“Shoulda known I’d find you here,” Nash said, his jaw tight as he pulled a slip of paper from his uniform pocket. He crumpled it and threw it at me. It hit me square in the chest. “Harvey said to pass this along to you since it was your fault he was speeding through town this morning.”
It was a speeding ticket written in my brother’s scrawl.
“I have no idea what Harvey’s jabbering about,” I lied and pocketed the citation.
“I see you’re still an irresponsible asshole,” Nash said as if there’d been a chance I’d changed in the past few years.
“I see you’re still a law-abiding dickhead with a stick up his ass.”
Waylon, my lazy basset hound, wandered his stumpy legs off the porch to greet his uncle.
Traitor.
If he thought he’d get more attention or more people food somewhere else, Waylon wasn’t weighed down by loyalty and didn’t hesitate to wander.
I pointed toward the cabin with my beer bottle. “I live here. Remember? Didn’t look like you were slowin’ down to pay me a visit.”
Nash hadn’t set foot in my place in more than three years. I’d done him the same courtesy.
He hunkered down to give Waylon some love. “Got an update for Naomi,” he said.
“And?”
“And the fuck what? It doesn’t involve you. You don’t need to stand sentry like some ugly gargoyle.”
Waylon, sensing he wasn’t the focal point, meandered up to me and nosed at my hand. I gave him a thump on his side and the dog biscuit I’d stashed in the chair’s cup holder. He took it and pranced back to the porch, white-tipped tail a blur of happy.
I raised the beer to my mouth. “Saw her first,” I reminded Nash.
The flash of anger I saw in his eyes was gratifying. “Oh, fuck you, man. You pissed her off first.”
I shrugged carelessly. “Same thing. Might as well just wander that law-abiding ass of yours back to Liza J’s. I’ll bring Naomi and Waylay to you.”
“Can’t stop me from doing my damn job, Knox.”
I got out of my chair.
Nash’s eyes narrowed.
“Give you one free shot,” I offered, then drained the rest of my beer.
“One for one?” my brother clarified. He always did pay too much attention to the rules.
“Yep.”
He placed his watch on the hood of the SUV and rolled up his sleeves. I put my beer in the cup holder and stretched my arms overhead.
“Never used to need to warm up before,” Nash observed, adopting a boxer’s stance.
I loosened up my neck and shoulders. “Fuck off. We’re over forty. Shit hurts.”
This was overdue. Fists were how we’d settled countless arguments for decades. Fight and move on. Until the thing punching each other in the face couldn’t settle.
“What’s the matter?” I taunted. “Having second—”
Nash’s stupid fist plowing into my face cut off the rest of my sentence. It was a bell ringer. Right in the fucking nose.
Shit, that hurt.