Chapter Eleven

Collin

“I can’t wait to hear this.”

I stared across the living room table at my brother Logan, who looked positively giddy. He was on the edge of the seat, on the far end of the couch with Luke and Amber beside him, both looking rather worn out. Owen and Jesse stood behind them all, making it feel like a tribunal I was facing rather than my family, who presumably cared about me more than wanting to get a story and some laughs.

Presumably.

“It’s not as fun as you’re hoping,” Jesse said. “Just hang on.”

“All right, all right. Enough of the dancing around it. What happened tonight, Collin?” Luke asked before yawning and pulling Amber in so her head rested on his shoulder.

I began by explaining the date, glossing over any of the juicy parts that I was positive they wanted to know but were too stuck on their masculinity to ask about, and getting to when I was pulled over. It was important to set the scene and let them know how little I had to drink and how long it had been since I had before I told them why I’d been pulled over.

When I told them it was Eugene who came to the door, there was an audible group-groan.

“Of course,” Owen said. “Of course, it was Eugene.”

“So he had me get out and walk the white line on the side of the road. You know how Powhatan Road is straight along there before you get back to Main? We were right there. So I figured, no big deal. I’ll walk the line, he will get frustrated, maybe write me a ticket for something, and I’ll finish my date.”

“I suppose it didn’t go that easily,” Logan said.

“It did not,” I said flatly. “I got two steps along the line before he hit me with a nightstick or something in the back of my knee. I went down hard, and now it’s all swollen and hurts to walk on.”

“Son of a bitch,” Luke muttered.

“Keep going,” Jesse said, knowing what came next.

I sighed. “Then he kicked me in my ribs so I stayed down, then put cuffs on me. He told me I was under arrest for a DUI and that I’d failed the field sobriety test. Then he told Brandy to take my truck and go home and stuck me in the back of the squad car.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Luke said. “This dumb motherfucker. Does he really think he can get away with that? After everything his brothers pulled, he just thinks no one will notice the coincidence?”

“Yes,” I said. “I believe he does believe that. The Andersons are not known for nuance or intelligence. And so far, they’ve mostly gotten away with it. So why wouldn’t they?”

“Not anymore,” Luke said. “I’m going to get Arn somehow, and Jesse is going to make sure Oland pays dearly. He’s going to prison. Period.”

“And now Eugene,” Owen said. “That dumbass just signed a check he can’t cash.”

“Hang on,” Logan said. “You can’t just haul over there and whip him. Not unless you want to go to prison too.”

“He beat up Collin ,” Owen said. “Of all of us, Collin is the one who absolutely, completely does not deserve that.”

“Thank you for that,” I said. “But I don’t need protecting. I can handle myself. I didn’t fight back because I didn’t want Brandy to think I was some half-cocked criminal. But now I am absolutely behind making sure he pays. Legally.”

“Legally,” Owen spat. “I hate legally. Let me get him in a kimura lock. Just give me his arm for five seconds . I will make him wish he was never born.”

“What the hell is a kimura lock?” Luke asked.

“It’s a… never mind,” Owen said.

“It’s a submission hold,” Logan said, eyeing Owen suspiciously. “Used in MMA a lot.”

“You watch MMA?” Luke asked.

Logan shrugged. “All the firemen love it, so it’s on a lot in the firehouse. Between that, football and pro wrestling, I think I’m pretty well versed on all the pop culture sports whether I want to be or not.”

“The point is,” Owen said, “that I could make him cry like a little baby and apologize, and he wouldn’t dare throw a lawsuit at us because he knows we’d throw one right back.”

“That might be true,” I said, “but it’s not the right thing to do.”

“Yes, it is,” Owen said. “You put one of ours in the hospital, we put one of yours in the morgue.”

“Owen,” Luke said sternly. “Enough of that. Collin’s right. Dad would be ashamed of you talking like that.”

Owen grunted and began to pace. Meanwhile, Jesse brought me a beer and sat down beside me in an easy chair.

“So if we aren’t going to go whip his ass, which for the record, I am with Owen on, what are we going to do?”

“Honestly? I want to go back to work like normal, forget it ever happened, and let the law handle it.”

“Excuse me?” Jesse said.

“That officer, Walker, the one that was with us that wanted a picture…”

“Yeah?”

“He knows something is up. He was asking all the right questions. And I believe he is going to do his own legwork. I just need to get the ball rolling, and he will do the heavy lifting. I’ve been thinking about this. Honestly. We don’t need to get involved. Let the law take care of them. They don’t deserve our time.”

