I didn’t want Astrid to do this fight alone because she didn’t get herself into this situation on her own. She had some seriously valid arguments, and it astounded me how thick-headed my usually-rational best friend was being. It was as if his brain computer couldn’t compute what his sister was saying. It was as if he was so blinded by his need to protect everyone around him in some macho attempt to make up for shit in his life that he couldn’t see how much he was harming her. How much he was pushing her away.
And damn it, she deserved someone to stick up for her.
But the second the words flew out of my mouth, Brooks slowly turned his gaze to me. I was glad that his anger no longer targeted his sister, but the sheer carnal desire to rip my head off worried me. I knew he wouldn’t rationalize in this kind of situation. I knew he was too heated at the fact that I had broken my promise to listen to anything we were saying. But I’d be damned if he hurt Astrid any more than she had already been hurt.
They’d both been through enough.
“Brooks, we need you to calm down, okay?” I asked.
I tried to keep my voice as even-keel as possible, but his face turned beet red. His hands clenched at his sides so tightly that I saw droplets of blood pressing itself through his fingers. I looked down at his hands and saw his nails digging into his skin. He was literally making himself bleed as he tried not to kill both of us.
And for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he was so upset.
“There’s more to this than a simple promise. I know there is. I’ve known you basically my whole life, and I’ve never known you to get this angry at something. But if any of this is gonna get fixed, you gotta start talking. Just like Astrid started talking.”
Cole’s voice flew over our heads. “So, anyone gonna sit down so I can finish stitching you assholes up?”
Not a single voice answered him as Brooks drew in a deep breath. “I’m tired of yelling.”
I nodded. “Then, we finally have some common ground.”
His fists loosened. “I’m tired of the fake shit, and the smokescreens, and mirrors, and the two-faced assholes we’ve got right here in this club trying to rip us apart.”
I lowered my voice. “Careful, Brooks. We’re treading on thin ice right now.”
He stepped toward me. “Don’t I fucking know it.”
Astrid pressed her hands against his chest. “No more fighting. All of us have fought enough. We either talk or we walk away until we’re ready to talk. Okay?”
Brooks didn’t bother looking down at her. “This is your last warning. Either move or be caught in the middle of it.”
I shrugged. “She’s already in the middle of it because this is about you and her. Not you and me. Yes, I broke a promise. And yes, maybe I shouldn’t have. But I care about your sister. I always have. All I want is for her to be happy, safe, and prosperous, whatever that means from me. And right now, I see her brother hurting her the most, and all I want is to fix it so she can have the relationship with you that I know she wants. Do you want that with her?”
“Want what?”
“A relationship with your sister, man. Do you want one?”
He ground his teeth together. “Not what I’m focused on right now.”
I pointed at him. “And that’s the problem. She’s poured her entire heart out to you, and you’re only focusing on the one thing that pisses you off. You haven’t even heard about how happy we make one another, or how she feels when she’s around me, or what my intentions are. All you hear is the fact that we slept together, and all of a sudden you’re a feral animal with nothing to lose. Why? Why can’t you hear us? Why do you only hear yourself?”
For a split second his face softened, and I thought I had him. So, I continued.
“I’m tired of you two always going back and forth. I’m tired of Astrid feeling like shit. Hell, I’m tired of you feeling like shit. I know you want a relationship with her. I’ve heard you tell me so many fucking times how much you miss her since she upped and moved away. Well, now she’s back! And you’re about to ruin it with your narrow-mindedness. Why is your sister acceptable collateral damage for a man that aligns himself with a crew that respects women? How does that calculate in your mind?”
He lifted his head and I watched the guard fall back down.
“All your sister wants to know is why. You have that answer. You have the ability to give her some peace and some knowledge. So, go ahead. Do it. Be the brother you think you already are.”
“That’s it,” Brooks growled.
In the blink of an eye, he shoved Astrid out of the way. Without even considering what he was doing, he gripped her shoulders, tossed her off to the side like a piece of trash, and lunged at me. His hands wrapped around my throat. I heard Astrid connect with the ground before she started gasping for air. And as Cole rushed to her side, I connected my fist with Brooks’ jawline.
Before he went tumbling to the ground.
“Stop it. Please,” Astrid wheezed.
I fell on top of Brooks and straddled his pelvis. I threw punch after punch, seeing nothing but red as my knuckles cut themselves open. He blocked his face as best as he could before he raised up and wrapped his arms around my body. He stood, taking me with him, and then barreled me into his bike.
Pressing the handlebars against my spine as we toppled over again.
“Stop it!” Astrid yelped.
“You’re going to pay for what you just did to her,” I hissed.
I connected punches anywhere I could. I pressed my knee into his groin, trying to do anything I could to hurt him. I was done. I was over taking his side when all he was being was a fucking nutcase. I was tired of sticking up for him behind his back to a woman whose heart had been broken because of him.
And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him get away with being a goddamned hypocrite.
“I’m going to kill you!” Brooks roared.
“After what you just did to a woman, I might just kill you first,” I grunted.
