Page 19 of Between Brothers

Chapter Eight

Insufferably Ordinary

Royal

I awoke to a series of texts demanding I get to the Kids Center and do damage control.

Leave it to Kingston to fuck up before he even got started.

He was such a dramatic ass. No one was going to pull a coup on Forty Kal. My brother might have maintained a bit of a reputation in our small town as being cold and reckless, but he didn’t have the balls to smoke a woman we’d grown up with.

He just didn’t.

He and our father were both brawlers and movers who talked big and wild sometimes, but it didn’t really mean anything.

Well, most of the time it didn’t…

My stomach rolled as I tried to convince myself it was all bullshit while watching him ride off with her.

I sniffed, deciding that he’d only called me up here to rub it in my face that he’d gotten her where he wanted her.

“Great job, asshole. Now, if you can keep her there longer than a fuck or two, we’ll all be impressed,” I mumbled to myself as I pointed my bike toward Paxton’s house.

I needed to get away from the noise, and Pacman was usually good for it.

And who knew, maybe he could help me figure out what the fuck was going on between our dads.

Just as I suspected, I found him quietly tinkering under the hood of a car in his open garage. He must have been really concentrating, because he didn’t even lift his head to see who was approaching as I stepped inside and walked the length of his granddad’s old Monte Carlo.

“I can’t believe Bugs never sold this thing.”

“Oh, believe me, I know. I can’t believe my dad is still wasting his money and my time under this hood. I understand sentimental, but fuck… He doesn't even drive it. Nobody has since the day of the accident.”

I slowly nodded, while running my hand over the dust on the edge of the windshield, “She really loved this car. I remember.”

He slammed the hood and flipped one corner of his mouth up, “Yeah. She did.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, already regretting the direction of our conversation and yet, unsure of how to redirect him toward the one I needed to have. His mom had died a few years ago in a hunting accident they’d taken together. For the most part, he handled it well, but I was always uneasy when the topic came up.

Maybe a little piece of me knew that I’d be a wreck if I suffered a loss like that.

“So, what brings you to this neck of the woods?” he asked, nudging at a red toolbox with his toe.

I shrugged, and yawned. “Kingston and Kennedy did a thing at the Kids Center for the kids. Thought I’d show up and support them or whatever, but I guess I overslept.”

He laughed and shook his head, “Yeah? Me, too. I don’t give a damn if I was up before dawn, it wasn’t for entertaining other people’s rug rats.”

“Right.” I sighed, breaking into a smile. “You got one of your own to keep track of.”

“Damn straight,” Pacman grunted.

“What are you girls gossiping about?” Kingston piped up, drawing our attention toward the garage entrance.

I hadn’t even said anything about the plotting and big talk, but my heart still took off in a full gallop.

There was a hardness in his gaze that made my grin stiffen.

“Your mother and that sweet,” was all the further he had to go to rip Kingston’s icy gaze from me to him, but he still paused for effect, “Gooey butter cake. What’s up with that? Put in a word for me, I’m good for the cost of the ingredients.”