Page 85 of Her Brother's Keeper
“What the hell are you talking about? She go cryin’ about it to you or something? Fuck, man! She’s seventeen! She don’t know what she wants and she’s gonna wreck you!”
I swung on him, but Rush had always been the better fighter. He side stepped and swung onmebut he was drunk to my sober so I dodged pretty easily.
“Shit boys, I can’t tell if this is twin business or club business,” I heard Archer say.
Dragon harrumphed, “A little a both I’d say, but the result’s the same. Disrespect is an ass whoopin’ and bein’ that it’s Nox’s ol’ lady? That makes it Nox’s huckleberry.”
“We should let them sort it out then?” Trig asked as SAA. I was focused on Rush, who had his hands up now and got myself into a traditional boxer’s stance.
“Yup,” Dragon said and it was all I really needed to hear. I swung on my brother again and this time, I clocked him, cracking him a good one on his cheekbone.
“Ow! Motherfucker!”
“That’s what you get for being a fucking douche!”
“You know I’m fucking right, you assclown,” he grated and came at me.
We danced, trading blow for blow with me landing more than him only by the grace of his fuckin’ drunk over my sober. Unfortunately, his drunk meant he didn’t really feel half the blows I landed, while my sober meant I felt everyone, which sucked hard. My brother hit like a motherfucker, and that shit hurt.
He got in a lucky shot, right inmymouth and I tasted blood. I grunted and let fly, tackling him to the ground and laying into his gut with four or five well-placed blows.
“God damn motherfucking son of a bitch!”
“She was your fucking mother too!” I pointed out and caught off guard, he laughed, which pissed me off more.
I drew back to really fuck him up and was pulled off of him, I struggled for a fraction of a second, Revelator and Trig on either side of me, while Archer and Dragon hauled Rush to his feet.
“You’re gonna fucking apologize to Marenafteryou admit that your punk ass is just fuckin’ jealous!” I spit at him.
The outdoors got real fuckin’ quiet, my twin’s eyes growing stormy before he jerked out of Dragon and Archer’s hold.
“Man,fuckyou!” he shouted and spun, marching off past the fire into the dark.
“Think you might have hit a lot closer to home than Rush’d like to admit, little brother,” Archer said quietly. I sniffed and wiped at the blood under my nose.
“Yeah.”
I went to go inside, after my woman, after what was now my family to watch over, hold close and to guide and heard my brother Archer behind me.
“Heh, don’t worry about ‘em, they ain’t done it quite like this before, but they always kiss and make up in the end.”
I raised my middle finger up over my shoulder at him and dragged the back door to the lodge open, letting the wooden screen door crash closed behind me. I went to the nearest bathroom first to clean up. Maren and Sage were both either freaked or freakingout, and the last thing they needed was to see me bloodied.
I turned on the tap to cold and let the water run, bracing my hands on the edge of the sink and staring into the mirror above it.
It was eating at me, fighting with my twin. It always did until we resolved it somehow, but this one was one of the bigger divides we’d encountered yet. I didn’t like that but knowing Rush, he didn’t like it either.
I splashed cold water onto my face several times over and ignored it when the bathroom door swung open and shut. When I looked, I wasn’t too surprised to see Archer in the mirror above the sink. Used to be Grinder who carried out all the peace talks. It was kind of outside Archer’s realm of responsibility. Grind had always been the peacemaker among us… This just twisted the knife of missing him even harder.
“You’re pretty serious about this bitch, eh?”
“Don’t call her a bitch,” I said and scowled. Archer raised his hands in surrender.
“Didn’t mean nothin’ by it, you know that kid.”
“Yeah, still, don’t do it, okay? That’s my ol’ lady.”
“I noticed. About that… you sure? On a kind of Rush and all?”
