Chapter 36
Knox
The girls are outside. Early afternoon sun on gravel, a half-built pen, Ruby's laugh carrying clean over the fence line.
Nasty Nash Jr. is in the center of it all, squat and smug, chewing on what might've been important five minutes ago.
Sloane crouches in the grass with her sleeves pushed up, braid swinging, one hand braced on her knee while the other scratches under the goat's chin.
He leans into her touch, already decided she's his.
Inside, the air is warmer and thicker. It smells of wood polish baked into the walls and coffee that's been reheated too many times.
The faint bite of smoke clings to leather and denim.
The room hums with familiar sounds. Balls cracking on felt, darts thunking into cork, low voices layered over each other.
I'm near the pool table with a beer sweating cold against my palm, watching the window the way I'd watch a scope. Sloane laughs, bright and unguarded, and my body reacts the way it always does. The kind of want that doesn't ask permission.
East lines up a shot and misses by a mile.
"Jesus," Malachi mutters, half a smile tugging at his mouth despite himself. The cue rests against his shoulder, his posture loose, eyes sharp. The room rearranges around him even when he's doing nothing.
East lifts both hands. "That table's crooked."
"The table's not crooked." Nash's voice is flat and deadly calm. He's at the dartboard, throwing as though he's trying to pin a target to the wall and call it therapy. "You're just trash."
"I am not trash. I'm art."
"You're a cautionary tale," James murmurs as if he's reading a weather report.
Rider stands near the wall, arms folded. He looks relaxed until you know how to read men his kind. Eyes tracking exits, body positioned to move fast if anything shifts.
Kyle hovers near the table, holding the cue as though it might explode. Still carries that nervous, hungry edge of a man who thinks he has to keep proving he deserves to breathe in the same room as the rest of us.
I set my beer on the rail and rack the balls. My left side pulls when I lean, the bruise Sloane treated still tender under my shirt, but the ache has dulled enough to ignore. The sound of solid clacks is satisfying. For a second, it feels as though I have control.
"Relax," East tells Kyle, chalking his cue with exaggerated patience. "It's just pool."
Kyle looks up. "Last time I played pool with you, you bet me I couldn't sink a ball, then moved the cue ball when I wasn't looking."
"That is called strategy. And you learned a valuable lesson."
Kyle stares at him. "To not trust you."
"Exactly." Pleased. "Look at you growing."
Nash throws a dart. Bullseye. He lets the point sink deep. Takes a drink, reminding the room he's capable of precision.
"Show-off," East says.
Nash's mouth barely shifts. "Skill issue."
I glance toward the window.
Sloane stands now, brushing grass off her jeans.
Ruby's saying something animated, hands moving as though she's directing a Broadway production titled Goat-Based Psychological Warfare.
Maggie's a few steps away, arms folded, pretending disapproval while delight leaks through.
Darla has her phone out, filming, body angled toward East even from outside, as if she's tethered to him.
Sloane turns her head, and even through the glass, her attention snaps to me on a frequency all our own.
Her smile is small. Razor-edged. A blade with a warm handle.
I take a drink I don't need, just to give my hands something to do besides go out there and pull her into my lap.
"Vice," Malachi says without looking at me. "If you keep staring out the window, I'm going to start charging you rent for the view."
East snorts. "He's not staring. He's stalking."
"I'm supervising."
James' low laugh rolls out. "From inside. Through glass."
Rider almost smiles. Kyle's shoulders loosen by half an inch, as if he's realizing nobody's going to bite him.
Nash's dart hits the board again. "If that goat headbutts me one more time, I'm eating it."
From outside, Ruby's voice spikes higher, as though she heard him through pure spite. Nasty Nash Jr. bleats, loud and self-satisfied, and I swear the damn thing knows his name.
East settles against the table. "Okay. New rule." Malachi arches a brow. East raises a finger, testifying. "We stop pretending our pranks landed. We got outplayed."
Nash scoffs. "We didn't get outplayed. Ruby cheated. Livestock is cheating."
"Livestock is innovation," James corrects. "You're mad because you didn't think of it."
Nash looks at James as if he's considering whether wise men are exempt from consequences. James doesn't flinch. Never does.
East points his cue toward the yard. "Look at them. They're not even trying to win. They're bonding. That's why we lost."
Malachi's gaze flicks to the window. Candace is outside too, closer to Maggie than the goat, posture calm, eyes watchful in that quiet way she has when she's finally letting herself exist without bracing for the next hit. She says something to Sloane, and Sloane's face softens just for a second.
