Page 59 of A Brother's Secret

Someone made a comment I didn’t catch and all of the guys laughed. Reaver nodded, “That’s good, Queenie. You did good,” he conceded. I went to hand him his knife back and he took it, bouncing it against his long, slender fingers.

“You know, this here is my very favorite knife…” he said and I smiled.

“Ohyeah?”

“Yeah,” he said solemnly and I realized he was serious; that something important was happening.

“I want you to have it. I think you won it fair and square.”

“You’re serious.”

“Very.”

He held it out to me and I plucked it from his grasp, “Maybe when you’ve got time, you can teach me how to best useit.”

He grinned and said, “Youbet!”

A cheer went up and I looked up from the very nice switchblade in my hands, meeting Kyle’s gaze which was a mix of surprise that was completely outshone by pride.

He came up the berm and handed me a cold bottle of beer, “Always taking on the baddest motherfucker in the school yard, aren’t you?” he asked.

“You know me so well,” I said winking and taking a long pull from the bottle in my hand. A loud cheer went up and the guys, predictably, started giving Reaver a ration of shit. It was cool, though… They weren’t being major dicks about it, if they were, I would have called themout.

Reaver pulled his wife under one of his arms and held her tight to his side, she murmured something up to him and he grinned, looked down at her and said something back. She smiled and he kissed her, and I thought back to the card reading I’d given him. It looked to me like he’d listened.

I caught Shelly’s shocked gaze from over near her man and gave her a one-shouldered shrug, “Told you I’d kick his ass.” Her eyes shone brightly in the firelight and she threw back her head and laughed and laughed… I think that was the point I really made a new friend.

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