Page 120 of Love Thy Brother
He was fast, but I was ready for him, dancing out of his reach.
Cam smirked, and for a big dude, he was light on his feet too. His fist skimmed my jaw. A warning. I jabbed him back, knuckles ghosting his ribs. And so it went on. Cam was in better condition than me, but he was a smoker. He lost his lungs first, and I caught him with a glancing blow to his shoulder, avoiding the bullet scar that made me want to puke.
My brother grinned, rising to the challenge. He shot a combination too fast for me to dodge.
His fist barrelled into my gut, not hard, but with enough force to drive the air from my lungs.
“Motherfucker.” I coughed out a laugh and dipped low, catching him in the ribs again, rougher this time. “That all you got?”
“Maybe.” Cam wiped sweat from his brow with his bicep. “Doesn’t matter, though, does it?”
As he uttered the words, movement outside of the ring caught my eye. Rubi opening the barn doors of a Transit van. He wasn’t paying attention. A stack of boxes tumbled out and into his face.
Cursing, he pushed them back in and swung around to shout at a brother I couldn’t see, unhurt, grumpy, and glorious.
Too glorious for a split second—that was all Cam needed to blast through my defences, his forearm to my throat.
He drove me against the ropes, a fire in his gaze that hadn’t been there before. “There it is. Right there.”
His wrist bone was crushing my windpipe. I wrestled out of his hold, shoving him away from me. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Distraction,” he snapped. “What are you going to do when some fucker is swinging a cosh at him? When there’s two of them piling in?”
Kill them all. I didn’t say it, but the sentiment showed on my face, and Cam’s temper faded to a wry empathy that made me want to murder him too. “Fuck off.”
“No.” Cam dropped his hands, fighting stance fading away. “We need to unpick this before you get on that damn bike.”
Insolence burned through me, hot and bright, but knowing I had an outlet for it— later... if Cam wasn’t about to bench me—made it easier to swallow. “If you’re asking me to not give a shit that some cunt’s coming at him, that’s not going to happen.”
“I’m not asking you not to care. It’s deeper than that.” Cam came closer and knocked one fist to my temple and the other to my heart. “Take it from me, you need to find a place where he doesn’t exist. Where you’ve never loved him and you never will. If you can’t, it’ll get you both killed long before you ever save him.”
Sadness and regret oozed from Cam like blood from a seeping old wound. A fatigue that wasn’t physical. There’d been times when I’d convinced myself I didn’t love him either. That I didn’t need him. But Christ, Cam was a bigger hero to me than my dad had ever been.
Tell him.
Cam moved to step away.
I caught his arm. “Hey. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
His eyes widened. Fuck. Maybe he didn’t. And I couldn’t live with it. Not anymore. That part of me... it felt as dead as I’d tried to force my heart to be, and I didn’t want it back.
I pulled him into a hug.
He returned it with a crushing embrace, a tremor in his chest that ripped me wide open. “I love you too, Riv. And him. I loved you apart, and I love you together. You can’t ever think I don’t. It’d do me in.”
“No dying, bro. You promised.”
“I know.”
Cam let me go and something settled between us.
Despite the battle hanging over us, mischief rose in me. “Are you gonna drag him in here for a school day too?”
“You think I need to?” Cam speared me with some mischief of his own. “Dude, he’s been learning that lesson your whole fucking life.”
He left me with that parting shot and hopped out of the ring. I watched him amble away for a millionth of a second before instinct drew my heart somewhere else.
Rubi was still by the van, leaning in, giving me the best view of his back and muscled legs.
