“But the beast doesn’t live within. This is not to say that I didn’t think of steppin’ out on Olivia, who was a pain in my ass, but I didn’t have it in me. And when it got so miserable I couldn’t take it anymore and I had the choice of eatin’ shit my whole life and teachin’ my sons eatin’ shit was the right thing to do, which it isn’t, or getting out from under that mess and showing them it was important to be a man and find my own happiness, I made that choice for me and for them. Levi doesn’t get that life will always be fucked one way or another and you can’t run away from it. He’s living a life that’s been over for years. We aren’t livin’ with Mom and doin’ our homework at the kitchen table. That family’s changed and that life is gone and he needs to make his own life and his own family.”

“Have you told him this?”

“Getting my brother to listen is like convincing him to let it go about Olivia or Dad. It is just not gonna happen.”

“My sister lives in Australia and my mother lives in Florida,” I told him.

He grinned and let my hair go as his arms wrapped around me.

“Finally, two things that show my Tess can be lucky.”

My body relaxed into his and I shared, “I miss them every day.”

His eyes moved over my face as he murmured, “Yeah.”

“Thanksgivings suck. I either go to Florida, where it’s just Mom and me and that’s okay but that isn’t like having a full table with kids being loud and wondering what girl your philandering brother is going to bring to dinner. Or she’s in Australia and I have to find a friend close to mooch dinner from. Those are worse.”

The skin around his eyes went soft and he muttered, “My poor Tess.”

I moved my face a half an inch closer and my fingers tensed into his neck for a second before I said quietly, “I guess what I’m saying is, all this seems like it sucks but it doesn’t. It’s all based in love and history and loyalty so really it’s kind of beautiful because the alternative would be not having any of that and then where would you be?”

Brock didn’t answer. No. Instead, his eyes looked into mine for long moments before his hand slid up in my hair, his body rolled me so I was again on my back, he was again on me, and his mouth had captured mine, and he was delivering a hard, deep, wet kiss that took my breath away.

When he lifted his head, I fought for my breath as well as control of several areas of my body and he asked, “You hungry, babe?”

“Yes,” I breathed because that was the truth. I was. But I was happy to eat later, as in, lunch the next day.