I want that softness for her forever. I want her to stop counting the cost of laughing.
"That's disgusting," Nash says, dragging us back. "Bonds. Emotions. Friendship."
Kyle huffs a laugh before he can stop himself. Everyone looks at him. Kyle freezes as though he's committed a felony.
East grins. "He lives."
Kyle clears his throat, faintly red. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize for laughing," Malachi says, flat but not cruel. "You'll give James a heart attack."
James raises his beer in a lazy toast. "I'll survive."
I slide the triangle off and tap the cue ball into position. "We're not done with this prank war. We just miscalculated."
East brightens. "Finally. He admits it."
Nash cuts a look at me. "We need something that hits them where it hurts."
"They have no shame," James says. "So that'll be difficult."
"Everyone has a weakness," East argues. "For example—" He gestures toward the yard. "Darla thinks she's subtle when she's filming. She is not."
Outside, Darla angles her phone for East's profile. East raises his beer toward the window without turning around, the toast aimed blind. Darla flips him off. East's grin goes wider. He'd die happy just to earn that.
Rider pushes off the wall, picks up a dart, and throws. It lands close to Nash's last hit, steady.
Nash goes still. "You trying to start something?"
"Just practicing."
"For what?" East asks.
Rider glances toward the yard, back. "Anything."
Simple, but true.
Malachi steps to the table. "Break," he says.
I step aside. The crack of cue against a ball is sharp, satisfying, and the rack explodes across the felt. A couple drop immediately. East groans, personally affronted.
"Show-off."
Malachi sets up his next shot as if winning requires no thought.
My phone buzzes. One line.
I can feel you staring at me through the glass. It's distracting.
My jaw tightens around a grin that wants to break my face open. I type back quickly.
You're lucky there's glass between us.
A beat later. Is that a threat, husband?
The word still does that. Even now. Even when we've said love out loud and lived it in the small domestic ways, her hair on my pillow, her laughter in my kitchen. That word turns my blood into a burn I can't outrun.
I text one-handed. It's a promise. Stop teasing me.
Sloane is looking straight at me, phone up, eyes bright and wicked. She lifts her chin, knowing exactly what she's doing to my self-control.
I tuck the phone away before I do something stupid, dragging her inside and locking the door.
East follows my gaze. "She's going to ruin you."
"She already has," I say, too honest to bother hiding it.
Malachi's cue pauses mid-air. He looks at me in quiet acknowledgment. He takes his shot and sinks another ball, letting me have that truth without making it a joke.
Kyle shifts, watching Malachi's stance, trying to mirror it. Malachi notices and tilts his head. "Move your back foot. You're too square. You'll overcorrect."
Kyle blinks. "Oh. Okay." He adjusts, careful, as if the floor might crack if he does it wrong.
Rider watches. Nash throws another dart as though softness is something he can pin to the wall and walk away from. It's all there anyway.
Outside, the sound carries in again. The goat bolts, rope trailing, and Ruby shrieks as though she's chasing a toddler with horns. Maggie catches the rope one-handed. Candace covers a smile. Darla claps, delighted.
Sloane jogs after the goat, braid bouncing, cheeks flushed, and she looks alive in a way that belongs in sunlight.
I line up my shot, simple angle, easy sink, and my mind flickers to Savannah. The auctions. To men who think women are property. To Sloane's father breathing somewhere as though he deserves it.
The ball drops into the corner pocket. Clean. My hand stays on the cue. Steady.
East drops his voice. "Okay, strategist. What's the move? If our pranks didn't land, how do we hit back?"
Sloane scoops the goat's stubborn face between her hands and presses her forehead to his as though she's negotiating. The goat bleats, defiant. She shakes her head, charmed by the audacity of something that refuses to be controlled.
"You don't out-chaos them," I say.
Nash grunts. "What, then?"
I meet their eyes in sequence, Malachi, East, Nash, James, Kyle, Rider, and the room narrows. Not into danger. Into focus. Brotherhood. The clean line of who we are when the noise fades.
"You let them think they're winning. You hit them with something they won't see coming."
East's grin turns feral. "What kind of something?"
I don't answer.
Because outside, Sloane looks up, straight at me, and lifts two fingers to her mouth, flicks them outward in a kiss she knows will go straight under my skin. Smiling as though she's daring me to survive it.
I smile back. Small. Dangerous.
East catches it. "You're done for."
"Been done." I line up my next shot and sink it. "That's not news."