I sneered at words clearly from his girl coming out of his mouth. I smirked. “You can tell December she can rest easy now knowing that she’s gotten you in touch with your feelings.”
The fucker kicked at my kneecap, and I nearly fell off the weight bench, bent over in pain. His eyebrows dancing in response, Royal took a drink of water. If he wanted to prove something, he did there. He put out a finger. “Whatever. Just trying to help.”
“Well, don’t.” I stood, throwing my fists at a punching bag, and once again, he spotted me, going behind and hugging it. I got a few jabs before I took in a breath and looked at him. “Remember that girl the other night?”
“What girl?”
I gave him a look like it was obvious. “The one you brought December’s clothes for.”
“Yeah?” My punch sending him back a bit, he hugged the bag again. “What about her? She running her mouth?”
Just like me, that need to maintain the status quo serious amongst the brothers. Royal no longer wore his Court ring, the thing around his girl’s neck now, but Court blood ran hard through him. It was something that probably wouldn’t ever leave, and the only reason December had the ring was because of a statement he was making to everyone. He shared that part of himself with someone else, the two of them bonded.
My own ring in my pocket, I jabbed once, then twice. “She’s not. Not that I know of anyway.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
Nothing but the sounds of my fists hitting the bag, as hard as I could, until I tired myself out again. “She’s the same girl from when we were kids, you know?” I stated, then stood. “The one who used to live at my house?”
“Wait. The one you killed that dog over?”
I froze, a history I’d never actually dissected with him, but clearly, he knew why I’d asked him to help me take down Old Man Peabody’s dog that day. The thing had been chasing Royal and me, as well as other kids in the neighborhood for years. Almost got us a few times too…
But it hadn’t been until Greer moved into my house that I actually chose to do something about it. It had gotten her that day, a bite right at her ankle, an
d I’d snapped. Royal and I had just happened to be out playing in the woods, heard her screams.
I hadn’t told Royal back then why we should take out the dog, but I guess I hadn’t needed to. My friend, too fucking observant.
“Sure,” I could only say now, not letting that girl have any more power over me than she already did. “I’ve been keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t talk. I guess it’s just been getting annoying.”
The understatement of the year how much she truly got under my skin. Some days, I just wanted to choke the shit out of her, others stick my cock inside her while I choked the shit out of her. It was some kind of evil and kind of did scare me a little. Royal and I came from some mad bullshit where he and I grew up, and I didn’t want to necessarily be like all the evil that came out of Maywood Heights. There were things a guy had to do sometimes to keep order, yes. But there were other times things could definitely go too far, something Royal himself could say.
After all, his father was in prison.
He let me continue to exhaust myself, saying nothing for a while before asking to switch off. I did, spotting him.
He punched. “So what are you going to do about her?” he asked. “You going to do something?”
“I don’t know.”
He smiled. “You wanna do something?”
Again, I didn’t know. More punches, and after, he stood tall. He touched a fist to the bag. “You know you don’t have to be so fucking rigid. If you wanna talk to a girl, you should just fucking talk to her.”
Wait. How did this go from me needing to control Greer to needing to talk to her? I shook my head. “That’s not what I said.”
“No.” He picked up his towel, wiping his face before tugging it over his shoulders. “But that’s what you meant, right?”
He thought he was so fucking smart, didn’t he? I scrubbed through sweaty hair. “Fuck, no. She just has a mouth on her, and I need to know what to do about it.”
“How about you just handle it? Like you did with that dog?” He nudged me. “You seemed to know what to do then.”
I swore to God I couldn’t talk to this guy. I rolled my eyes. “Sorry I even mentioned it.”
He cut me off when I started to walk away. “I’m just saying when it comes to girls, sometimes there’s shit there that you just don’t see. They make things complicated. Make you want things you don’t understand.”
I frowned. “That’s not what’s happening here.”