The house was quiet for the first time in days. I'd grabbed my guitar, ready to start working.

And then I'd just... sat there.

In twelve years in the business, I'd never once had writer's block. I didn't even understand it when others complained about it. To me, you sat down with your guitar and you powered through the ideas, one after another until you found something that worked. And it always worked.

Until now.

I set it back down again and stared at the wall, almost awed by how blank my mind was. Not a single idea bubbled to the surface of my brain. No melodies, no phrases that could be captured and fitted into a song.

There was nothing there. I stared at the wall as if it had answers, but the only thing that came to me was Ruby.

Kissing her wasn't something I'd planned. I had no grand scheme to seduce her by going to her knitting club.

But there had been something there. I'd felt it. She felt it. I could tell by the way she blushed when she made that accidental innuendo. And that feeling of wonder I kept having when I was with her, that rush of excitement over something brand new, made me lean in and see just what that something could be.

That something was electric. I'd kissed her softly, sweetly, but the way she yielded, parting her lips for me and letting me take control had my dick hard in an instant. She was perfect and I had no idea how I hadn't realized that until then.

I couldn't get that kiss out of my head. I couldn't get that girl out of my head.

And I couldn't get the words she'd shouted at me as she threw down her money and stomped out of the cafe out of my head either

You make decisions that affect other people's lives that aren't yours to make.

No wondered I had no ideas. That phrase had been running through my brain like a steamroller, squashing out any other thoughts.

Was it true? It didn't feel true. But then I had to remember that it was my idea to audition for the talent show way back when in the first place. My brothers had been content to get comic book money from our local appearances, but I'd always wanted something more. I'd more or less dragged my siblings to the mall that day.

And that decision had definitely affected their lives. Everything had changed, because of me. I'd always thought I'd done them a favor, that they'd owed me for it, but now?

Now I wasn't so sure.

Suddenly there was a bang that made my heart skip a beat. I leaped off my bed when it was followed by a sickening thud.

And then a series of eloquent-yet-filthy curse words that only Gabriel King was capable of stringing together.

I looked away from the wall. Duke looked up too. "You think he's okay?" I asked my dog.

Duke huffed and laid back down again, but I could feel his judgement all the same. "I'm sure he's not dead or something," I told him. "He wouldn't be cussing like that if he was."

I heard stomping and then another loud bang, then the sound of the tap running. Duke raised his head again and this time he looked at me.

"Fine," I told him. "You're basically deaf anyway, so you won't have to hear the yelling." I took a deep breath before calling down the stairs, "You okay down there?"

"Fuck off!" came the reply.

"Charming," I called back. "Just tell me you're not bleeding out on the carpet. Mom would kill me."

"I'm fine," Gabe grunted, then cursed again.

I thundered down the stairs and through the kitchen to find him in the downstairs bathroom. Blood streamed from a cut on his forehead.

"Jesus, you look like something out of a horror movie."

He ignored me and hissed, trying to fit a butterfly bandage over the wound, but the blood made it too slippery.

"Here, asshole. Let me do it, you're fucking it up," I said.

"I've got it."

"You clearly don't."

"Shit!" he snarled as the adhesive folded on itself.

"Will you let me?" I demanded. "Turn this way."

Gabe glared at me for a moment, but then blood dripped right down into his eye. Blinking furiously, he shoved the packet of bandages at me. "Hurry up," he growled. "Before I get blood on the towel and mom has a coronary."

I took the package, silently reveling in the first joke he'd made with me in nearly two years. "Okay hold still, I'm gonna pinch it shut."

He lunged away. "Are your hands clean?"

"No, they've been up in cowshit all day, you know me. What the hell happened to you anyway?"

He hissed as I gingerly closed the gash with my fingers. "I needed one of Dad's wrenches."

I instantly understood. "And he keeps them up so high."

"Fucking pegboard," Gabe sighed as I pulled the adhesive strip tight. "Why can't he have all his tools chucked in a disorganized toolbox like normal people?"

"So it fell on you? What, you didn't grab the ladder?"

"I didn't want to get out a fucking stepladder for just one wrench." He glanced at me as I wiped the blood away from the bandage with a wet cloth. "So I jumped."

I snorted. "Course you did."

"Course I did," he agreed.

I looked at him. He looked at me. This was the longest we'd spoken to each other in nearly two years. "How's that?" I asked, my voice oddly thick.

Gabe looked in the mirror and shrugged. "I suppose it'll do."

"You look like you got in a bar brawl," I told him.

