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“Silas, I’ve been—”
He punches me right in the face. I stumble backward, the railing on his steps catching me as I cup both hands to my nose, gasping in pain.
“Jesus!” I shout, the word garbled, warmth already dripping over my lips. “What the fuck?”
“You know what the fuck,” he says, stepping out onto his steps after me, clenching and unclenching his hand. “What the fuck is for making June—”
I punch him back. It’s not a very good punch, but it glances off his mouth and he stumbles backward, toward his doorframe.
“Fuck!” he shouts, hand over his mouth, blood already dripping down. I must have cut his lip on teeth. “You don’t get to hit me, you’re the bastard who’s been fucking my sister.”
“You hit me first, you asshole,” I say, one hand still over my face, ready to duck another punch at a moment’s notice. “You don’t even know what I was going to say!”
Silas stands up straighter for a moment and something ugly and dangerous flashes in his eyes. I’m backed up against the railing of his front steps, and though I’m still not afraid of him, there’s a moment where I wonder if I should be.
“Silas,” I start.
“Why does everyone think I’m some sort of idiot?” he asks, bringing his hand away from his mouth. “Did you seriously think I’d never know? Did you think that my best friend could bang my sister and I’d never cotton on?”
He turns, slams the palm of his hand into the doorframe, leaving a small but dark smear of blood.
A light goes on in the townhouse next door. We both see it, and Silas gives it and then me a long, wary look. I just squeeze my eyes shut against the pain searing through my face and hope that my nose isn’t broken.
I really don’t want to fly with a broken nose.
“I didn’t think that,” I say.
“You made her cry,” he says, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.
I take a deep breath, carefully prod at my nose.
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
The porch light goes on next door.
“Shit,” Silas mutters. “Think you can come inside without punching me again?”
“As long as you can,” I say.
“I’m standing outside at five in the morning and bleeding onto my fucking robe. Come inside, you jackass,” he says, turns, and swoops into his townhouse. The bathrobe swirls dramatically.
I follow. If he’s luring me into his house so he can beat the shit out of me, so be it. I know how any real fight between us would go; he spent years in the Marines and the last time I got into a scuffle I was fourteen and it was against my younger brother.
“The fuck is wrong with eight in the morning?” he demands, stalking into his kitchen. “Paper towels are on the counter, don’t bleed on my floor.”
I grab a paper towel, press it under my nose, then grab another one and hold it out to him. He takes it, presses it to his lip, looks at it, puts it back.
“I’m flying out of Roanoke at nine,” I say as he yanks the freezer open.
He just turns and looks at me. He looks at me for a long, long time, like he’s never seen me before and is taking my measure.
“Don’t you dare fuck with her,” he finally says, his voice low, flat. “I swear to God, Levi, if you toy with June, if you go beg for her back and then dump her again and then show up underneath her window with a ring and a proposal or some bullshit like that, I will kill you.”
I tilt my head back, against his cabinets, eyes shut.
“Silas,” I finally say. “When the hell have I ever toyed with anyone?”
“This better not be a first,” he says, and I hear him rummaging through his freezer. After a moment, I open my eyes again.
“It’s not,” I tell him, simply.
“Here,” he says, shoving a bag of frozen hash browns at my chest.
“Thanks,” I say, and hold it to my face, closing my eyes again.
It helps.
“I’m looking at apartments,” I tell him. “I have two tours set up for tomorrow and one for Friday morning.”
This announcement is met with silence, and after several seconds, I move the hash browns and open my eyes.
“In Bluff City?” he says, leaning against the counter opposite me, the words blurred by the frozen peas held to his mouth.
“Yes,” I say.
“After you dumped her because she was leaving?” he says. “I mean, because Logan dumped her because she was leaving?”
“I assume I’m Logan?”
“It’s not a very good pseudonym.”
“It’s slightly more complicated than that,” I say.
“I’m listening,” he says.
I try to give Silas the brief rundown: June didn’t tell me, my feelings got hurt, her feelings got hurt, staying together seemed impossible until my brothers talked sense into me.
