I don’t answer. Can’t answer. Because he’s right, and we both know it.
“At least I’m honest about what I feel,” Judah continues. “At least I don’t hide behind this tough guy act like you do.”
“I don’t hide?—“
“Please.” He cuts me off with a wave of his hand. “You practically tripped over yourself trying to act nonchalant when you met Phoenix Riviera. Wonder what she’d think if she ever saw?—“
“Finish that sentence and I’ll drown you in the rest of that whiskey,” I interrupt, only half-joking.
Judah’s mouth curves into something that’s almost a smile. “You couldn’t take me in high school, and you sure as hell can’t take me now.”
The challenge hangs between us for a heartbeat, and then we’re both moving. I lunge forward just as he sets down his glass, catching him around the waist in a tackle that sends us both crashing to the floor. We roll across the worn carpet, a tangle of limbs and curses, muscle memory from a thousand childhood wrestling matches taking over.
Judah might be bigger, but I’m faster. Always have been. I slip out of his headlock and get behind him, hooking an arm around his neck in a hold that’s firm but careful. He bucks, trying to throw me off, but I’ve got leverage and the element of surprise.
“Give up?” I ask, tightening my grip just enough to make my point.
Instead of answering, Judah shifts his hips, grinding his ass against my crotch in a dirty move he knows will make me loosen my hold. Heat flares low in my belly—automatic, unwanted, completely inappropriate given the circumstances.
I choke out a laugh, refusing to let him win that easily. “If you want that kind of distraction, I’m happy to help, but it probably won’t work any better than it did in high school.”
Judah goes still beneath me, then sighs, the fight draining out of him. “Yeah,” he says, rolling away when I release him. “Fucking you is like fucking my brother.”
“Foster brother,” I correct automatically.
We lie there on the floor, breathing hard, staring up at the exposed beams of the attic ceiling. The familiar scent of old wood and sea salt fills my lungs, mixed with whiskey and the particular smell that is uniquely Judah—pine resin and coffee grounds and something deeper I’ve never been able to name.
This house. This man. The closest thing to family I’ve ever had.
I was fifteen when the Daniels took me in. A skinny, angry kid with too many foster homes behind me and a chip on my shoulder the size of Maine. Judah’s father found me sleeping in their boathouse after I’d run away from my latest placement—a house where the foster father’s hands wandered and the locks on the bedroom doors had been removed.
I expected to be turned in. Sent back. Punished.
Instead, Thomas Daniels looked at me with those same ocean eyes his son inherited and said, “Looks like you could use a hot meal and a real bed, son.”
Two weeks later, I was officially placed with them. Not as a foster kid—as family. The first time in my life anyone had ever wanted to keep me.
“You remember that time we stole your dad’s boat?” I ask, the memory surfacing unbidden.
Judah snorts. “Which time?”
“The first time. When we were fifteen and thought we knew how to navigate by the stars.”
“And ended up halfway to Nova Scotia before the Coast Guard found us.” A genuine laugh escapes him. “Dad was so pissed.”
“He grounded us for a month.”
“Worth it, though.”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling at the ceiling. “It was.”
We lapse into silence again, but it’s different now. Lighter. The anger has bled out, leaving behind the comfortable familiarity that has always been the foundation of our relationship.
After a while, Judah sits up, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “I’m not going to do anything stupid,” he says, answering the question I haven’t asked. “About Mason, I mean.”
“I know.”
“I just needed to…” He gestures vaguely at the whiskey bottle. “Process.”
