Lift You Up (Rivers Brothers 1)

"Nixon?" she asked, her voice gasping inward, her hand going up to mess with her hair.

Almost like...

Almost like she had a thing for my brother.

Why that made it feel like I had taken a slight punch to the gut was beyond me.

"I will be locking up behind me, setting the alarm, but he has a key and the code. I just didn't want you having a heart attack when someone walks in. I'll be ten minutes."

"Oh, I, um, okay," she mumbled, hands running down her shirt, fussing with it, self-consciously wishing she looked more together. "I am suitably warned. I won't stab your brother with a kitchen knife."

"Might improve his attitude," I said with a smirk as Padfoot started yanking me outside. "Ten minutes," I added, pulling the door closed, locking it, finding myself taking a deep breath before getting on with the walk.

And, well, I maybe took a little shortcut, shaving off five minutes Padfoot and I would usually take, stopping off at the local coffee shop for something to keep me going before heading home.

I tried convincing myself that it was because I didn't want to waste Nixon's time, that I wanted to get ahead of this thing before it spiraled out of control.

Tried, being the operative word.

When the door swung back open, I found Savea standing in the kitchen, the front of my tee tucked into her pants, giving her a bit more shape, her hair a little more neat. Well, as neat as it could be with as much of it as she had.

Nixon had his back to me, leaning over the counter, a mug cradled between his hands.

"That was quick," Savea said with a small smile as I unhooked Padfoot. "Were you a good boy?" she asked, leaning down to cradle the dog's head. "Yes, I bet you were. Don't tell Daddy, but I'm giving you a liver treat. I found them stashed in a drawer in the bedroom," she added, not looking the least bit guilty about snooping. "Come on, buddy. Yes, good boy," she called as she disappeared.

Nixon turned, brow quirked up, lips curled into a smirk. Like he knew something.

But there was nothing to know.

"What?" I asked, moving into the kitchen.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I just come in and Savvy is in your clothes, walking around your kitchen making me coffee, knowing where the liver treats are kept..."

"She showed up here after running around the streets in the rain, so she needed dry clothes. I made her coffee after she got changed. She watched. And the liver snacks, well, she snoops," I said with a small smile.

"Yeah, mhmm," he agreed, nodding.

"I'm not screwing around with a close family friend."

"Why not?"

"What do you mean 'why not?' It's a bad idea."

"Come on," he said as Savea demanded Padfoot do a series of tricks in the other room for his treat.

"Come on what?"

"Like you don't know how she looks at you at Sunday dinners."

"What the hell are you talking about? She doesn't look at me like anything."

"Oh, fuck off with that. She used to look at us all the same way. Back when she first met us. Those big puppy dog, high school girl crush eyes. But over the years, it stopped being about my grumpy ass or Atlas or Rush's playboy asses. And she suddenly only had puppy-dog eyes for you."

"You don't know what you're talking about," I said, shaking my head.

Even if I could let myself believe it, believe in the possibilities of it, it wasn't something that could happen. Girls like Savea, they didn't end up with men like me.

She was a good kid, raised by a good family, had a nice, fitting job, never stepped a toe out of line except when friends like Peyton forcefully dragged her over them.

Girls like her didn't end up with guys like me. Ex-criminals who just barely skirted on the right side of the law even now, guys who thrived on adrenaline rushes, who spent most of his life out of the line.

"You know, you can't be a monk forever. It's not fucking healthy," he added with a brow raise as he moved to stand when we heard Savvy coming back out.

"I can feed him if you tell me where the food is."

"In the fridge," I invited. "I am trying out one of those by-the-mail cooked meal things for him in the morning."

"But still the raw stuff at night, right?" she asked, looking stricken at the idea that I had possibly changed the diet she told me was best for him.

"Yeah, he's still on that. He just likes variety," I explained, all-too-aware of Nixon's eagle eyes on this whole conversation.

Of all my brothers, Nixon was the one most likely to get on my case about shit. The second oldest next to me, he was the hardest of all of us, the one who had a rougher time adjusting to coming out of the criminal family business, going straight, the one who didn't sugarcoat anything.