any shit out,” Nico added.
“Let me hit you!” Hawk snapped at me.
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“What do you mean, ‘not yet’?”
“I mean, you get to hit me when you’re okay with it.”
“Hitting you might make me okay with it!” he paused. “I cannot believe the two of you went behind my back like this!”
“I can’t believe you didn’t guess,” Nico quipped.
“Not helping!” I yelled at him as I grabbed Hawk’s arm and shoved it away from me.
“It’s kinda obvious now I think about it,” Rollie mused.
“No!” Hawk said hotly. “No. There is no world where I’m letting my shit of a best friend date my little sister!”
“So, what does that say about you then?” I countered.
He pointed at me. “Don’t make this about how I’m going to die alone because I’m equally undeserving of love. This is about you being unable to keep it in your fucking pants. It’s Amber, Kit!”
Everyone in the room winced audibly. And not just because of how highly Hawk thought of himself.
Hawk hadn’t called me Kit since he’d given me the Chaos nickname when we were sixteen. I’d been Christopher twice when he legitimately thought I’d died, but they were stories for another time.
“I’m painfully aware it’s Amber, Pat. It only happened because it was Amber.”
Hawk deflated somewhat. “What does that mean?”
“It means I wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone else, mate. She’s my one.”
He scoffed humourlessly. “Sure. Until you get bored and move on like we always do!”
“I’m not moving on,” I told him.
“You fucking will if you know what’s good for you!”
I caught his fist in one hand and pulled him to me with the other one. “Dude, I am trying really hard not to swing back right now. But you’re testing my fucking patience.”
“Oh, your patience? My apologies. Because it’s always about you, isn’t it?”
I shoved him away. “I thought about this, Hawk. I knew what I was risking and I only went through with it because I was sure. She sees me. Not the fucking mask. Me, mate! She always has and you know it. Other than the four of you in this room, she’s the one who knows me the best. Fuck it, she probably knows me better because I don’t feel the need to be ‘Chaos’ around her.”
“What? So now I don’t know the real you?” Hawk scoffed and I saw the hurt in his eyes. “After every-fucking-thing we’ve been through?”
I shook my head. “No. Of course you do.”
“But my baby sister suddenly knows you better?”
I couldn’t help it, I exploded. I’d been intending a semi-rational conversation followed by a good old fistfight as dictated by the unwritten Grace Grayson bylaws. But I couldn’t do rational anymore.
“Sorry I don’t feel like snuggling up on the couch with you after a hard day of work! Sorry that your kiss doesn’t make all those fucking horrible things we went through seem worth it! Sorry that your smile doesn’t fucking light me up inside! Sorry that your arms around me doesn’t make me feel worthy of someone’s love for once in my fucking life!” I yelled at him. “I’m sorry I fell in love with your sister, Pat. I tried not to. But I want to be the guy who’s worth her. Me. Not someone other shit-stain.
“I want to be the guy she comes to when she has a panic attack. I want to be the guy who’s got her back. And I want her to be the woman who’s got mine. Because God knows I love you fuckers more than almost everything in this world, but I think we all deserve a little romance in our lives!”
Hawk cleared his throat awkwardly, his fists falling by his sides. “If you wanted a candlelit dinner, mate, you just had to say so…” he said stiltedly.
The others were deadly silent. They’d never seen this side of me. Patrick Grace had been the only human to know I had feelings for about twenty-nine and a half years.
I huffed a rough laugh. “Forgive me, mate?”
Hawk looked at me. “I’m still going to have to hit you.”
I nodded, because I knew that was his way of saying yes. He wasn’t happy, but he’d forgive me. “Fair.”
I took a step towards him and let him swing. I barely even flinched. Tank, Rollie and Nico all did. Audibly.
“How about once for every time?” Hawk tried.
“I’m not telling you how many times I slept with your sister, dude,” I told him, already feeling the bruise smarting on my