by Misti Murphy
"And by the looks of it. So is he." Tom chuckles. “So he’s going to take his licks like a man. Don’t you worry about it.”
"Oh!" Razer and me, me and Razer? Forever isn’t that far-fetched is it?
"Tom, what's the hold up?" Mace hollers.
"All right. All right. Don't get your panties in a twist, dickhead." Tom brushes past me. "Look at it this way, Little Bit. You can nurse his boo-boos later."
With that parting remark he bounces down the stairs to join Mace and Razer, while Lucky runs tracks around all three of them. Oh God, they’re all going to get into it. It wouldn't be the first time, but they’re grown men now. Hard, trained fighters. What if one of them gets hurt?
"Did you think you could touch her and not get pounded? It’s fucking disgusting. She’s your sister.”
“No. She’s your sister.” Razer says, in that deadly serious way he does when something’s important. “There’s nothing disgusting about me and her, not that it’s any of your business.”
"Of course it's our business.” Mace hurls himself into Razer, sending him sprawling on the ground and straddling him. “I found the pregnancy test, asshole.”
There’s a sudden punch of silence accompanying the quick snap of Mace’s fist to Razer’s nose. Blood spurts down his mouth as his gaze locks to mine. Confusion, pain, and disappointment fight over his features, and my whole world turns to lunacy in a matter of seconds.
What the hell? I leap over the railing and hit the ground running. “Get off him, Mace. Get the hell off him.”
Mace’s fist connects again, and Tom is standing there, white as a sheet, his lips pressed into a thin line that’s even more colorless than the rest of his face. Why is he just standing there while Mace lands yet another hit to Razer’s jaw? Why is Razer lying on the ground, not even bothering to block, not trying to keep Mace from bashing the shit out of him?
Tears streak down my face, making everything blurry, while I yank ineffectually on Mace’s arm. “Stop it. You’re hurting him.”
But he isn’t letting up. He bats me away like a fly, and I trip backwards over my feet, landing hard on the grass. There’s a blank look in his eyes as he watches me go down. Then he’s fully intent on beating the living snot out of Razer, like he’s a stranger, the enemy, not the man he grew up with, not his best friend.
Lucky bounces around them, barking so damn loudly other dogs start howling in response, and still Mace isn’t letting up.
“Tommy,” I screech. “Please, you have to help me.” I scramble to my feet jumping on Mace’s back, one arm around his neck as tight as I can while I dig my fingers into the pressure points on the inside of his arm. Whatever this is, it’s not about me anymore. It can’t be. He tries to shake me off, but I can’t let him wail on Razer any longer.
Tom snaps out of his frozen state, at the same time Razer catches my eye. “It’s okay, sugar, I deserve it. Specially, if you’re pregnant. I had no right.”
“Don’t call her sugar, like you give a damn, you fucker. You don’t screw with family.” Mace snarls, trying to toss me off again.
Tom grabs his arm and hauls him to his feet, screaming in his face and trying to pull him free of whatever demon is on his back.
I sink to my knees beside Razer, shaking, sobbing. I can’t quite manage to get myself together as I cradle his head in my lap. “I’m so sorry.”
Razer squeezes my hand. “I knew the cost. Told you…” His eyelids flutter closed, his hand slackening in mine.
“Don’t you dare be sorry for him.” Mace pushes Tom away, lunging at us.
But Tom manages to secure him in a chokehold. “Calm your fucking farm, Mace. Jesus, you’re losing the plot.”
“I think he’s unconscious,” I cry at Mace, whose fists are still tight at his side, his chest rising and falling. His face a mottled mask of red. “You’re a bastard, Mace. How could you do this to him? He’s your best friend, your family.”
He spits a mess of saliva and blood on the ground. “He’s nothing. Fucking piece of shit. We welcomed him into our family. How many years did mom and dad treat him like one of us, and this is how he repays us? By fucking with my little sister, knocking her up.” Tom lets him go as the tension rolls off him. “You know he’s not going to stick around, right? He’s using you.”
