“Maxwell!” Dad roars, his face turning an angry red.
He pushes up from his seat and slams his hand on the table causing the glasses to shake.
“How many times do I have to tell the two of you that you’re not welcome in my house?”
Ignoring him, Maxwell rounds the table to the right of me and ruffles our ten-year-old brother’s hair. Henry laughs andquickly loses the smile when Dad glares at him. While I round the table to the left and press a kiss to my mom’s cheek.
Her smile at our presence makes the grief of our father’s mood worth it. She’s the only reason Max and I knew love and happiness in our childhoods. She’s the one who said she was proud of us when we achieved something in school. She’s the one who taught us how to be men when our dad had no interest.
“Sit yourselves down. I’ll get you a plate.”
“They’re not staying. Get out of my house!” Dad bellows.
This is another reason we have so much love for our mother. She stands and stares him right in the eye.
“I cooked this meal, like I have cooked every meal for the last thirty years. If I want my sons to eat at my table, they will.”
Silence hangs heavy around us, and Max and I smirk.
Max is first to pull out a chair and I follow suit.
“Sit down, Frank, your food’s getting cold,” I tell him, and he storms out of the room.
“You can understand why he refuses to eat with you,” William, the brother who married my ex, sneers, adding, “What is that you’re wearing? You’re in a biker gang now?”
Max goes to argue but I get in there first. “Tell me, big bro, how did you like the taste of my dick the first time you went down on your wife?”
Max’s laughter has mom grinning as she enters with two plates of dinner. She places them in front of us and asks, “It’s so good to hear your laughter, Maxwell. I miss it around here.”
She presses a soft kiss to the top of his head before taking her seat.
William shoots his glare across the table and Jess won’t meet my eye.
I slide my ass onto the bar stool and slide over a roll of cash to my brother.
“Is this my cut from the car heist?”
“Say it a little louder, I don’t think they heard you down at the precinct,” I grunt, digging out my phone from my pocket. “Make it last, no work is coming in and I’m not paying your way again.”
Even though I will, and he knows it.
“So, listen, I’ve got something to tell you and you’re not gonna like it.”
I signal to the barman I want a beer and turn to my brother. When he starts a sentence like this, which is usually once a month, my stomach tightens in anticipation.
“Go on,” I urge.
It’s best to get it over with. The sooner I know, the sooner I can clean up his mess.
“Jess is seeing someone.”
That explains why she hasn’t been blowing up my phone for the last couple of months.
We went six months apart during one of our many break-ups, so not seeing one another until we bumped into each other in a club isn’t out of the ordinary. It hasn’t surprised me she’s been quiet over the past weeks.
“She sees a lot of people,” I say shrugging it off.
Neither of us are exactly celibate when we’re apart. She’s probably latched onto someone hoping I’d find out. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s done it.
