Stephanie probably thinks I’m working today, but I’m sitting inside a smelly, dirty diner while I wait for my father to show up. I should’ve figured he’d be late.

I tried suggesting a nicer place when I asked him to meet me, but he didn’t trust me at a place I picked. It’s probably some side effect of his drug abuse making him paranoid, or maybe he’s right to be worried. Either way, I just want to talk to the asshole and get this over with.

After last night on the boat, I realized I need to finish what I started when I dredged up the past with Stephanie, and that starts with him.

It’s nearly half an hour past the time we agreed to meet when my dad finally slinks in. He’s wearing a patchy brown jacket and jeans that look like they are one wash away from falling apart. He sits down across from me with a yellow-toothed grin. “Wanted to gloat, did you?” he asks.

“No,” I say.

It’s the first time I’ve really seen him since I was a kid. The day I grabbed Cole out of there wasn’t like this. He was asleep and I could forget the ugly way his eyes glean when he looks at me, like he’s picking me apart and just waiting for his chance to cut my legs out from under me.

“Then how about you give me my fucking boy back.”

I lean forward, ignoring the smell coming from him as I inch my face closer to his. “He’s afraid of you. Why might that be?”

My dad leans back, shaking his head and laughing dismissively. “Because he’s a rotten little shit who can’t follow directions.”

“Yeah? And we both know what your solution is when rotten little shits can’t follow directions, don’t we?” My hands ball into tight fists just from looking at the asshole. All those years he was bigger and stronger than me, all those goddamn years when he lorded his strength over me like a whip, and now the tables are turned. I lost track of how many times I thought about what I would do to him if I saw him. How I’d punch his face in or throttle him until he begged me to stop. Seeing him now just makes me want to walk away. I can see him as an adult for the first time, not the way a kid sees his father.

My dad is a drug-addict bum. He’s weak. He’s filthy. He’s desperate. He’d fold in on himself like a wet paper bag if I laid a hand on him and I wouldn’t feel any better. I let my hands relax again, narrowing my eyes at him. “I can’t figure out why you want him back. I’ve got papers in my car. You sign them and Cole is ours. No drama.”

“So you can take your smug ass back home knowing you’ve won? Fuck.You.”

“It’s not about winning,” I say, slamming down my fist hard enough on the table to draw a few curious glances from around the diner. “It’s about not letting you fuck up some other kid’s life.”

“Oh yeah,” he says, leaning back with crossed arms. “Just look at how much I fucked up your life with your fancy clothes and car. Poor little baby. Daddy wasn’t nice to you so you’ve got it real hard, don’t you?”

“Yeah, you know what?” I say, standing suddenly. “I thought it might heal some old wounds or some shit to just get you to agree to sign custody of him over. But fuck all that noise. I’ll get custody of him, and hell, maybe they’ll even find a few reasons to put you in jail where you belong in the process.”

“Don’t you walk away from me, boy,” he says, reaching to grab my arm.

I reflexively knock his arm away with my left hand and my right cracks out across his jaw. He slumps back into the booth with wide eyes and a slack jaw.

I grimace. “Fuck,” I growl. “Now I need to wash the shit off my hand.”

I’m in a sour mood when I come home that evening, but I’m hoping the sight of Stephanie will cheer me up. I find her upstairs just closing the door with a finger to her mouth as she puts Cole to bed.

She follows me out to the kitchen and smiles once we are clear but I can tell from her body language she feels a little awkward. “Well,” she says, clapping her hands against the side of her thighs. “You’re home.”

“Yeah,” I say. “How was Cole?”

“He’s great,” she says. She pulls out a barstool at the kitchen island and sits down, smiling as she seems to pull up some memory from today. “He’s so much like you. You know? I guess it shouldn’t seem so strange since you’re brothers after all, it’s just that the age difference is so big. It’s like he’s your kid.”

I nod. “He’s not, though.”

“I know,” she admits. “Obviously, I know. I just wonder what it feels like for you. But I guess that answers my question.”

“I just want to make sure he never has to go back to that house.”

“Me too,” she says.

“Have you heard anything new from child services?”

“Yes,” she says slowly, and from the way she’s watching me I feel like it’s going to be something I won’t like.

“What?”

“They want to come do a sort of walk through tomorrow. But they need us all to be here. It would look good if we were doing something that seemed like a family activity.”

“Like what?” I ask.

She’s trying to hold back a grin but failing. “Like playing a board game or something.”

“Seriously?” I ask.

“Go fish,” I say dryly.

Cole giggles and accidentally shows Stephanie and I his cards for at least the tenth time. I still can’t believe she talked me into playing this stupid game, but the child services worker should be coming any minute, and if Stephanie is right, it won’t hurt to do what we can to look like a better home for Cole. I probably should feel guilty that we’re deliberately trying to trick the system, but I know we’re doing it for a good reason so frankly I don’t feel bad at all.

It’s only a few minutes later when the doorbell rings. When I open the door, I have to tilt my head down to see the small man with thinning hair who waits on my doorstep. He has a long, sharp nose and eyebrows that seem permanently furrowed, like he stepped in dog shit and hasn’t had a chance to clean it off his shoe.

“Evening,” he says shortly. “I’m Arthur Brown, from child services.”

I motion for him to come in. He steps inside, making no effort to hide the fact that he’s searching for signs of neglect or of me being unfit to be a parent. “I see you make a lot of money, Mr. Rivers.”

“I do okay for myself,” I say.

“I also see you’re not afraid to flaunt it,” he notes, lifting some expensive looking paperweight the designers decorated the foyer with when they furnished the house.

I rip the paperweight from his hands and set it back down in its place, glaring at him openly as I do.