“You don’t know that.” The scent of burning meat fills the air. I choke on it a little, or maybe that’s my heart in my mouth that I can’t swallow around. I love him, Mace. I don’t give a flying fuck how you feel about that. It doesn’t matter. But I love him.
“Really? Did he even tell you he’s leaving tomorrow? He’s heading off into the sunset, Little Bit, the same way he always does. Do you really think he won’t cut you out of his life again? Just because he got some pussy?”
Tom smacks Mace across the back of the head. “Don’t talk to her like that, asshole.”
“She has to understand.” Mace turns on Tom. “He’s never stuck with a woman for more than a couple weeks. I know him. I know him like he’s my damn brother. But this.” He waves his hand in our direction.
“It’s not such a bad thing is it?” Tom asks quietly. “The two of them, together.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mace twists in my direction. He’s still visibly shaking, his jaw clenches so tight. “I bet you’re thinking he’ll stick around now he’s knocked you up. That he’ll marry you.”
Marrying Razer isn’t something I’ve contemplated, but I would. Oh, I would if it was what he wanted. That’s how strong this thing between us is. I dip my head, shake it. “No. I don’t expect…”
Tom clears his throat. “Mace, I don’t think she’s pregnant.”
He says it quietly, but it’s the way he says it, sort of shaky, with far too much seriousness for the youngest of my brothers, that has Mace and I staring at him.
“I’m not,” I say.
Razer groans, and I glance down. His eyes are still closed, etched with tiny grooves of pain around the edges.
“Then whose fucking pee stick did I find?” Mace whips his gaze between Tom and I, and we both answer at the same time, “I don’t know.”
But Tom is still pale, and sweat is dripping down his forehead.
“Tommy?” I can see it written all over him, his shoulders curled over, his head slightly bowed while he itches the side of his nose. “What did you do?”
“Shit,” he says, and scuffs a patch of grass with his boot. “I think I knocked someone up, but I don’t know who.”
Mace staggers back a step, like Tom’s physically dealt him a blow. He drops his gaze to Razer. “Fuck,” he says, like it’s dawned on him he’s gone too far. “I still don’t like that he’s sleeping with you.”
“I know, Mace. But I’ve loved him since I was sixteen. You’re going to need to get used to it.”
“I took things too far. You’re my baby sister, for fuck’s sake.” He squats down beside me. “The idea of any man knocking up my sister and not putting a ring on your finger first makes me want to kill a fucker.”
“I get it,” I say. Because that’s exactly how Razer feels about me, too. But I pushed him until he cracked, until he gave in to me because I was determined to get what I wanted. But this… I glance down as he groans, his head tilting a little to the side as he rises back to consciousness. I’ve taken everything he was holding onto and destroyed it.
“I’m sorry.” Mace squeezes my arm. “We’ll sort this shit out.” Then he turns back to Tom. “Well, my slut of a little brother, how are you going to work out which lucky lady is carrying your dickhead spawn?”
Tom throws his hands up on his head and shrugs. “It would have been nice if she’d left her name when she mailed the stick to me.”
“Fucking weird,” Mace mutters.
“That’s one way of putting it.” Tom laughs, nervously.
“Alcohol. We all need a beer right?” Mace nods at his great idea. “And a slab of meat for your boyfriend’s face.” He kind of gags on the word.
“That feels fucking weird to say.”
“Those two always were weird.” Tom glances back at me with a smirk. “I’ll check and see if we can save dinner.”
The two of them head toward the house, leaving me alone with Razer. I bend my head, the tips of my hair brushing the sides of his face. “Raze?”
“Mmm, kay, Little Bit.” His face is already swelling, the cut on his lip still bleeding, though his nose has stopped. Now it just whistles when he breathes, which under other circumstances might be funny, but considering the pummelling at the hands of a brother, is more heartbreaking. “Just want to lie here for a minute.”
“I’m not pregnant,” I whisper. “It’s Tommy. He knocked some girl up.”
He doesn’t say anything, but gives a slight nod.
