“Goddammit,” I hissed, prodding my face for deformities.
My brother bobbed and weaved in front of me, looking a little too fucking proud of himself.
I tasted blood as it trickled onto my upper lip.
“I got shit to do. I don’t have time for conversation and kicking your—”
I let my fist fly, catching him in that goddamn mouth he was always running. The mouth he’d used to lay on the charm with Naomi. His head snapped back.
“Ow! Fuck!” He swiped his arm over his mouth, smearing his
own blood up his sleeve. Another bead dripped onto the shirt of his uniform. It made me feel perversely accomplished. Messing up Nash was always gratifying.
“We really gonna do this?” he asked, looking up as his tongue darted out to taste the blood at the corner of his lip.
“Don’t have to. You know how to stop it.”
“She hates your guts. You don’t even like her,” he pointed out.
I used the hem of my t-shirt to stem the flow of blood from my nose. “Not the point.”
Nash narrowed his eyes. “The point is you always wanna call the shots. Some brother.”
“You’re the idiot who doesn’t know how to say ‘thank you,’” I shot back.
He shook his head, looking like he was going to back down. But I knew better. I knew him better. We both wanted this. “Get out of my way, Knox.”
“You’re not gettin’ past me today.”
“I’d be happy to run you down with my truck. Say you were drunk and passed out in the middle of the lane and I didn’t see you.”
“Your ass would be behind bars before they even got mine to the morgue,” I predicted. “Something happens to either one of us ‘round here, everyone knows the first place to look is the other one.”
“And what does that say about our happy fucking family?” Nash spat.
We were circling each other now, hands up, eyes locked. Fighting a man you grew up tumbling with was like fighting yourself. You knew all the moves even before they were coming.
“I’ll ask you again, Knox. Why are you in my way?”
I shrugged. Mostly to annoy him. But partly because I didn’t really know why I’d planted my ass between my brother and Naomi “Doe Eyes” Witt. She wasn’t my type. He wasn’t my problem. Yet here I was. The whole introspection thing was another one of those time wastes that I didn’t bother with. I wanted to do something, I did it.
“You just want to put your hands on something fine and mess it up, don’t you?” Nash asked. “You can’t take care of a woman like that. She’s got class. She’s smart.”
“She’s needy as fuck. Right up your alley,” I shot back.
“Then get out of my way.”
Tired of the conversation, I threw a jab to his jaw. He returned it with a shot to my ribs.
I don’t know how long we traded blows in the middle of the dirt lane, kicking up dust and hurling insults at each other. Somewhere in the midst of him calling me a fucking asshole and me putting him in a headlock so I could punch him in the forehead, I recognized my brother for the first time in a long-ass time.
“What in the holy hell are you doing? You can’t assault an officer of the law!”
Naomi floated into my line of sight, looking exactly like the high-class woman I didn’t want, exactly the type my brother did. Her hair was down now and daisy-free, draped over one shoulder, thick and sleek. Her eyes had lost the better part of the exhausted shadows. She was wearing one of those long sundresses that skimmed the tops of her feet and made men wonder what treasures lay beneath.
She was carrying a bouquet of flowers, and for a second, I wanted to know who the hell had given them to her so I could kick their ass.
Next to her was Waylay in shorts and a pink t-shirt, holding a plate covered in plastic wrap. She was grinning at us.