They’d been here before, with the disparities between their upbringings sitting between them like a rock wall.

It had taken years for them to see over it even enough for John to come and swim and eat spaghetti.

Once, Maddox had shouted at John, “You think I wouldn’t choose your life over mine, John?”

It had only fortified the wall between them. The idea that Maddox had romanticized John’s life with Estrella had infuriated John. Maddox saw their rented brownstone, Estrella’s artwork, John’s determination and drive in his career, and thought that all that simply came from good old-fashioned elbow grease. Thunderbird gang members snapping their way down the cobblestone streets of a plucky upbringing.

Maddox didn’t see the fact that both Estrella and Cormac had worked two jobs for years. That John himself had worked since he was twelve. He didn’t see the emotional toll that took on a family. He didn’t see the nights of worry over bills, the tears in Estrella’s eyes.

John’s work as a public defender perfectly positioned him to see what advantages those with money actually had. The kinds of advantages the rich come to view as rights. And maybe they were rights. But they were rights that the lower class had no access to. Maddox didn’t see that.

John supposed that he couldn’t see over the wall any better than Maddox could, but he wasn’t going around wishing to switch lives either. That was just naive.

Normally, this would be the part of the afternoon when Maddox got up angrily and said something about having plans and John would go home. John was surprised, then, when Maddox simply continued to sit there, his face drawn in lines of mutiny, but his dark eyes pinned on John.

“I’m just saying that the money thing probably isn’t the line in the sand that you think it is, John. Not for her anyway. There’s a chance that it hasn’t even occurred to her that there’s a disparity.”

John masked his surprise at his brother’s stolid attempt at reigniting the conversation. “At some point she’s going to notice that I only ever take her to restaurants with a single dollar sign on their Yelp pages.”

“And if she cares, then she’s not the right person for you.”

John’s eyebrows rose and then his eyes narrowed as he looked at his brother. His lawyerly mind started putting the pieces together. “Misogyny, wealth disparity, you didn’t storm off in anger just now... Maddox, did you meet somebody?”

Maddox pursed his lips, but there was a small smile to hide there. “You think a woman is the reason for my sudden self-improvement?”

John just waited.