Chapter 12
Knox
For the past week, Dominic hadn’t shown his face once. There had only been instructions: short, efficient texts and the occasional brief phone call, all of them boiling down to the same thing. Pick up a package. Don’t open it. Take it where you’re told.
Knox could drive—he’d had his license for years—but he’d never owned a car himself.
His dad’s had been the only one in the family, and that had gotten sold within weeks of the funeral.
So being handed keys like it was nothing still felt faintly surreal.
Sometimes he would get the address five minutes before he needed it.
Sometimes he would sit in the car for half an hour waiting for someone to show up, hand something over, and then drive away again without a single word exchanged.
The packages were never explained, and Knox had learned quickly not to ask. If Dominic wanted him to know what he was carrying, he would’ve told him. It was easy work. Suspicious as hell, but easy.
Mostly, it was boring.
That night, Knox lay stretched across his bed with a book open in his hands, pages worn soft at the edges, the spine cracked from being read more than once.
Usually books helped; they dragged him far enough out of his own head that he could breathe for a while.
Tonight, not so much. He’d been staring at the same page long enough for the words to lose meaning entirely.
His phone buzzed beside him. Frowning, he reached for it, expecting another message from Dominic, but the number on the screen was unfamiliar. “Yeah?”
Silence stretched across the line, long enough that he pulled the phone away to check the screen, half expecting the call to have disconnected. It hadn’t.
Then a voice, hesitant enough that Knox almost missed it. “...Knox?”
He pushed himself upright against the headboard, the book slipping shut in his lap. “Who’s this?”
“Jacob Wolfe.”
Well. Fuck.
That was unexpected.
At his father’s funeral, he’d given his number to the guy Jacob had been with, who Knox later learned was Liam Hart, Jacob’s lover. He’d told him to pass it along in case Jacob ever wanted to reach out, but he hadn’t actually expected that to happen.
Knox had always known there was a half-brother out there somewhere. Their dad had walked out on Jacob when he was young, then started over with Knox and his mother twenty years later, as if the first family had been disposable.
But knowing and knowing weren’t the same thing.
It had never meant anything. His dad barely talked about his other son.
It just turned into something his mom would throw out when she was pissed.
Knox never had a name or a face to put to the idea.
Just this vague outline of someone who existed.
Easy enough to ignore. It only became real when his dad died and the lawyer brought up Jacob’s name because of the will.
Knox let out a deep breath through his nose, leaning his head back against the wall. “Took you long enough.”
“I know.”
No excuse or a clumsy attempt to justify it. That caught him more off guard than an explanation would’ve. Knox’s fingers tapped against the cover of his book. “Didn’t think you’d actually call.”
“I almost didn’t.”
The blunt honesty made Knox huff. “So what changed?”
“You gave your number,” Jacob said after a moment. “Figured there was probably a reason.”
Knox’s mouth twitched. “Maybe I was bored.”
“Are you?”
Knox looked at the ceiling, eyes narrowing. “You always this bad at small talk?”
A faint exhale on the other end. “Yeah. Probably.”
That almost made him smile.
The silence that followed wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but it wasn’t smooth either. It had that distinctly awkward quality of two people trying to figure out what they were supposed to be to each other and coming up blank. Two strangers, connected by blood and not much else.
Knox dragged a hand through his hair. “So what is this? Checking off some family obligation or something?”
“No.”
The answer came so fast Knox blinked.
Jacob was quiet for a second before speaking again. “I didn’t call because of some sense of duty. I just…” A breath. “I’m not good at this.”
Knox stared at the wall. “Yeah. Same,” he muttered.
Another pause.
“So,” Knox said, shifting against the pillows. “You still in LA?”
“Yeah. You still in Stockton?”
Knox snorted. “Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob said simply. “I don’t know anything about your life.”
Knox looked down at the book in his lap, tracing the crack in the spine with his thumb. “Yeah. Well. Not much to know.”
The silence that followed stretched long enough to become uncomfortable before another voice suddenly cut in. “For fuck’s sake.”
Knox pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at it before bringing it back. There was muffled movement on the other end, a quiet scuffle, and then—“You two are hopeless. Put it on speaker, Jacob.”
A second later, a click.
“Hi, Knox,” the new voice said. “It’s Liam. We met at the funeral.”
“Yeah. I remember you.”
“Good,” Liam said, warm and entirely too cheerful. “Because I’ve been listening to this conversation slowly dying and decided intervention was necessary.”
Knox smiled before he could stop himself.
“Was doing fine,” Jacob muttered.
“You weren’t, honey. But it’s fine. We’ll fix it.”
That got an actual laugh out of Knox, surprising enough that he sat there blinking afterward.
Liam shifted gears seamlessly. “How are you, Knox?”
“Uh… alright,” he said. “You?”
“Excellent,” Liam said. “Our lives are a bit of a mess lately, but we’re doing good.”
“Yeah,” Knox said dryly. “I’ve seen some of that. Looks like a pain in the ass.”
“Oh god,” Liam groaned. “Please tell me you didn’t see the celebrity articles.”
“And the gossip shows,” Knox said.
Liam sighed audibly. “I mean, we knew it was going to blow up. It’s not like we don’t deserve it. I don’t know what you saw, but… yeah. We fucked up. We fell in love.”
Knox blinked. Jesus. This guy really just said whatever came into his head.
“We made some terrible choices,” Liam went on. “Hurt people. Made a mess of things. But I can’t regret it. I did get Jacob out of it, and he makes me happy.”
Jacob, sounding deeply resigned, muttered, “You done?”
Knox shook his head, smiling despite himself.
“What? I’m helping,” Liam said, not even a little apologetic.
Knox’s shoulders loosened. It should’ve been awkward.
Honestly, it was awkward. But there was something surprisingly genuine about the effort.
And somehow, after that, things got easier.
Liam carried most of the conversation, tossing out easy questions, keeping things moving whenever silence threatened to creep in.
Jacob spoke too, just less, as if words didn’t come as easily to him.
Knox found himself talking more than he intended.
He talked about Stockton and how nothing really changed here.
About his home life, without getting into anything too real.
Work came up eventually, but he kept it vague.
It was easier that way. At some point, he realized he had stopped looking for a reason to end the call.
“So,” Knox said eventually. “What now?”
There was a small pause on the other end. When Jacob spoke, his tone was careful, like he’d thought about this and still wasn’t sure how to say it. “We could keep in touch.”
Knox’s chest did something weird. “Yeah,” he said, before he could overthink it. “Yeah, alright.”
“Alright,” Jacob said. “We’ll… talk soon?”
“Yeah. Text or whatever.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
Liam groaned dramatically. “Oh my god. Strong ending.”
“Good night, Knox,” Jacob said.
“We’ll talk to you soon, Knox. Bye,” Liam laughed.
“Night.”
There was a rustle on the other end, like the phone changed hands. And then, muffled enough that it clearly wasn’t meant for him. “Thank you, baby,” Jacob whispered.
A second later, Liam answered, just as soft. “Always.”
Then the line clicked dead.
Knox let the phone drop onto the bed beside him and stared at the ceiling. That had been weird. Awkward as hell. And, somehow, not terrible. Actually… kind of nice.
The thought settled warm and unfamiliar under his ribs, and Knox immediately shoved it down.
No.
One decent phone call didn’t mean anything. It didn’t make Jacob his brother in any real sense. Didn’t mean this was suddenly going to be some meaningful sibling relationship. People showed up all the time. Staying was the part they never managed. Family least of all.
He knew better than to get attached to the idea. Still, when he reached for his book again, his hand hovered over his phone instead. “We’ll see,” he muttered.