Their baby cousin looked back and forth between the three of them, her tongue rolling over her teeth. She hated when people treated her like a child, but that wasn’t what was happening here.

“Not trying to pull the grown-folks card on you,” Zach said. “Just wanna talk brother to brother. To brother.”

“Fine. But Jesse,” she said in her soft voice. She hopped off the stool and fixed him with a hard stare. He actually stopped pacing to look at her, even though he was still huffing and puffing. “You really need to back off. If anyone knows how awful it is to have the menfolk in this family butt into your love life, it’s me.”

“This isn’t about her damn love life!” he yelled. Sam couldn’t stand when he got like this. He had Senior’s hard, authoritative edge, but where their father knew the limits of his temper, Jesse had a point where he couldn’t control it. None of the men in their family shouted the way Jesse did. Sam knew where his anger came from, but a lot of time he wished that wasn’t the case. Lilah wasn’t fazed though. She’d been sick to shit of Pleasant men since she was born. If she could handle her dad and her seven brothers, she could handle all six feet and seven inches of Jesse.

“Whatever. Get all loud all you want. You know Miss Leona. She doesn’t care if you live next door. She will kick you right off the lane if you push her too far. Especially if you come at her disrespecting her like this. She is your grandmother. She is the matriarch of this family. You need to act like it.” Lilah was speaking the whole truth, but Jesse had already tuned her out. Sam could see the vein on the side of his face threatening to burst. Lilah sucked her teeth as she followed after Evie. When they heard a door close down the hall, Zach looked over at Sam. They were going to have this talk with him now.

“Alright. What’s going on with you, man?” Sam said.

“Sam, you need to back off,” Jesse snarled.

“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re the one who’s about to Hulk out—” Sam shot back, but Zach cut him off.

“Jesse, you need to relax and talk to us.”

No one wanted Zach to bust out the breathing techniques their mom had taught Jesse when he was going through puberty. A growth spurt had tackled his ass at age ten. And by the time he was thirteen he was already. Football and basketball coaches around the state were lined up to get a piece of him, ready to add him to their roster. But Jesse just wanted to bake with Evie and Miss Leona and be left alone.