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Travis bit back a smile as the little she-devil stuck her tongue out at Brant.
“You’re a doucheface, Brant.” The little girl once more tucked herself close to Aaron. “Stop calling Aaron by his deadname. He’s aboy.”
“Brooklyn,” Aaron said, a smile softening his hard expression as he looked down at his fierce defender. “You go inside, okay? Andhushwith the names. She’ll get us both if she hears you calling somebody that.”
“I wanna stay with you.” Brooklyn still clung to Aaron’s hand. “Brant’s the one who should leave.” Her big eyes, framed with incredibly thick lashes, narrowed on the other kid. “Brant, goaway. This isn’t your home.”
“It’s notyourhome, either, you little twerp,” Brant said, scowling at the little girl. “Your parents don’t love you enough so the court took you away. You’re just freeloading here.”
“That’s enough.” Travis stepped in before the other two could respond. Putting his body between them and Brant, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe you should leave.”
The boy’s eyes met his, then jerked away, his show of false confidence lost as he faced an adult.
It was over. His body language made that clear even before he turned away and started to slink off.
Then Aaron spoke. In a mockingly cold voice, he said, “That’s right, little man. Run along home now that a realmanis here. Isn’t that kind of what you said to me the other day?”
Brant spun around and rushed forward, fist upraised.
Travis caught it. Pain twisted inside as his injured side protested the movement, but he didn’t let it show.
The older kids both gasped and Aaron whispered a stunned, “Fuck.”
The little girl was much, much louder.
“WOW!” Her shriek echoed in a way that didn’t seem possible and jacked up the pain in Travis’s skull.
“If you want people to think you’re aman,” Travis said, his tone level. “You might want to try working on that temper of yours. And maybe stop trying to pick fights with people half your size.”
“What the fuck are you doing to my kid?”
Travis had seen the man approaching.
While he was disappointed the broad, brawny man seemed to think his kid was the one being wronged, he wasn’t surprised. It had been his experience that asshole kids usually happened because they had asshole parents.
“Don’t even try to touch either of those kids,” he said in warning before letting Brant’s fist go.
The boy stumbled back, his face still pale but harsh flags of color stained his cheekbones, a sign of both humiliation and anger.
“What is this shit?”
A larger, more heavily muscled version of Brant pushed into Travis’s personal space, the man’s lantern-jawed face twisted with an angry sneer.
“Who do you think you are, laying hands on my kid?”
“I’m the guy who stopped him from punching somebody half his size.” Travis watched the man’s eyes flick over to his kid, and then toward Aaron.
“If that kid wants to pretend to be a boy, she needs to figure something out,” Brant’s father said, his tone derisive. “Boys their age get into fights. She don’t like it? Thenbe a fucking girl.”
“I don’t think the kid’s gender is any of your business—or that of your kid’s,” Travis said, lifting a hand when the kid behind him sucked in his breath to respond. “And I don’t know about you, but back when I was a teenage boy, guys who tried to pick fights with kids half their size were generally considered assholes and bullies. Pretty sure those rules haven’t changed.”
The bigger man shoved even closer to Travis, one big hand coming up to grip the front of his shirt.
Looking down at that hand, Travis debated his options on how to handle this. “Since his father clearly didn’t teach him how to control his temper, I figured I might as well step in. You really should take your hand off me. Now.”
“Yeah?” The man gave him a sneering excuse of a smile and tightened his grip on Travis’s shirt. “Or what?”
Travis caught the man’s wrist and twisted, spinning into the movement as he yanked the bigger guy off balance and sent him smashing facedown into the sandy, gravel-ridden dirt.