He looked at me. "You don't look so great either," he observed, pushing past me out to the kitchen.

A smart remark leapt to my throat but Ruby's words clanged in my head and I held my tongue. "I don't feel awesome, if that's what you're trying to say," I said instead.

He opened the fridge and searched for a moment before pulling out an apple. "Well that sucks for you then," he said, polishing it on his shirt before taking a bite.

He was trying to shut me down, but I wasn't having it. "Where are you going?"

He lifted his chin towards the farthest shed.

"Dirt bike?" I asked him, incredulous. "Really? You still going to the track down by the creek?"

"Right," he scoffed, tossing his apple core into the trash. "Me and all the twelve year olds. No, asshole, the quarry."

The quarry was up the creek a ways. They'd taken out a bunch of rock along time ago, leaving a canyon where no canyon had business being. I hadn't seen it in years.

He had a pretty nasty cut on his eye that I had just cleaned up for him. There was no way he should be putting on a helmet and racing over uneven terrain and I had half a mind to tell him exactly that. Until I remembered it wasn't my decision. "I'll come," I told him.

Gabe regarded me. I couldn't read anything in his gaze other than detached interest, but I supposed that was better than open contempt. "You want to ride dirt bikes with me?" he asked.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "If you'll remember, they were Christmas gifts for all of us."

Gabe laughed. "I'm not still riding the ones we got as teenagers, idiot. I've got my own machine. Dad let's me store it here."

I found myself grabbing my leather jacket and following him out into the frozen yard. He strode without looking back at me, but I would tell by the set of his shoulders that he felt me there behind him.

It wasn't often that I was following him. The last time had been when I was chasing him the night he caught his ex-girlfriend cheating with our manager.

I wondered if he was remembering that too.

The small shed was unlocked. Gabe stalked inside and pulled a tarp off some kind of slick, high powered machine. I walked over, whistling. "That's your dirt bike? It looked like a rocket."

"Rides like one too," he said, boasting.

"You do this often?"

"What, ride? Yeah. Every damn day."

I glanced at my brother. Sometimes Gabe went all blurry on me, like he was vibrating with his need to go out and chase that next high. I wondered how much of it was Gabe's nature and how much was the remnants of his broken heart. Two years and as far as I knew, he hadn't dated anyone.

"So how has it been?" I asked. "Being home?"

He shrugged. "Fine. Boring."

"And your show?" Gabe had a reality show on the ESPN satellite channel where he did extreme sports and wild, stupid stunts. It was called, appropriately, 'King of Pain.'

He looked proud. "They're talking about a second season."

"You want to do it?"

A little ghost of a smile. "It's fun."

I shook my head. "You're a madman."

Gabe grinned. The first real, genuine smile in years, and I clenched my fists to keep from pointing that out. I felt like I was walking a tightrope. One small slip-up and it would be all over. "I don't tell mom what we do," he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "She already agreed never to watch it."

A slight fizzle of connection burned between us as I said, "Smart move." We were two brothers hiding a secret to spare their mother heartache. It felt....

Normal.

"So you're all set then," I said, "But who knows what kind of shape my old bike is in?"

"Dad wouldn't let it fall apart. You know that."

"True." I followed him over to another shed - honestly they seemed to pop up like mushrooms overnight - and saw that he was right. Underneath its tarp, my electric blue dirt bike looked smaller than I remembered but otherwise in perfect repair. "Got any gas?" I asked Gabe.

"Up on the shelf."

I unscrewed the cap, trying to remember the last time I had done something like this. Something that could potentially get my hands dirty.

It had been a while.

I sort of missed it.

I grabbed my old helmet off the neatly organized pegboard and strapped it on. "Ready?" I asked Gabe.

"These aren't street legal."

"Had that ever stopped you?"

"No," he said immediately. "But I thought it might stop you."

I grinned. "What's the point of being a King Brother if we can't get away with murder?"

"Oh it's murder now? Who are we killing?" he chuckled, strapping on his helmet and wincing as it settled over his cut.

I took a chance. "How about Bennett?"

Gabe went stiff and still. The silence stretched out seemingly forever and I was ready to open my mouth and tell him. Tell him he was wrong, that I knew why he was angry but he'd made a mistake, ask if we could start over again, when Gabe let out a sound that could have been an exhale but just as likely could have been a laugh. I shut my mouth on the words before they could tumble out of me and fuck everything up.

"Let's ride," was all he said. But it felt like something had loosened between us.