Tri-Tip (Grade-A Beefcakes 3)

That was totally romantic and no doubt Julia would swoon over those words. But he hadn’t been trying to do so, hadn’t even realized he’d said something profound. But the vehemence behind it made Honey growl quietly.

I pet her again and she licked my hand. “Then what are you talking about?”

Kemp swore under his breath. Gus slapped Poe on the back. “Tell her, fucker, or I will.”

Poe lifted his chin, shrugged off Gus’s touch. “Fine. I said I wasn’t good for you. I’m not. I murdered my father.”

I hadn’t expected that. Not at all. Maybe he’d changed his mind about sharing me. Maybe he felt like his dick didn’t measure up. Maybe he felt… oh, whatever. But not that.

“You murdered your father,” I repeated. I’d heard him the first time, but my brain was slow to process. Murdered?

Poe nodded once. “I was sixteen. I went to juvie until I aged out at eighteen. My record’s sealed since I was a m

inor, but still. The murderer and the sheriff. Not a good match, huh? I can ruin your career.”

I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Like I’ve ruined my mother’s?” I sighed. “This murder. Was it pre-meditated?”

He nodded again.

“Did he deserve it?”

His eyes widened as if he’d never been asked that before.

“Fuck, yes.”

Kemp ran a hand over the back of his neck in frustration. “Jesus, Poe. You left out the fact that your dad would beat the shit out of your mom, out of you. For years. You killed him—not murdered—defending her.”

No wonder he’d been so upset the day before when I told him about that domestic call I went on.

“Then why did you go to juvie?” I wondered. Sure, killing someone was a terrible crime, especially by a minor, but circumstances were always taken into account. I’d only known Poe for a day, but he wasn’t a sociopath or deranged where he’d kill someone for no reason.

“They didn’t see it as self-defense because my mom told the police she’d fallen down. Again.”

“Your dad beat your mother, you killed him to get him to stop,” Kemp elaborated. He sounded more frustrated by what happened to his friend than Poe did himself. “Then she protects her husband, the abuser, instead of her son, which makes the police put Poe away.”

“I was this size at sixteen, maybe thirty pounds lighter. I didn’t get this big from my dad.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered. I thought of Poe, a teenager, probably clumsy in his newfound size. Angry at watching his mother get hurt all the time. Pissed that he’d been beat up, too. Finally, he was able to do something about it, to protect her. And while he’d been a child—sixteen was a child in the eyes of the law—he was big. Bigger than most adults.

“She turned on you,” I said softly.

The look on Poe’s face was bleak. Angry. The tendons in his neck stood out. “Yes.”

I closed the distance between us, wrapped my arms around him. Hugged him tight. I felt the beating of his heart against my ear, his ragged breathing. The tense lines of his muscles.

“Does anyone in town think less of you for what you did?” I asked. I couldn’t see her, but I heard Honey circling us, her little nails clicking on the hardwood floor.

“No one knows outside of the Duke family. Kemp. Now you.”

“Then it won’t affect my job. And if it did, I’d tell them to fuck off.”

“Will you think less of me? I mean, you’re a lawyer. You stand for justice. And you’re a cop.”

I pulled back and looked up at him. “I do stand for justice. And it sounds like you handed it out.”

“That’s it?” he asked, surprised. His pale eyes were wide as if he were stunned it was just that simple.

“I told you, fucker,” Kemp grumbled under his breath.