I raised the beer to my mouth. “Saw her first,” I reminded Nash.
The flash of anger I saw in his eyes was gratifying. “Oh, fuck you, man. You pissed her off first.”
I shrugged carelessly. “Same thing. Might as well just wander that law-abiding ass of yours back to Liza J’s. I’ll bring Naomi and Waylay to you.”
“Can’t stop me from doing my damn job, Knox.”
I got out of my chair.
Nash’s eyes narrowed.
“Give you one free shot,” I offered, then drained the rest of my beer.
“One for one?” my brother clarified. He always did pay too much attention to the rules.
“Yep.”
He placed his watch on the hood of the SUV and rolled up his sleeves. I put my beer in the cup holder and stretched my arms overhead.
“Never used to need to warm up before,” Nash observed, adopting a boxer’s stance.
I loosened up my neck and shoulders. “Fuck off. We’re over forty. Shit hurts.”
This was overdue. Fists were how we’d settled countless arguments for decades. Fight and move on. Until the thing punching each other in the face couldn’t settle.
“What’s the matter?” I taunted. “Having second—”
Nash’s stupid fist plowing into my face cut off the rest of my sentence. It was a bell ringer. Right in the fucking nose.
Shit, that hurt.
“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.