Page 183 of Indecent Lies

We could be good together if you gave us a chance. Malachai is okay with it.

Only he started to see her for what she was.

She was a beauty with a black soul and a vicious heart.

He’d felt bad for Mal, but he’d made his bed.

Now he knew his brother loved the woman and he had Texas’ sympathy because he knew what it felt like to be loved by a good woman, a woman who wouldn’t dream of manipulating him.

Texas was loved and he knew he had the better life. Knowing it didn’t make him glad.

“What would you have said?”

Mal laughed indifferently and shrugged. “I’m not like you, brother. Probably would have given in. Even now if you…”

“Don’t finish that sentence, swear to Christ.” Texas ground his teeth and leaned over the table, eyeballing the person he was once closest to in the entire universe. The man he felt lost without. “I don’t want your wife, then or now, Mal. Grow a fucking pair of balls for fucks sake, see the shit she’s doing. Don’t tell me the reason you came was because of her.”

He shook his head. “No, this is for me. I miss you.”

He missed him too.

Texas was no longer the same person and Malachai was exactly who he’d left behind.

Family ties and blood would always have a hold on him, but he’d left all that other stuff behind him long ago and he had no desire to resurface it.

“We can work on that, see if there’s something we can salvage. But just you and me, Mal. You never bring Addison into it, ever. That’s a hard limit. I’ll bring you around Poppy, let her get to know you now, but if you ever disrespect her, then you’re gone, do you understand?”

“I wouldn’t do that. I always thought she was a nice kid, she followed you around a lot.”

There wasn’t much else to say and he was eager to get back to his girl. “I want you to be happy, Mal. You should be a dad, throwing your kids in the air. I want you to be a present uncle in my kid’s lives when I have them.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, his head over his hands then he looked up at Texas. “I’d like that.” And then. “It won’t mean much, I know I have to earn your trust and respect back, but I am sorry, for everything. I mean everything, brother. If I could do it all differently, I would have always chosen to be your twin over anything.”

Texas didn’t know if he spoke the truth or was blowing smoke up his ass again but only time would tell.

He’d give him a chance. It was up to Mal to fuck it up or not.

The brothers left the conversation in a better place.

It was anyone’s guess if the Hunt brothers would ever get back what they lost.

But Texas walked toward his future, he dumped his clothes on the floor of the hotel room where his girl slept soundly and he climbed into bed, curling around her back.

This was home, he thought.

This was his place, where he was meant to be.

Where he’d fight to stay.

He didn’t know if he felt redeemed as a decent person yet.

Maybe it would take a lifetime.

He knew he’d always try.

For his friends, to gain their trust back.

But constantly to earn this girl’s love.

---