“Why did you let him do it?”
He opens his eyes to slits. “It doesn’t matter that it was me. It matters that you are you. If Mace hadn’t been laying into me, if it was some other guy, I would have been right there with him, pummelling the shit out of whoever for getting you pregnant when he has no intention of sticking around.”
My heart nose-dives. I don’t want to believe Mace is right, but I can’t ignore Razer. This really is all there is. For as long as we’re in town he’s mine, but both of us have to leave. Then what? We’ll go our separate ways, and I’ll lose him forever. The ache of the imagined loss, coupled with the guilt of how I’ve wrecked our family, broken everything that mattered to him, is already excruciating. How am I supposed to get over him when he’s gone?
Razer
Claire’s gone inside to get a washcloth and antiseptic. She’s got her heart set on babying me, and I don’t want to upset her any further by telling her I can do it myself. Not when she’s still shaking from watching her brother beat the shit out of my face. Anyone else, and I would have taken him down with one hit, but not Mace. Out of all of them, he’s the one I’ve always been closest to. He’s the one I would have owned up to first when it comes to Claire. I owed him for not having the guts to tell him. For breaking my loyalty with him.
“Here.” He shoves a beer in my hand and takes a seat opposite me at the picnic table. He keeps staring at me, that slow burning anger still there.
“Thanks.” I knock the top off the brew and suck back a mouthful, letting it wash down the back of my throat. We don’t say anything for a few minutes. There’s an uneasiness in the truce we have going on.
“You didn’t block,” he accuses. “You could have at least made an effort to protect your face.”
“Why? Want to feel better about beating the shit out of me?”
“You deserved it, you prick.” He glares daggers at me. But he’s considering how far he would have gone if Claire and Tom hadn’t hauled him off me, while he concentrates on scraping the label off his bottle with his thumb.
“You should see someone about your issues, Mace.” I rest my beer on the table, staring him down. “Sure, I deserved a few rounds with your fist. I should have told you. But there’s something else going on with you.”
“Nah, I’m fine,” he says, brushing it off like it’s no big deal. “Better than your face anyway.”
“Yeah,” I rub two fingers lightly over my swelling jaw. “It stings like a bitch.”
“I told her you’re leaving tomorrow,” he says. “Told her your track record with women. Told her not to have expectations where you’re concerned.”
“Shit.”
“I wasn’t going to let you cloud her judgement with whatever lies you’ve been telling her to get her to sleep with you. She needed to know you’re not going to stick around. That you’re not the type she wants to settle for.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him. Not unless she wants me gone after this. Which she might if Mace went into detail about my sex life, and the fact that I’ve never stuck around for more than a couple weeks. It’s not that I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t want to settle with one woman. It’s that none of them were Claire. I guess I never managed to come to that conclusion while I was screwing around. I just thought they couldn’t measure up to my ideal. And they couldn’t because Claire’s pretty damn unique.
“Well you’re not staying here.” Mace slaps his palm against the tabletop. “I want you out first thing tomorrow.”
“That’s fucking nice of you. Giving me a night to get my shit together,” I retort.
“You’re lucky I’m giving you that long. If it wasn’t Tom’s house I’d have kicked you out on your ass already.”
“So that’s it?” I ask. “Twenty-five years as brothers and you’re done?” Not that I expected any differently. I knew how he would react, how they would all react to the idea of me and Claire together. I tried to fight her, because I couldn’t handle the thought of them all cutting me out of their family. I don’t want to let her go, don’t think I could breathe if I had to try to say goodbye to her. I can handle losing them for her, but she might not be able to. She might not be able to deal with them cutting her out of their life if I ask her to stay with me.
“Something like that,” he says.
“I’m not leaving,” I tell him. “Not going anywhere.” Out of the house, yeah. Not much I can do about that. But I can camp out at the block like I’d planned to weeks ago. “As long as Claire wants me around I’m going to be here. So you might want to consider getting the fuck over it.”
“We’ll see.” He tosses his empty bottle at the trashcan, and it makes a racket as it bounces off the side and rolls into the corner. “Once you’re out of this house.”
