AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Because gays have a look?” I finally turned my head in his direction. He had a hoodie on, the hood over his head, and his hands were shoved in the front pocket. He had to be under ten, but what the fuck did I know? My Jesus, he looked like Nate as a kid. “I look gay?” I asked him.
The little fucker swept his eyes from my toes to my messy hair and back down again. “Yes.”
“Thanks.” I smirked at him. “Come on. They’re up next. You gonna hang back here in the nosebleeds or actually watch this thing?” I walked away without waiting for him. I felt his eyes on me, so the move was his.
Maddox and Devon had agreed to tape their knuckles for the sake of a little protection. Neither of them were happy about it, feeling like pushovers in love, but that’s exactly what they were. Devon was in the middle of telling Maddox to wear a mouthguard because he liked his teeth, and my brother gave him a smack upside the head for that. I pulled Maddox away.
“The fuck you being all soft for? We’ve got a kid to impress.”
“Devon likes my fucking teeth,” Maddox scoffed. “Apparently.”
Kane boys did have good chomps, that was for sure. “Look, if you don’t impress this kid enough to make him knock on our door, I will kill you myself. I don’t know what else to get Nate for our one-month anniver—”
“One-month anni… are you joking? No one gets shit for that. I still hated Devon after one month. Chill, Xavi.”
I would not chill, and I didn’t give a shit that no one celebrated months. Nate had been mine my whole life, but now he was mine in a different way, and I wasn’t about to let the milestones go by unnoticed. That timeline I felt pressured to live on got a whole new meaning when Nate became my baby, and now I wanted to commemorate the whole damn thing. In physical form. I was gonna sketch a damn timeline with our milestones marked like some people measured their kids’ height on the doorframe. Each notch, a new and awesome thing.
“Is your head in this?” I asked Maddox. “Surely he’s done some shit to piss you off lately.”
“Oh, he has.” Maddox grinned, looking at Devon while Nate taped his knuckles. “But this fight is more about a bet.”
“What bet?”
“That’s between us.” Maddox looked at me, and even though he wouldn’t tell me what the bet was, I knew it was something important. Something big. Something the two of them maybe wanted but didn’t know how to talk about, so they’d put it up as a bet in order to get the conversation going.
I smacked his cheeks before palming them just as the horn honked to signal them into the makeshift ring. “Don’t sully the family name, and we still don’t have dental coverage, so wear the mouthguard.”
“Fuck that,” he scoffed, bouncing on his heels. “He can try to knock out all the teeth he wants.” Maddox laughed, shoving me away. “But he won’t because my smile is sexy.”
“Like fuck it is.” I laughed as he bounced away, wrapping an arm around Devon’s neck to put him in a headlock. The two of them laughed, but as soon as they entered the sandy ring, the smiles fell off their faces, and it was all business.
“Ah, I’ve missed this tension,” I said to no one. But Nate was there suddenly, and he didn’t stop me from linking our hands together.
“Kinda glad our tension is different,” he said, leaning on me. “Did you see Evan?”
I tilted my head to where Evan was creeping through the crowd and climbing onto the top of a truck to get a better view. “He’s mouthy. Reminds me of you.”
Nate grinned. “I know, right? I feel like I was more badass than him, though.”
He wasn’t, but I nodded anyway. “Wish Karen was here.” I wasn’t sure how she felt about violence, but I knew she’d appreciate the vibe of the night. Maybe when she got out of the group home, she could come over and chill with us some days. Was that creepy? Maybe, but I didn’t care. I was Karen’s protégé, and I’d learn all the lessons from her I could manage to retain. Smiling and being happy despite some dire circumstances being one of them. God, she was a badass.
Somebody switched the song toI Hate Everything About YoubyThree Days Grace, and our brothers must have felt the vibe because they both crouched into a fighting stance, skipped the bumped knuckles to begin the fight, and just fucking went for it.
While they beat the shit out of each other and the crowd roared for spilled blood, Evan watched it all with a bit of a shocked look on his contemptuous little face. Yeah, gays weren’t pansies, and he was having an epiphany about it. Good on him. I grinned and pulled Nate in front of me. Wrapping my arms around his neck and resting my chin on his shoulder, I watched the fight and asked, “So, toys? A win?”
“Fuck,” he groaned. “I can’t believe you spent thirty-five bucks we don’t have on that, but I’ve never been more proud of you for being financially stupid.”
I smiled. “Guess what?”
“What?” He let me join our fingers together, trailing them all over his abs and chest. “Wait. No.” He stopped my hands. “Xavi, if you tell me that plug is still in, I will miss the rest of this fight and forget to teach a kid a lesson.”
I kissed his neck. “Okay, I won’t tell you that.”
His ass pressed back and he huffed out an annoyed but aroused sound, tightening his hands in mine. In the ring, Devon punched Maddox right in the chomps, and the diabolical laugh that left my brother sent chills down my spine. What a crazy bastard. He spit blood and didn’t let Devon get another hit in.
“Look,” I whispered, lips on Nate’s pulse point. “Think he’s learning that lesson.”
Evan sat on top of the truck, completely enraptured by the fight. I didn’t know if it was the lesson that gays were tough or the lesson that maybe there were a few people around who were tougher than his dad, but whatever it was, his life was changing. Nate wasn’t a scrapper if he didn’t need to be, but we could both hold our own, and if Evan needed someone to be his mad dog, he now had a few options. Us and our brothers. It really did feel full circle, like we went from being jokes to being supporters.
