“I hope you’re watching him. Nobody needs to be stepping into dog shit,” the man grumbled.
I’d put my neck on the line for this asshole? His brother had been the one to come thank me—not that I had needed or wanted a thank you for helping him out—but it would have been nice. “If he poops, I’ll pick it up. But he hasn’t,” I said to him calmly, trying to figure out what might have crawled up his butt.
“I don’t see a bag in your hand,” he tried to argue.
Did he think he was the neighborhood watch?
“He just ran across the street, why would I have a bag on me?”
“Jackson, cut it out,” a deeper, rougher voice chimed in before either one of us had a chance to say something else.
There was only one person that voice could have belonged to: Dallas.
The man’s face went red and his entire body went stiff at getting called out by his supposed brother. He turned his body as the other man, Dallas, made his way down the pathway from his door, arms loose at his sides as he came toward us. But it wasn’t the ancient jeans he had on or the one-size-too-large dirty T-shirt he had on that caught my attention. It was his facial expression. There was a scowl on Dallas’s face that said he couldn’t believe what the hell he’d been hearing and he was disappointed by it. I would know, I’d been the cause of that look on my mom’s face enough times in my life.
Dallas kept coming, his gaze frozen in place, on his brother to be specific, who wasn’t moving. Neither one of them said a word until he stopped right next to the man talking to me, his forehead furrowed as he said in a low voice that wasn’t low enough for me to not hear, “We talked about this shit.” He spat each word out, anger lining each syllable.
I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t wonder what kind of shit they’d talked about. Being a jerk? Unfriendly? Both?
“I already told you to quit being an asshole to the neighbors.”
That explained it.
Somehow I must have disappeared to both of them because the man I could only assume was named Jackson turned to face Josh’s head coach. His neck was red, and I’d bet five bucks it wasn’t the sun to blame. “You’re not my fucking dad, asshole, and I’m not a fucking kid. You don’t get to tell me what to do—”
This was awkward.
And I wasn’t going anywhere.
I glanced from one man to the other, noticing their similarities, which were quite a bit actually. They both had the same long, straight nose, heavy brow bone and strong jawline. Both were handsome in a way, depending on how you looked at them, but Jackson was prettier even though he looked older, more like a cover model, where the only thing cover model about Dallas was his resting bitch face that was too aggressive to be on the cover of anything other than a survival guide magazine. That was it as far as similarities went though. Where one of them had long hair, the other had it shaved down. One had a beard; the other had thick stubble. Blond and brown. Green eyes and hazel ones. A jerk and not as much of a jerk. That last one was still out for judgment. Dallas’s saving grace was that he’d been nice to Louie and Josh.
“I get to tell you what you fucking do since you’re living at my house,” the man named Dallas kept going as if I wasn’t there. “My house, my rules. We went over it already. Don’t make it seem like I’m springing this on you.”
Maybe hanging around wasn’t a good idea after all.
I eyed the distance between my house and where I was. Then I squeezed Mac’s collar tighter. When Rodrigo and I argued, we had always done it away from other people… and a day later, we were usually on good terms again.
“Fuck off,” the Jackson guy spat, shaking his head, his rage clearly obvious to anyone within a quarter of a mile. “I’ve had about enough of your shit. I don’t need this.”
Dallas laughed that same bitter, wretched laugh I’d heard out of him the day he’d been arguing with the woman outside of the house. I couldn’t tell if it was out of rotten humor or if he was genuinely bothered and trying to cover it up, but… it hurt me. “All I’m asking is for you to be nice to the fucking neighbors and quit doing dumb shit, Jack. There’s nothing for you to have ‘enough of.’”
“Fuck off. That’s the story of your life and you know it. Everyone ends up getting tired of your shit eventually,” the Jackson guy continued so angrily it finally triggered Mac’s growl.
If I hadn’t overheard the conversation Dallas had with the woman in the sedan who may or may not have been his wife, I would have no idea what he was talking about. But I did hear it. And the comment had me feeling defensive of this poor man who might be a gigantic asshole to the people who should have been the most important in his life, for all I knew. But still, harsh, much?
Jackson raised a middle finger as he walked by his brother and pressed the front of it against Dallas’s forehead as he walked by. What the hell was wrong with this man? And my neighbor, the real one, didn’t move an inch as his brother did that. He kept those hazel eyes locked on the other man even as he disappeared up the driveway for a moment before the loud roar of a motorcycle filled the air. Before I knew it, a beefy Harley was getting rolled down the driveway—where the hell was that thing parked? In the backyard?—the person behind the handles wearing the same clothing Jackson had on a second ago. Then he was gone.
That was interesting.
Unsure what I was supposed to do, I just stood there. Awkward. Maybe he wouldn’t notice I’d listened to everything said between them. A girl could dream.
And that was exactly what didn’t happen because the man named Dallas turned his attention to me.
Of all the things I could have said or asked, I went with, “Are you the older brother or the younger one?” before I could stop myself.
I didn’t realize how offended someone could get over that question until after it came out of my mouth. If someone had asked if Rodrigo was the younger one, I would have slapped them.
He let out a noise in his throat as he glanced in the direction his brother had disappeared to and shook his head.
That said more than enough.
Luckily, after a moment or three, my neighbor settled for blinking down at me with that remote expression on his face. What did he think I was trying to do? Get information to steal his identity? “Older,” he finally answered.
“Ahh.” That explained everything. I would like to think it was because I didn’t know him that I said, “I’m sure my older brother wanted to kill me a few times in his life.” I could probably count at least fifty different occasions when he would have wanted to shake me at some point. God, I missed him. “That’s family for you.”