Page 81 of Her Brother's Keeper

“What, not you too?”

“No, not me too, jackass. I wanted to know what you did to make little miss over there so fuckin’ happy. There’s give her some great dick kind of happy then there’s this. What did you do?”

I bowed my head and shook it, sure this was going to hurt some kind of way, but having zero fucks to give. Maren was happy, I was happy, and despite what a lot of these motherfuckers wanted to think, she and I weresolid. So I told him, “Gave her my rag, bro. She’s my ol’ lady.”

“No shit?” Archer asked surprised, his mouth turning down at the corners like he was some kind of impressed, “Rush is gonna shit, but good on you, bro.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, really,” he said. I nodded slowly… that was Archer, a man of few words but when hedidput in his say, it was something like sixty/forty you were gonna get ripped to shreds by whatever came out of his mouth. I was surprised to land in the forty percentile this go around so I had to ask…

“What makes you say that?”

He gave me a wicked grin like he knew I would ask and I probably wouldn’t like the answer, but then surprised meagainby saying; “I got a good feeling about her. For being so young, she’s been through some shit, and she really seems to have her head on straight about it all. Don’t worry about Rush, he’ll come around. I think he likes to forget he wasn't the only one with the same kind of intensity at her age.”

I nodded carefully, “He get at you about Melody cheating yet?” I asked.

Archer snorted, “Nah, he and Mel are in the same boat on a kind of how Grind treated her. Kindred spirits or some shit. Think there were a couple times back in AZ they ended up drinking buddies over their respective partners lack of fidelity if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do.” I shook my head. My twin sure knew how to pick bitches. We never got exactly why he went for the mouthy, disrespectful cunts with no loyalty, but more often than not, he hooked up with a bitch and fell hard – unfortunately they always seemed to have other ideas. His bitterness at the injustice of it was showing. I could take it, but he was fucked if he ever brought it up to Maren. I’d throw down over her, with my own twin, I loved her that much.

“Unca Nox!” I jerked my attention to the toddling slap of my nephew’s little Velcro sneakers against the deck we were all on, getting our grub on.

“Hey, little man!” I swept him up as he threw himself at me, wrapping his little arms around my neck.

I caught Maren’s uncertain gaze over his little shoulder and smiled at her reassuringly, giving her a wink. She smiled back, and whatever she saw on my face made her relax. She said her goodbyes to Mandy and Everett and slipped over to us, slinging one of her long legs that went on for days over the bench on the side of me my twin had vacated.

“Hi, Noah!” she said smiling for the benefit of my nephew.

Archer grunted, “Thought you didn’t like kids,” he said and Maren frowned at him slightly.

“I never said that,” she said, and waved back at Noah who decided he was being shy, and would only curl his little fingers at Maren in a toddler’s wave.

“You don’t want any,” Archer said succinctly and I wanted to smack him. The only problem was, he hit a fuck of a lot harder than me, and I needed my hands for work, by like a lot.

Maren though? Maren handled her own, “Just because I don’twantany of my own doesn’t mean I hate kids, and even if I didn’t like them, that doesn’t give me the right to be a jerk to them.”

Archer grunted, and tilted his head to the side as if thinking in the way that was purely typical of him before finally giving an absent-minded nod. His gaze remained fixed on Noah, his stepson, and nephew by marriage and birth, but don’t tell Arch that. He’d claimed Noah as his own and would fucking kill you if you suggested he was anything other than one hundred percent his boy.

“There you are!” Melody cried, laughing. Her stomach was getting big, swollen with Archer’s legitimate child, and Archer smiled up at his wife.

“Yeah, I got him.”

“Oh really?” she asked coolly, “Looks like Uncle Nox is the one in charge, here. Huh, baby boy?”

“Whoah!” I cried, as Noah pitched himself headlong towards his mother. Archer grabbed for him, caught him, and lifted him squealing and laughing into the air. I laughed with them both and even Maren cracked a wide smile.

No, my girl didn’t hate kids, she loved them, she just didn’t want to have any of her own and it was a sad reality that no one in this day and age had the couth to be respectful of a woman’s reproductive rights. Everyone had their questions and opinions about it when really, it was none of their fucking business.

Of course, god forbidIsay my opinion on the matter out loud. Then I was just pussy whipped, or my masculinity was called into question when the truth was, men needed a little feminism too.

On the flip side, me being me, I could give a fuck less what anybody thought. I did what I did and damn it anyhow.

“You cool, Angel?” I asked when Archer and Mel were distracted by Noah and their banter enough that I could ask.

“Fine,” she said with a genuine smile and I felt my heart lift in the center of my chest.

“That’s my girl,” I murmured and I felt my chest squeeze with joy at how she flushed with pleasure at what I’d said.

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