“Fine,” I say, tossing my own stubbie and nailing the shot he missed. “I’ll be gone tomorrow.”
Claire carries a basin of water and a bottle of antiseptic outside and places them on the table in front of me before straddling the plank, facing me. “You did a good job on his face, Mace. Was it worth it?”
She dips the cloth in the basin and rings it out before dabbing gently at the split over my eyebrow. “I’m so sorry he’s an ass,” she says, speaking to me.
“It’s okay.” I grasp her wrist, lock into her gaze. “You’re worth it.”
She stills, the cloth pressed to my jaw, and leans in to whisper her lips over mine. I’m bruised, swollen, and bloodied, and she still wants to kiss me. My chest feels like it’s filled with helium, a balloon of pride that wants to float in her gaze.
“For fuck’s sake.” Mace jumps up and storms inside. “I can’t watch this. You two are fucking sick.”
Chapter Fifteen
Claire
After I clean up his cuts, and the adrenaline stops pumping through me, I struggle to deal with the fallout. Mace’s words keep replaying in my head. About how Razer’s never been with anyone for more than a couple weeks, and that he’s leaving tomorrow. I’m not sure that I was supposed to catch the end of their conversation, his confirmation of what my brother insists is the truth, but I did. I keep waiting for him to tell me he’s going, but he doesn’t. Just sits beside me while I pick and prod at my dinner but can’t manage to eat.
Mace’s outburst has settled over us all like a weight. We’re all tense, quiet, none of us talking about what happened, or how Tom’s going to deal with his problem. Raze doesn’t touch me again in front of them. Barely says a word. And I’m wondering if maybe he doesn’t think I’m worth it after all. I’m probably not. This could be the last meal we share as family, and it’s my fault.
I help Tom take the dishes inside, before I decide I have to get out. I need some time alone. I need to be anywhere but here, watching my family fall apart. Or maybe I just need to let all the emotion swirling inside me out, but not here. Neither Razer, nor my brothers need to see me break. Not now. I don’t need a repeat of what just happened. I couldn’t bare it.
“I have to go out for a little while,” I tell Tom. “I want to see Chelsea before I leave.”
He runs water in the sink, keeping his back to me. His slumped over, staring into the suds as though the seriousness of this
evening is even too much for him. “Okay, Little Bit.”
I drive for a while, letting my emotions get the better of me, until I feel hollow. Then I head over to Chelsea’s, still not ready to go home, not ready to face Razer and ask him why he didn’t tell me he was leaving. Is he planning on cutting me out of his life again? He said he wasn’t going to do that, but why else wouldn’t he tell me? It all feels a little too familiar.
And it’s time for me to go home, too. I’ve been putting it off, soaking up this time with him, but I need to go back. The ball is only a week away. There are so many last minute details to take care of, and I need to sign off on the breach of contract. I’m pretty sure my lawyer had to explain to Henley’s father the exact reasons we were breaking the agreement. But I don’t think he was as surprised as I expected him to be. Besides I don’t want to do my moping in front of Mace, so he can rub it in that Razer’s gone.
“This is what you wanted.” I remind myself as I knock on Chelsea’s door. “You got what you asked for.”
But it was never that simple, was it? It’s like I pulled the cork from some magical bottle and when I made my wish I forgot to clarify what I really wanted. Because I didn’t know. I hadn’t factored in that it would be worse the second time round.
Gabriela, Chelsea’s little sister answers the door. I can’t believe how big she’s grown. She was barely a teenager when I left for college. “Wow, Gaby. You grew up.”
She wrinkles her nose and pushes away from the door, smacking her gum. “So people say. Chelsea’s upstairs.”
I find my own way up to Chelsea’s bedroom, remembering where it is from when we were teenagers, and knock on the door. “Anything good in there?”
She looks up from where she’s lying on her stomach, head bent over the gossip mag she’s reading. “No. You’re not in it.” She flips it closed and sits up. “What’s going on?”