I raised my hands high into the air and locked my fingers. Brooks stared up at me with a feral look on his face before I brought them down into his chest. His eyes widened as he gasped for air, struggling to get up. And when I scrambled to my feet, I went rushing for Astrid’s side.
While her brother struggled and coughed to catch his breath.
“Hey, are you all right? Did he hurt you?” I asked.
She sniffled. “Just my pride, really.”
I crooked my finger beneath her chin. “Seriously, are you hurt?”
A tear streaked her dusty cheek. “How could he put his hands on me like that?”
Brooks’ hoarse voice met my ears. “How the hell could you do this?”
I ignored him as my eyes danced over Astrid’s body. I wanted to be doubly sure she wasn’t bleeding or in need of a doctor. But before I could finish my own little doctor’s appointment with her, a hand gripped the back of my leather jacket.
And the force ripped me to my feet.
“How long has this been going on?” Brooks asked pointedly.
I shoved him away. “You don’t get any more answers until she gets some. Got it?”
He put his hands up. “You caught me off-guard once, but you won’t do it again. Come on, tough guy!”
I held my hands up. “I’m not fighting you anymore.”
“Come on!” Brooks yelled.
I held my hands higher. “See, everyone!? I refuse to fight him! I refuse to fight the irrational angry man that Brooks has become!”
He straightened his back as he lowered his hands. “How long have you two been fucking around?”
I licked my lips. “How about I give you something a little more broad. Because if you think for one second I fucked your sister without having feelings for her, then you underestimate me as a man. Astrid isn’t a one-and-done woman. She’s special. She’s an angel. And I’ve had feelings for her ever since we were both prospects together. I know you know that, too, because I know that’s why you made me make you that promise. So, why are you acting like you didn’t know shit? Why are you acting like I’m some kind of predator who sank my teeth into your sister? And why in the actual fuck are you treating this like I just touched your thirteen-year-old sister. She’s in her mid-twenties, man. Wake up.”
He lifted his nose up high. “Why the hell did you act on it now, then, if you’ve loved her all this time?”
I shrugged. “Wasn’t planning on it, even after she came back into town. It just… morphed. Like it morphed with you and Raven.”
He pointed his finger in my face. “You’re the only one in this fucking club I trusted when I first got out of prison. And now? That trust is gone. I don’t want you anywhere near me or my sister.”
Astrid stood to her feet with Cole’s help. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Brooks whipped around toward her. “I own that house you’re living in. Remember that.”
She scoffed. “What? You gonna throw out your sister because you don’t like who she’s with? I’d fight you on it, but it’s pretty on-brand with you right now—tossing away family because all you want to be is in control.”
And when Brooks didn’t respond, I knew we’d finally hit the bottom of the issue.
Astrid caught it, too. “That’s what this is about, right? Our lives spun so effortlessly out of control as kids that now you have to have a stronghold on everything around you? And everyone? You couldn’t help Mom and you couldn’t bring back Dad, so you leave it all in the dust and control what and who’s around you, no matter what it does to your relationship with them? You want control over your life so badly that you’re willing to implode it just to get it? Is that what you’ve become? Just some weak-ass little man who needs to feel powerful through manipulating others?”
The words hung so heavily in the air that they almost choked me. The silence was damn near deafening, and the pointed way Astrid had with words robbed me of my breath. I mean, I knew how to string a sentence together when I was passionate about something. But she was on a completely different level.
I wonder if she writes her own material, too.
I wasn’t sure what went on in Brooks’ mind because I’d never seen him walk away from an issue that wasn’t resolved. But in that moment, he became Chops. He shot me one more glare before he walked toward his bike, his shoulders hunched and blood dripping down his fingertips.
“I could stitch you up, man!” Cole called out.
I rolled my eyes before I turned back to Astrid. “You okay?”
But the tears rolling down her neck gave me my answer.
“He’ll come back around,” I said as I walked over to her, “he just needs some time.”
She snickered. “Ever the loyal dog, huh?”
I paused. “What?”
She took a step away from me. “After everything he said and did, and you’re still willing to stick up for him after he’s shat on you. Really, Porter?”
I shook my head. “I’m just trying to keep spirits—”
She waved her hand in the air. “Tell it to someone who cares.”
I felt like shit as I watched her walk back to her car. I watched as she got in, drove away, and rode off into the horizon. The smell of gasoline and burnt rubber filled the air as Brooks got onto his bike and skidded out of the parking lot, heading in the exact opposite direction as his sister.
I hated that I had done this to my best friend.
I hated that I had done this to his sister.
And I hated that Brooks was in a dark hole I couldn’t pull him out of.
He helped you, and you can’t even help him. What kind of friend are you?
“Seriously, everyone inside. You’re all going to get infections at this rate,” Cole said curtly.
But I didn’t follow anyone back inside. All I did was mull over what happened as I stood helplessly in the parking lot, struggling with what to do.
Did I go after my best friend—who was essentially my brother—and try to patch things up? Or did I go after the woman I loved?
Why the hell do I have to choose in the first place?
