Chapter 8 Michael
MICHAEL
“Left!” I shouted at Jeff as he struggled to move the dresser into the room.
“I am going left!”
“Your other left,” I snapped.
“Alright, geez! No need to get your panties in a twist. You know, you’re a real asshole when you’re frustrated.”
“I’m an asshole when you can’t figure out your right from your left,” I muttered. “A little more to the right.”
I guided the dresser through the doorway, stopping only when I heard Jeff’s yelp of pain.
“That was my fingers!”
“Then you should have moved them,” I argued.
“Right, I’ll move them even though that was the only place for me to hold onto.”
The dresser was killing my back. We’d been moving furniture in all day, and I was exhausted.
“Set it down.”
“Thank God!”
We lowered it to the ground carefully, then both of us leaned heavily on the top of it.
“You know, when I said I would help, I didn’t realize you’d be using me as manual labor the whole day.”
“It hasn’t been all day,” I muttered.
“Michael, the sun is setting. We haven’t even eaten anything all day. My stomach is eating my insides!”
“You should have taken Blake up on her offer to make you something.”
He grimaced at the thought. “She said she would dig up something to eat. Now, I’m no expert on cooking, but she doesn’t exactly seem like the homemaker type. Maybe you could have Ma give her some lessons.”
“Sure, I’ll mention that right now. That would turn out great, considering the meltdown she had earlier.”
He winced slightly. “Well, maybe not right now. Give it a day or two. Hey, maybe you could fake food poisoning, and then you could let it slip that it was her food that made you sick.”
Seriously, this guy knew nothing about relationships. “She’s already freaking out about our relationship. Throwing food poisoning in there would only make her think it was some sort of sign that we weren’t supposed to be together.”
“Or that she’s deadly even in the kitchen,” he grinned. “It could be like a marital slogan.”
“Again, not the way I would choose to make her feel better about herself.”
“I don’t get why she’s freaking out. You guys seem so solid.”
I glanced down the hall, making sure she was out of earshot. “Well, we didn’t exactly have a normal romance. There was no dating. It was just a lot of fucking in heated situations.”
Grinning, he nodded at me. “Nice. How can I find me a girl like that?”
“You can’t,” I snapped. “First of all, if you were in a life and death situation, it would probably be the girl who got you out of it.”
“Hey—”
“And second, handling a life and death situation requires finesse that you just don’t have.”
He narrowed his eyes accusingly at me. “Didn’t you say you shot her?”
“On accident,” I argued. “And it wasn’t like that won me brownie points.”
“I don’t get why you think I couldn’t handle a woman like Blake. I could so handle her.”
I snorted at that, ready to get back to work. “Pick up your end.”
“Wait, you don’t think I could handle a Blake?”
“I don’t think you could handle a Bailey.”
His jaw dropped in shock. You would have thought I had just told him he was a girl.
“Look, it’s nothing against you, man. You’re just…smaller than the rest of us.”
“You know, Bailey said the same fucking thing. I’m not small. I’m leaner, but I have muscles. I could take you in a wrestling contest.”
“Right,” I snorted.
“I could. You don’t believe me? Let’s go right now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Because you think I can take you,” he accused. “You’re scared.”
I stopped and stared at him. “You’re right. I am scared. Scared that I would crush you like a bug, and then Ma would kill me.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know that I’m quite quick on my feet.”
“I’m sure you are,” I muttered.
He scrambled over the top of the dresser, slamming his foot into my face in the process.
I stumbled back, hitting the wall hard, but the damage was only a bloody lip. Swiping at the dribble with my thumb, I snarled at him.
“Just what the fuck was that?”
His eyes darkened as he stared me down. “War.”
Letting out a banshee cry, he leapt from the dresser, landing on his feet with more agility than I would give him credit for.
I was so mesmerized by his moves that I didn’t move fast enough and he slammed his shoulder into my gut, pushing me into the wall again.
I was a big guy, so I was surprised at how easy it was for him to move me.
But I had skills he didn’t know about.
Years of military training had prepared me for pissants like him. I grabbed his arm, twisting it up behind his back. I expected him to cry out, but instead, he stomped his foot down on my toes, then slammed his elbow back into my gut.
I held my grip on his arm as I stumbled back a step, but he quickly twisted and slammed his boot into the side of my knee. I lost my hold on him, stumbling as my leg nearly gave out.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted.
Waggling his eyebrows at me, he motioned me forward. “Are you scared?”
