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“Dax doesn’t ‘fit in,’” I found myself saying. “Dax most certainly stands out.”
I was more than aware of Slate’s eyes on me, and I glanced at him out of the corner of my eyes.
He was studying my face.
“Why do you say your brother doesn’t fit in?” he asked curiously.
“My brother is what you would consider ‘beautiful,’” I admitted. “He’s also six foot four, weighs two hundred and forty-nine pounds, and has tattoos covering almost every inch of his arms and even one on his neck. He was almost denied entry into the Army because of them.”
“Meaning,” my father drawled, “that he’s going to stand out. He’s most certainly not going to be able to blend in.”
Slate shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s about normal nowadays. When I was in that might’ve caused a few people to go ‘hmm,’ now it’s just par for the course. It doesn’t surprise me about his almost denial, though. I had this one on my arm and they nearly said ‘hell no.’”
I looked at his arm and felt my lips twitch.
Every time I’d seen the tattoo, it’d cause my lips to twitch.
It was a sloth.
A really, really big sloth.
It started at his wrist—at least the tree that the sloth was hanging from did—and stopped somewhere underneath his t-shirt. The sloth took up the majority of his bicep as its clawed foot hung on from a tree branch.
“Not offensive, though,” my father muttered. “Which isn’t what Dax’s are.”
My lips twitched. “They’re not offensive, really.”
“You’re saying that a topless woman isn’t offensive?” my mother finally chimed in, still pissy about that tattoo.
My brother had gone one night on his seventeenth birthday to get a tattoo of a topless woman on his forearm. He’d come home, been proud as fuck about it, only to have my mother lose her shit over it.
It was hilarious, and I wish I could’ve taped it for nostalgia’s sake.
My mother, who was my height, ripping my brother, who’d been well over six feet at the time, a new asshole in front of everybody? Well, that was one for the books.
And something I’d cherish for my entire life.
“It happens, I suppose,” Slate said. “So…did you pull some strings to get him in?”
Max grinned. “I would have, but he ended up sweet talking his way in all on his own. Kid’s a charismatic little fuck when he wants to be.”
Slate snorted. “Must be nice. I’ve never had that ability. When I tried to talk my way out of shit, it always ends up digging my hole deeper.”
I turned to my mother. “Mom, you’ve met the neighbor that turned his sprinklers on me, right?”
My mother’s brows rose.
“Actually,” she said. “I have. I met him last night. But your father failed to mention the sprinkler part.”
Slate’s cheeks colored.
Let me repeat.
Slate’s cheeks. Colored.
Score!
“Your daughter also failed to mention that she was lying in his hammock, in his yard. When she had that pointed out to her, she gave him attitude,” Dad supplied helpfully.
I gasped. “Why must you take everybody’s side but mine?”
Dad’s eyes met mine.
“Baby, trust me when I say, being forced to be somewhere you don’t want to be, for a length of time that is irrationally long? It’s torture. Being home in your own environment is crucial to sanity. When he came home, he found you on his shit. What did you think was going to happen?” he asked.
I felt my stomach clench.
I hadn’t really thought about it that way, to be honest.
I just noticed that the hammock hadn’t been used—ever—and I’d had no problem in using it.
Now, thinking about how Slate had his choices taken away from him, as well as his every move dictated? Well, that made me rethink the petty games I’d been playing with the hammock this week.
Shit.
My eyes flicked to Slate, but he was busy studying something off in the distance.
I reached for another cookie to keep my mouth occupied.
“Why were you in prison?” my mother asked nonchalantly.
I nearly choked on my cookie.
“I killed my fiancée’s murderer,” he answered truthfully. “Beat the shit out of him. At the time, I wasn’t really trying to kill him, per se. Just…make him hurt like he made Vanessa hurt. Turns out that the guy had an underlying medical condition that was not conducive with being beat up. I didn’t have a clue.”
“Bummer,” Mom teased. “One less asshole to be on our planet, breathing in air.”
I gasped. “Mother!”
She shrugged. “I was working the night that y’all came in.”
I felt something in my belly twitch.
“Two police officers getting shot was a big deal for our tiny town,” she said. “You were a hero.”
Slate snorted. “A hero? Yeah…a hero would’ve saved her. I just let her bleed out in the squad car.”
“I remember them saying that you held pressure on her wound, and drove her to the hospital, all the while with a gunshot wound yourself,” she countered. “One that was making you bleed out almost as fast as her.”
