When he doesn’t say anything, I become even more worried. “How did the hearing go?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he murmurs into the crown of my head with a deep breath. The heat of it warms my scalp as my mind worries itself into circles trying to figure out what exactly happened.

“Really? Please just tell me your piece of shit brother was there, stood up, and actually took the blame for once.” I wince, worried I’ve overstepped my boundaries, but at the same time seeing him this upset is disconcerting.

He releases me the minute the words are out of my mouth and walks into the kitchen, his back toward me, and pounds a fist on the counter so that the few dishes stacked on it rattle from the force. I startle from the sound as he braces his hands on the counter and hangs his head down in silence.

“I’m sorry Hawke. I don’t know what happened today.” I trace the strong lines of his back, my heart lodging into my throat as I attempt to explain my comment. I know how it goes, you can bad-mouth your own kin but no one else can. Shit, I have Colton for a brother. I’ve bitched about him countless times before but the minute someone else does, my back is up and my mouth is on the defensive.

But then again, Colton has never tried to ruin everything I’ve worked for either.

“Look, I just …” I really want him to turn around so that I can see his expression but when he doesn’t, I continue. “I see how much of a burden he puts on you, how even when you know you are doing the right thing, it affects you … eats at you … and I just want you free of that. I know you love him, Hawkin, no one would ever question that, but you work so hard at everything and you need to be able to live without the constant shadow following you of what he’s going to fuck up for you next. So I’m sorry I said it but not sorry all the same.”

Silence hangs heavy in the air between us, and this reconciliation feels so very different from what I ever imagined.

“I need a drink,” he says, voice strained as he shoves back from the counter, eyes flicking to mine before he starts pacing like a caged animal.

I watch him for a beat, his hand pushing through his hair, jaw tense, and it’s nearly impossible to tear my eyes from watching the inner turmoil eat him alive. “Sure. Of course. Jack and Coke?” I ask as I move toward the cupboards to pour him a drink.

“Just Jack.”

I pull out the bottle of Jack Daniels from above the refrigerator and grab two glasses and set them on the kitchen table near where he’s pacing and lost in thought. I take a seat, every part of my body aware of his nearness. It’s like my nerves are a damn light switch and anytime he’s near me I’m flicked on, in every sense of the word.

He stops when he pulls himself from his thoughts and approaches the table as I sit down. The clink of the bottle’s neck as it hits the glasses fills the room as he pours us both a drink. I stay quiet, accept the glass he offers me even though I’ve never drunk Jack Daniels straight before, and just hold it in my hands. I watch him raise his to his lips and toss the amber liquid back without so much as a wince from its burn.

He finally looks up to me as his tongue flicks out to lick a drop off his lip. The smile he gives me doesn’t reach his eyes, and I hate how that makes me feel so off-kilter. It’s almost as if he’s nervous, agitated, like a trapped animal, and I want to roll my eyes at the thought but that’s the only way I can explain it to myself.

The onset of the coming night darkens the room as he pours another glass. He sets the bottle down, sits in a chair next to me, body angled so that we face each other, knees touching. He blows out a breath before taking a sip of the Jack, and meanwhile the air has thickened with tension and the disquiet of the unknown in what lies ahead between the two of us.

“You wanted to talk?” he asks, eyes locked on mine, expression undecipherable, almost like he’s detaching himself from me, and I hate it.

“I need to hear about the bet from you. I need you to make me understand why you didn’t tell me when things changed between us…. They did change, right? I mean I’m not making that up, am I?” The silence stretches during which he grants me a slow, even nod, words unspoken but his eyes show that he’s conflicted. “Hawke … I’m a pretty forgiving person, but you hurt me. I may have overreacted with the Vince thing, but finding out about the bet from Hunter was a blow to more than just my ego.”

He nods again, the drink now gone. I narrow my eyebrows as I watch him pour another. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake, a band thing that normally I would have let run its course—”

“But you did let it run its course,” I tell him, wanting to make sure that he sees my side of the argument.

“I know, that didn’t come out right. Look.” He scoots closer, so that one of my knees is between his. “At first it was a real thing, the bet…. But you’re right—things changed and I fucked it all up. The thing with Vince … Well, that was …” His voice trails off as he leans forward, his eyes darkening, a sheepish smile on his face.

I meet him halfway, hungry for his kiss, his taste, to demonstrate the intimate connection between us because even when we haven’t been able to communicate well in the past, our bodies have. And maybe that’s what we need, this little sip of each other to remind us what we have between us so that we can begin again.



Chapter 35


HAWKIN

Relief sifts through my body like an hourglass, slowly filling me with the knowledge that this whole bullshit charade is over and done. I’ve fulfilled my last promise to Hunter and now he can sink or swim on his own.

Hell yes, I love him, will help him if he asks for it, with limitations, but my days of being his father are over.

When I glance over my shoulder to where Vince sits a few rows back, there’s a smile of relief on his face. He showed up even when I told him not to. Like I always say, the guy would go to bat for me in a football game if I asked him to. I lift my chin toward him as Ben nudges me to turn back around and not piss off the judge, who is finishing his parting words.

The judge knocks his gavel, locks eyes with me, and gives me a stern warning nod. I nod in kind, letting him know I understand his message, that this will be my only reprieve from getting time, before he rises and walks into his chambers.