“The law has already let them get away with attempted murder to this point,” Jesse said. “Oland might be facing prison time, but frankly, all of them should be six feet under for the good of the nation.”

“Humanity,” Owen muttered. “For the good of humanity.”

“That’s not for us to decide,” I said. “Maybe you forgot, Jesse, but Dad taught us a lot of things. One of them was how to handle situations like this like men. If your problem is with your neighbor, you go to the law. When your problem is with the law, you go to your neighbor. We just need to work with Officer Walker and see if we can’t get Eugene to trip himself up or something. Meanwhile, we need to just move on.”

“I hate this idea,” Jesse said, standing. “I hate it. I want that known.”

“I’m no fan either,” Logan said. “But I’m also not a fan of trying to kill each other.”

“You know how I feel,” Owen said.

Luke took a long moment of silence, staring at me as I stared right back. He might be the de facto leader of the family, but he knew as well as I did that I was the logical one. I was the one who tended to know what to do in hard situations. I was the one who made the decisions, and then Luke made sure they got done. We worked together, as the two eldest, to be each other’s accountability partner in our quest to be half the man our father was.

“Eugene crossed a line,” Luke said. “He’s been a monster since his brother got locked up, but this is crossing a line. He put hands on someone he had no business putting hands on. But if you want us to lay off, for now, we will. We will do it your way. And if your way provides no results… we do it the other way.”

“Deal.”

“I just have one worry,” Luke said. “And I need you to promise me that I’m just being reactive.”

“What’s that?”

“I worry you aren’t going to be coming out of that office ever again,” he said. “I was so damn proud of you when I heard that you went and asked a girl out. That you went on a date. That’s major progress. But this might send you back into that room forever, and Collin, you deserve more than that.”

“I won’t,” I said, quickly. “I promise, I won’t. I just need a little space. Just a little time away from all this. I’ll be fine.” My eyes floated over to Owen’s. They were burning with a protective rage. He was the only one who had any clue what I’d been through. “I’ll be fine.”

“All right,” Luke said. “On that note, we are going to bed.”

He shook Amber, who had dozed off on his shoulder, and they stood. As soon as they moved, Logan grabbed a pillow and tossed it on the couch. His old room had been converted into a storage room for the most part after he’d moved to his apartment, so when he stayed, he stayed in the living room.

“I’m going to go for a walk,” Owen said. “Lock the door. I got my key.”

“That leaves us,” Jesse said. “Want another beer?”

I looked down and realized that I’d finished the one he gave me absentmindedly.

“No,” I said. “I’m good. I’m going to go to bed too.”

“Suit yourself,” Jesse said.

I went up the stairs and shut the door quietly behind me. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I stared at the text message on the screen. Brandy was asking if I was okay. I was tempted to respond, despite it being nearly five in the morning, but I stopped.

Why bother? What good would it do?

Clearly, she was checking in on me because it was a traumatic situation, but a girl like her? She wasn’t going to deal with someone like me, especially when you add in having to be afraid I’d get pulled over and locked up again. It had to terrify her. And it wasn’t like I could just explain seventy years or so of Anderson–Galloway feuding in a text. If I did respond, it would just be a goodbye anyway.

If I didn’t respond, there was always a question.

The fact was, Brandy was gorgeous. Talented. Funny. Sexy. All the things every guy wanted in a girl, and absolutely my dream woman. She could get anyone she wanted. And she was going to want someone who was more… normal. Someone who could go out and do things without anxiety or fear over cars backfiring or fireworks triggering an episode I couldn’t control. Someone who could sleep through the night. Someone who didn’t get frustrated with a jar not opening and have the sudden and terrible urge to toss it in the air and shoot it with an AR-15 just to feel something.

It was better for me not to respond and let her move on. Sure, she’d probably be upset for a little while. Most likely the ego of being ghosted would hurt most, but she’d get over it the next time some handsome stranger asked for her number, which I was sure would be soon. No matter how depressing it was, it was the right move for her.

And probably the right move for me. It didn’t do for me to get my hopes up like that. For me to pin the growth and development past my issues on someone else. I needed to work on me before I could work on being with someone else. She deserved more. Far more than I was capable of giving her.

I put the phone down on the nightstand and plugged it in before swiping on the Do Not Disturb button. Then I changed out of my clothes, took a quick soap rinse in the shower, and put on a T-shirt and boxers before crawling into bed. I had found it was better usually to wear pajama pants in case I got up and wandered, but the alcohol usually dampened my ability to dream. It was another reason to avoid it as much as I did. I didn’t want to become dependent on it to sleep.

I crawled into bed and set the alarm, then lay back and stared at my ceiling for a long, long time.