Page 10 of Oddly Fine

Franklin shrugged and smirked. “You’ve never liked men before—” he added with a snort, as if liking dick meant he’d undergone a complete personality change.

Beckett didn’t waste his time responding to Franklin’s lame attempts to provoke him.

“Still planning on telling them?” Franklin asked, openly curious.

Beckett hated conversations like this with Franklin. It always felt like there was a snake slithering up to his shoulder and hissing in his ear. Despite knowing that his brother wanted only the best for him, Beckett still found it was extraordinarily difficult to resist the urge to deliver a solid right hook to his model-perfect jaw.

“Yes,” he answered, keeping it simple and refusing to divulge any details that could be exploited or twisted around.

“And how—”

“Why don’t we talk about you for a change?” Beckett interrupted, turning to face his brother. “Anything interesting to reveal? Any hot babes in your sights?”

Franklin hiked his eyebrows as if to say, “Really?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Franklin said, shaking his head. And Beckett wasn’t sure why that clearcut refusal hit a nerve.

“Doesn’t it get old after a while?” Beckett demanded, feeling a hot surge of anger and resentment that he didn’t bother to hide.

Franklin looked confused.

“The lone-wolf act? Having no one to share with?” Beckett asked mockingly.

Franklin would have been an excellent poker player. There was nothing to betray the hurt Beckett knew he must be feeling after that last shot. Franklin looked unaffected, blinking blankly at Beckett like he’d been asked about his grocery list.

“We take up the space we are allowed,” Franklin answered with a simple shrug, and yeah—now Beckett looked like a fucking asshole again. Which was really par for the course when dealing with Franklin.

Their relationship had never been the easiest. Franklin had been so unlike Jackson and Beckett. He’d been quiet and observant. Never one to get into trouble. He and Maggie had always been their mother’s favorites, but unlike Maggie—the only girl—he hadn’t really stood out. As a result, he’d gotten lost in the crowd. Beckett had been younger, and self-absorbed in the way most teenagers were. He hadn’t bothered to analyse how much space he was taking up every day. But Franklin had noticed, and apparently his resentment towards Beckett because of it had only grown over time. If they’d had little in common as teenagers, then it was now painfully obvious that their adult selves barely knew each other. Especially since the day that Beckett had enlisted, Franklin hadn’t held back as he expressed his severe disappointment. Loudly. Telling him he’d be throwing his life away. Years later, when Beckett had gotten discharged, his brother was neither sympathetic nor supportive. Granted, Beckett had been an absolute mess when he’d been discharged from the Marines, but Franklin had been a real hard ass about it. In his expert opinion, the required therapy provided by the military that Beckett had undergone wasn’t nearly enough to patch him up and make him a stable, productive member of society again. They’d argued about it one too many times, until finally Franklin had simply stopped calling.

Secretly, Beckett had been glad to get that monkey off his back.

Now, it seemed their ceasefire had actually been more of a straight up divorce than Beckett had realised. Beckett thought maybe it was time to repair their fractured relationship, so he decided he’d be the bigger man and be the first to extend the olive branch.

“I’m never far away, you know,” Beckett said, feeling more than a little awkward. He rubbed the back of his neck, wishing for the umpteenth time that he could just rip off his damned tie. “I might not give the best relationship advice, or business advice, or—well, any kind of advice, but I’ll—listen. And then offer some shit advice you can ignore before calling Maggie.”

Franklin turned to him then, and Beckett felt the weight of his stare even as he continued to scan the crowd. It took Beckett a minute to summon the courage to turn his head and meet that stare head-on. Franklin had their father’s eyes, which were summer sky blue, bright with intelligence, and incredibly perceptive. His scan of Beckett’s expression was brief but intense.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Franklin said, and for once, he seemed to be sincere.

Beckett gave a sharp nod and turned away before his brother could glean any secrets from his soul. He wished the silence between them was comfortable, but it wasn’t, not in the slightest.

“Franklin!” His mother exclaimed as she and Hayes re-appeared with John trailing after them.

Hayes locked eyes with Beckett instantly, his gaze asking if he needed to intervene, since he knew just how—aware Franklin was of their situation. Beckett responded with a reassuring smile.

“Find anything you like?” Franklin asked as he embraced her and then stepped back.

“Oh—yes, many lovely things, but none in my price range,” she said with a laugh. Franklin’s gaze softened.

“Show me,” he said encouragingly, nodding towards the display cases.

Of all the siblings, Franklin was the most successful financially. But Beckett wasn’t poor by any means. His ordeal in the sandbox had been rewarded with a lump sum that he’d stashed away for his retirement years. However, Franklin had his own private practice in psychiatry, and most of his clients were millionaires. He worked out of both the US and Canada, so he was certainly capable of spoiling their mother from time to time. A nice bauble or two for Cynthia wouldn’t even put a dent in his wallet.

“No, no—” their mother protested, shaking her head.

“Humour me,” Franklin replied. “Your birthday is coming up. February 3rd is only a few months away.”

After a quick debate about viewing the display cases again, they headed back to the showroom floor to look at her favorites. As they walked away, Cynthia was enthusiastically describing a gold bracelet she didn’t really need but she certainly admired the craftsmanship.