The minute his door closes, I slump in my chair and the courtroom becomes a flurry of activity. Reporters rush out of the room so that they can call in the verdict to their boss, which will most likely squash the story because it’s nothing as exciting as a conviction would have been.

“Thank fuck,” I say in an exhale of breath, my head resting on the back of the chair as I throw a silent thank-you out to the universe for letting me catch a break.

“Gotta earn those big bucks you pay me somehow, now, don’t I?” Ben says, throwing my comment back in my face from what feels like forever ago.

I sit up and stick my hand out to him—and it’s such a formality after everything we’ve been through over the years, but I need him to know how much I appreciate his guidance and expertise through the whole ordeal. He glances down at my outstretched hand and just grins, knowing this is the only admission I’ll give that he knows what he’s doing and is good at his job. He shakes my hand and squeezes it a little too tight, before reaching out and patting me on the back.

“Thanks, Benji. I owe you one.”

“I’d say anytime but if you lie for your brother again,” he says, daring me to tell him that I wasn’t covering for him, “I love you enough to tell you that I won’t defend you. I told him the same thing right before I came in here as well.”

“Told him what? That you won’t defend me or him?” I ask off the cuff, so distracted by the chaos of emotions swirling around in my body that it takes me a second to hear what he has said. “Whoa, wait. You called Hunter just to tell him that?” I can’t believe that with his complete disdain for my brother he even took the time to seek him out.

“First question, I won’t defend either of you,” he says with an arch of his brow as he starts stuffing papers into his briefcase. “Second, I ran into Hunt when I went to the bathroom before we started. It piss—”

“He was here?” What did he get, a change of heart, a conscience, or what? Because he sure as hell didn’t have the guts to walk in here and watch me take the heat for him. Anger lights up within as it all hits me: my stupidity, the risks I took, being used … all of them simply solidifying how I already feel.

“Yeah. He was in the hallway right before I came in. We got into it. I told him this wasn’t you taking the rap for him for hitting a parked car like you did in high school. Let him know he was a piece of shit for using guilt that’s not yours to hold you responsible for his mistakes.”

I meet the blue eyes of one my oldest friends and realize how damn lucky I am that despite my preoccupation with taking care of my brother over the years, I have all of these incredible people watching my back. Then it hits me how agitated Ben was when he first sat down, and now I know why. It was because Hunter was here.

“Dude, you’re family … but I told him he wasn’t allowed in this courtroom. As much confidence I had with how well your seminar went, it was still a crapshoot, and the last thing I wanted was to give him a chance to gloat while you took the fall for him if it went to hell.”

I nod my head, the merry-go-round of emotions inside me on full throttle right now. One of the many burdens that’s weighed me down has been lifted permanently and fuck if it doesn’t feel good. Between Hunter and the promises to my dad and shaking this conviction, I feel so relieved. It’s like I’m floating on air. And with Quin wanting to talk, shit, I might just grow wings and fly soon.

“Man, let’s get the hell out of here,” Vince says from behind me, interrupting our conversation the same time I feel his hand patting me solidly on the back.

“You don’t have to ask me twice!” I tell him, ready to shed this stiff shirt and don one of my tees that’s sitting folded on the front seat of my car. Then it dawns on me, breaks through the fog of relief, that Quinlan texted me and wants to talk. Can my day get any better? “Dude, did you talk to Quin? What did she say?”

I see the shock flicker across Vince’s face before he narrows his eyes and shakes his head like he’s confused. “How’d you know?”

What? “How’d I know what?” Now I’m confused. What in the hell is he talking about?

“How’d you know I talked to her earlier?”

I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone all of a sudden, like we’re talking about two different things. “Because I told … uh …” I look over to Ben for the name of his aide.

“Steph,” he fills in for me and I can tell his interest is piqued, his eyes darting over his shoulder where she is speaking to an associate.

“Yeah, Steph. I had her give you my phone. Quin texted me. I wanted you to call her. So what did she say?” My sentences are short and clipped and I don’t care that I’m kind of being an ass because I don’t want to play games right now. I just want to walk the fuck out of the courtroom, which I don’t ever care to see the inside of again, and go find Quin so that we can move forward somehow after my monstrous fuckup.

When he just continues to stand there and look at me like I’m crazy, I hold out my hand. All patience is lost. “Fuck it. Just give me my phone.” I can tell Vince is getting irritated with me talking to him like he’s a dumbshit, but if he doesn’t want to be treated like one, he shouldn’t act like one.

“I don’t have your phone, Play. I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Unease begins to settle in the far reaches of my mind, and I’m brimming with frustration when Ben beckons Steph over. I can see the worry flicker over her expression as she approaches the three of us, who are focused solely on her.

“Yes?” I can hear the trepidation in her voice, the fear that she’s done something wrong in her new job.

“Hawke’s phone? Where is it?” Ben asks, tone stern.

Her eyes shift to mine and then back to Ben’s. “I don’t have it. I gave it to his brother in the hallway—”

“Oh fuck!” It’s the only word that can express the dread that explodes through me right now. That and the mix of adrenaline as I’m rushing out of the courtroom like a man on a mission the minute everything registers: the possibilities, my fears, my brother’s anger, his never-ending need to sabotage my life.