“You know, I was taking it easy on you before,” I growled, stalking forward.
He backed down the hall, laughing the whole time. With every step toward him, a little bit of the old Michael Parker resurfaced. I was trying to keep him under control. I’d left him behind in Pennsylvania.
Or so I thought.
A slow grin spread across my face as I stalked toward him. Suddenly, my little brother didn’t look so confident anymore. He moved quickly, swinging hard. I jerked my head back, and his hit missed, giving me the opening I needed.
A single blow to his jaw stalled his body. But I didn’t stop there. I slammed my fist into his jaw again and ended with a boot to his chest, knocking him back into the wall.
He slumped down to the ground, his head lolling to the side as blood dripped from his mouth.
“Well, this is interesting,” Mav drawled.
I craned my neck to the side to see Maverick leaning over the dresser in the doorway. Shoving the dresser easily through the door, he sidled over to Jeff, kneeling by his side as he pressed his fingers to Jeff’s throat.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“He attacked me,” I argued, though it seemed pretty damn weak the moment it left my lips.
I heard Blake come running in from the kitchen, and the gasp that left her lips as she stared at my brother.
“What happened?”
Mav slowly got to his feet, his eyes dancing with something I recognized all too well from our childhoods. He was in a playful mood. “Maybe you should pick on someone your own size.”
“Hey, he started this.”
“He’s also smaller than you.”
“Not smaller,” Jeff muttered.
“He swung first!”
Mav stalked toward me, and I sighed, already knowing where this was going.
“Alright, you need to stop. You can’t win against me.”
“Why? Because you were in the military?”
“Yeah, that’s one of the reasons,” I chortled.
“You forget, I grew up wrestling with you. I know all your moves.”
I sighed internally. Why did they have to keep pushing? “Correction, you knew all my moves.”
“I could kick your ass then, and I can kick your ass now,” he smirked.
I knew it was coming. I even let him get in the first hit. What else was I supposed to do?
My head snapped to the side as my childhood best friend’s fist hit me hard. Yeah, he could still pack a punch, but it wasn’t enough to take me down.
Not even close.
Shaking it off, I smiled at him. “Are we good now?”
“Good? Nah. I’m just getting started. I never walk away that easily.”
“You really should.”
But he didn’t, as I knew he wouldn’t. Charging me, I sidestepped him, trying to be the bigger man, and let him run right past me.
All that did was ignite a fire under his ass.
“Alright, that’s enough. Seriously, I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, holding my hands out to placate him.
“I’d like to see you try,” he chuckled, coming at me full force. He got in one good hit, but that was it.
I immediately went on the offensive, slamming my fist into his face before going after his ribs. He dropped his elbows, trying to break my fucking hand, but I saw the move coming and quickly averted my blows.
The good news was that he was actually making me work up a sweat. At least he hadn’t lost it while I’d been gone. The bad news was that if he didn’t let up soon, I was going to have to put him down. This couldn’t keep going.
I went at him again, this time hitting his nose. Blood gushed at the snap, and he held his hand up, catching the blood before it dripped on the ground.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Blake shouted. “You guys are acting like teenagers!”
“Them, not me. I tried to stop it.”
“Oh, please,” she retorted. “You’re like an oversized Hulk. You could have stopped this at the start.”
“Yes, but then they’d be in body bags,” I muttered right before Mav charged me again, his playful side long gone.
But I never got the chance to swing. Blake ran right at him, her body colliding with his.
“Aw, shit,” I muttered as she tackled him just as she had with me that first night.
Glass shattered, Mav screamed, and then there was a deafening crash as they landed in a heap on the front porch.
Sighing, I stepped over the broken window, shaking my head at the crunch under my boots. Blake got to her feet, staring down at the sheriff in astonishment, and Mav…
Well, he just laid there.
Her gaze swung to mine. “I swear, I didn’t know the window was so close.”
“You know, that’s three times now.”
“I know!”
“Windows are not meant to be a deadly object,” I argued with her. “And even if they were, I didn’t want the man dead.”
“I swear to God, I never intended— but he wouldn’t stop! He was going after you!”
“And I can take care of myself!” I argued. “I don’t need you protecting me, especially not when—”
I cut myself off just as I was about to mention that she was pregnant.
And thank God I did because her eyes narrowed dangerously at me, begging me to finish that thought.
“Especially when what?”
“Uh…”
Think fast, Parker! Fuck, you cannot fuck this up.
“Especially when these are guys I grew up with,” I went with. “They can’t hurt me.”