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“Wait just a minute,” Brighton retorts, throwing her napkin onto the table. “You don’t get to—”
“You”—Braxton’s voice is deadly, and he levels his eyes on her—“Say nothing. I’ll deal with you later.”
“Deal with me? The hell you will.” She stands, hands on hips. Her eyes meet his with venom.
Uh oh. Here we go.
He spins, throws open the front door, and stalks into the bright, November sun. Brighton is hot on his heels, but stopped by Willa, who snags her attention.
I stand, drop my napkin to my chair, and grab my tea, taking a fortifying sip. “Excuse me.” I murmur. I clap Layton on the shoulder as I round his end of the table to the front door. “Thanks, Lay. You’re as subtle as a nuclear bomb.”
I pull the door closed behind me as I step outside, knowing the effort is futile. This big, nosy family will have their faces pressed to the glass if they aren’t gutsy enough to spill out onto the porch to watch the show that’s about to go down.
Braxton stands, hands on hips, staring down at the ground.
My shoes scraping across the gravel alert him to my arrival.
I do not square off with him. He’s got forty pounds on me. Not to mention, he’s a hot-headed Italian.
I’m lean like a runner. He’s built for CrossFit.
I’m wily. He’s brute force.
I respond. Braxton reacts.
He needs time to think, but not to stew. And that’s a hair’s breadth difference in time and space.
“You’re fucking my sister?” His voice is sinister, and his words hit me like nails. When his head whips to meet me, and his gaze lands on mine, I know I missed the window between calm and storm.
Fuck.
The first punch throttles my cheek.
I give him that one. But only one. I made him a promise… a promise I’ve broken over and over again.
But now he’s pissed me off.
“Don’t talk about Brighton that way,” I warn.
His head rears back, as if I’m speaking Greek. “What?”
“I won’t have you denigrate her like that.”
“Denigrate her? You’re screwing her and you think how I talk about it is the problem?” His stance is wide as he readies his body for another punch.
“Enough!” Brighton yells as she runs toward us.
“Stop,” I bark at the same time.
“Why? So you can break another promise? Lie to me more? So you can use her? Fuck no, Eli. I won’t stop.”
“I’m in love with her, asshole.”
He swings, and I duck, shoving him in the chest, increasing the distance between us. We need to diffuse the situation.
Braxton rears back and lands a second hit as I put myself between him and Brighton. He manages to hit the same spot as the first, splitting my cheek open and clipping my eye in the process. The swelling makes it hard to see. The throbbing in my face has a pulse and immediately heats. But the warmth of blood oozing from the split is the most distracting of all.
Boots crunch behind us as Bright rounds me, reaching up with her right hand to cup my cheek, before whirling on her brother.
