she'd wanted to tell Callan about since she got it. "I saw Derek and he gave me a stress ball."

"He did? Can I see it?" he asked. He loved it when she was excited about something. And after having so long not being able to share that excitement with, he intended to show her just how much he loved listening to her small things.

Brynn backed away and nodded. Thinking about where it was, she recalled stuffing it under a couch pillow last night, where it probably still was. "I'll go get it right now."

Callan grinned nodding, "you get it and I'll get out of this," he gestured to his suit, "before it permanently attaches itself to my flesh."

Brynn had already started walking away. She wanted to get it as soon as possible incase Callan lost interest and didn't want to see what she got anymore.

Once she was out of view, Callan turned to go to his room and loosened his tie as he did so with one hand.

Entering his room, he managed to fully undo his tie and rip it over his head.

Callan's room was rather simple. Walking in, you could see a large king sized bed with a large grey headboard against the right hand side wall. Matching the headboard, his sheets were entirely grey and his floor was a pristine white with a rectangular grey carpet in the center. His window was directly in front of the door with dark grey curtains and opposite his bed was a doorway with no door leading to walk in closet. The doorless doorway had two white chest of draws on either side. On the left side of this bed was the door to his en suite.

Callan made his way over to the chest of drawers and pulled the top draw. Inside was some useless paperwork which he started crumpling to the left side to reveal the wood underneath.

Callan traced his hand over the smooth hardwood before feeling the familiar hollow in it. Once he felt it, he pushed down lightly and the folded piece of wood came up.

Reaching into the back of his suit pants, he slipped his handgun out and brought it infront of him. He fiddled around with it and flicked the safety on before placing it into the hollowed out draw.

He folded the wood back over and pushed lightly on it again, clicking it back into place. Then he shuffled the useless papers around to cover the entire surface of the wood.

The second oldest Verlice rubbed at his eyes and temple, damning his older brother for taking him on this business trip. He knew how much the people they were meeting with bored him. It took everything not to shoot the man between his obnoxious eyes.

He trudged his way to his closet to discard his suit, choosing to leave them where he dropped them. He stood in front of his loungewear section in his briefs with his arms crossed, deciding what to wear.