He could get this, if his old man knocked her around the way he did Carson.

He also didn’t get it.

Not at all.

“It’s hangin’, Lie,” Carson muttered, dipping his chin and turning toward their back gate.

“You wanna come over, get a Coke, watch a game?” Linus called before Carson could turn his back on him and their conversation.

“Got shit to do,” Carson kept muttering, moving toward the gate.

“Bud!” Linus yelled.

Carson drew in a breath and turned back.

“Anytime you wanna come over and hang, my door’s open. Yeah?” Linus said what he’d said before a lot.

“Yeah,” Carson continued to mutter, knowing he’d take him up on that, as he had hundreds of times since the man moved next door.

This just wouldn’t be one of those times. He didn’t go over after his dad had a go at him. And the reason he didn’t was right then written on Linus’s face.

Linus was giving him a look that Carson read. He’d honed his skills at reading people, started doing it the minute he could cogitate. If he didn’t, he’d have it far worse than he did from his old man.

Far worse.

But the look on Linus’s face said he didn’t know if he wanted to climb out of his truck and give Carson a hug or if he wanted to climb out of his truck, slam into Carson’s house, and kick his dad’s ass.

Sometimes he dreamed of Linus kicking his dad’s ass. The man was built. He was tall. He’d wipe the floor with Jefferson Steele.

But most of the time, he dreamed of doing it himself.

He didn’t because his dad kept him fed. He kept a roof over his head. He kept clothes on his back. He needed the jackhole.

When he didn’t, things would change.

But he didn’t court disaster for Linus. Linus was a good man. If he had a go at his dad, his dad would stop at nothing to put Linus in a world of hurt any way he could.

Linus didn’t need that. The woman who looked at him like he could move mountains didn’t need that. And Linus didn’t need to give it to a woman who he looked at like the first day that dawned for him was the day he laid eyes on her.

“Take care of yourself, Car,” Linus said quietly.

Carson nodded and moved to and through the gate, lifting a hand behind him as he did in a lame goodbye.

The goodbye was lame. He was lame. Weak. Pathetic. Of his own free will, walking away from Linus and into a filthy, stinking pit that held nothing for him but pain, violence, and neglect.