Stephanie clears her throat and jumps up to put her hands around me as she smiles at the man. “Sorry,” she says quickly. “Tristan has had a long day. He’s just tired.”

“I have,” I agree, still glaring at Arthur. “So you may not want to provoke me.”

Stephanie stomps on my foot and gives me a sharp look.

With an effort, I force a calm I don’t feel. I glance over to see what Cole is doing and catch him digging through the pile of cards on the floor to find the pictures he likes best as he mutters something about pretty fishies to himself.

“Right,” says Arthur, who pulls out his clipboard and starts to write down some kind of note with a disapproving look on his face.

I crane my neck to see what he’s writing, but he angles the clipboard until I can’t see.

“I suppose you were having a long day before you assaulted your father in a diner earlier today, too?”

“What?” asks Stephanie.

My blood runs cold and my fists clench. How the fuck does he know about that? “I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about,” I say through gritted teeth.

“I see,” says Arthur, whose pen is moving furiously now across his clipboard. “So do you often black out and forget your violent episodes?”

“What is this?” asks Stephanie. “I work with child services all the time and this is totally uncalled for. You’re just supposed to be looking at our home and at the basics, not trying to conduct some sort of sting operation.”

He raises an eyebrow. “What I’m trying to do is ensure this young man,” he nods to Cole, “is able to live in an environment where he will be safe and happy.”

“Yet you came in here already deciding this wasn’t that place. Why is that?” asks Stephanie.

For the first time, Arthur’s obnoxious confidence falters just for a moment. She’s close to asking the right question and he knows it. It takes him just long enough to respond that he clearly seems to be grasping for a likely answer instead of giving the truth. “Maybe because of the reported violence earlier today,” he suggests.

“Reported by whom?” asks Stephanie.

As much as I already hate this little rat of a man, I’m thoroughly enjoying watching Stephanie in her element as she grills him and gradually turns the tables. I also feel a kind of warm appreciation towards her for not turning on me when she heard the way he phrased what happened between my dad and I. She could’ve just as easily snapped at me and believed the worst, but she’s trying to defend me instead.

“By an anonymous source,” snaps Arthur. “I don’t know how you think this works, Miss…” he glances down at his clipboard. “Holland. But I’m not the one on trial here.”

“Trial?” she asks. “Is that what you think this is? A trial? What does that make you, the judge and the jury?”

He clamps his teeth together, eyes burning angrily. “I think I’ve seen enough here.”

He rounds on his heel and heads toward the door. Just before he leaves, a thought occurs to me. I take a few big steps to catch up with him and grip his shoulder. “Wait,” I say. “Did your anonymous tip come from a young woman with blonde hair?”

The split second of surprise in his eyes is all the answer I need. The only response he actually gives me is an angry grunt before he pulls away from my hand and storms out, but I know from his face that I was right.

“Go fish!” shouts Cole once Arthur has left.

Stephanie and I distractedly sit back down with him and start playing again, but our minds are anywhere but the game.

“What are you thinking?” she asks.

“The look on his face. I think Alice was the one who tipped him off.”

“Alice?” she asks. “The girl from the auction who had a thing for you?”

“Her, yes. But it’s not about her having a ‘thing’ for me. She just doesn’t want to lose. That means she’ll be happy if she can spoil something good for us.” I don’t need to spell it out for Stephanie to understand. Her eyes immediately go to Cole, who is humming happily as he randomly grabs cards and adds them to his hand from the pile.

“What did happen at the diner?” asks Stephanie carefully.

I sigh, giving Cole a careful look to see if he’s paying any attention. “He grabbed me and I may have punched him once.”

She nods, but her eyebrows are drawn in thought. “Why were you meeting him in the first place?”

“I thought I could work out some kind of agreement with him. Stupid thought, or so it turned out.”

She gives me a sad smile. “I know how hard that must have been.”

“It wasn’t hard,” I say. “I know how badly you want this all to work out. I did it for you.”

She bites the corner of her lip and smiles at her cards. “Keep up the sweet stuff and you may have trouble getting rid of me when this is all over.”

Cole looks up curiously, but clearly doesn’t grasp what we’re talking about because he goes back to talking to his cards.

I raise an eyebrow at Stephanie, grinning. “Maybe I’m not so sure I want to get rid of you anymore.”

“Flattering,” she says.

I chuckle. “I can’t spill all my secrets. I don’t want you getting a big head.”

Cole looks up sharply at Stephanie’s head like he’s expecting it to literally start growing before his eyes.

“It’s a figure of speech, bud,” I say.

“What’s that?” he asks.

Stephanie watches with amusement as I try to explain.

“It’s a thing you say that… well, it’s something you say that doesn’t really make sense. But everyone knows what it means so it makes sense. Even though it doesn’t.”

Cole’s face scrunches up and Stephanie gives me a round of applause for my terrible explanation.

“Have you considered getting out of the business world and into homeschooling?” asks Stephanie. “You really have a way with words.”

I give her a dirty look, but can’t help from cracking a smile. “I’ve got a way with something else, too. And if you keep pushing your luck, I’ll make sure I remind you of that.”

She smiles back, but there’s an uneasiness in her expression. I feel what she’s feeling too. This thing between us has become so confused and it has happened so quickly. To make matters even more confusing, I’m starting to wonder not just if I’ll be able to let Stephanie go when this is all over, but I’m also not sure I’ll be able to let my little brother go. For the first time in my life, it feels like I’m part of something good. My reflex was to push it away and to deny it, but day by day I can feel it breaking through to me. Stephanie and Cole… They are good for me. Hell, maybe I’m even good for them.