Banks sidles next to me. He’s gnawing on a toothpick like a damn llama.
My hard gaze narrows on him before I continue hawk-eyeing the beach. Something’s wrong with my brother.
He’s been trying to quit smoking for years, and the only time it looks like he’s about to bite a toothpick in five halves is when he’s craving nicotine.
He glances at me briefly, and then scans the darkened sea behind us. “You have any ibuprofen on you?”
My brows pull together while I survey the families. “You have a migraine?” I dig into my pocket.
“No, fortunately.” He threads his arms over his chest. “This is just the kind of pain associated with me being a dumbass.” His eyes flash to me. “I think I threw my back out.”
I’m rigid, and concern grips my muscles. “When?” I pass him a packet of ibuprofen behind my back, as covertly as possible.
Without looking at me, he slips the medicine in his back pocket. Banks doesn’t like the team knowing he’s dealing with any kind of pain.
“Earlier today,” he answers. “During the whole celebration.” He cocks his head back to the sea. Referring to when Omega was horsing around. Shoving and tackling guys in the water. Because Farrow Keene was reinstated to the security team.
My eyes drill into pinpoints, just thinking about Farrow.
Again, shouldn’t have punched him.
Can’t shake that fucking truth.
I take a constricting breath, my nostrils flaring.
Banks notices, and he opens his mouth to speak—we both suddenly look to our eleven. At the sand dunes.
Three temp bodyguards are gawking directly at us. They’re fresh blood. Newly-hired, just for this vacation.
Which is why their eyeballs are popping out of their faces. Staring at us like we’re six-foot-seven woolly mammoths. It’s not because we’re tall or attractive or unshaven—or an extinct prehistoric fucking species.
It’s because we’re identical.
We glare head-on until they divert their gazes.
“Another day, another shitbag stares away,” Banks says, sounding indifferent.
After twenty-eight years, we’re both used to it.
Most of the time I forget that Banks and I look identical until someone eagle-eyes us to death, and then I remember I’m a twin.
Same DNA.
Same imposing height, large hands and feet. We’ve kept our hair the same for most of our time in security. Thick brown strands reach our necks, pieces tucked behind our ears. Same scruff along our jaws, same hard brown eyes.
Sturdy builds, intimidating demeanors—we share a lot in common, more than just physical features. We have the same interests. It’s why we’re both here.
But our personalities are vastly different. It just takes people actual effort to see that, and for some reason, most people would rather be told who’s the “quiet one” and the “loud one” and the “funny one” instead of taking time to get to know us.
I don’t go up to people I first meet and ask, “Are you funny?”
So after a while, I just stopped listing out our personalities, but now that we’re older, we’ve become easier to tell apart from our features.
Banks has a fraction less muscle mass because I lift more, and my jaw is subtly more square to his narrow.
On the beach, I look at my brother, and I’m less tense. He’s familiarity and comfort during rough days. No matter how bad I fuck it, he’ll always be here.
I check over my shoulder, a routine sweep. “Which men need to rack out?” I ask him.
The past few days have been long and drawn out for the team with little to no sleep. Bodyguards will attempt to stay with their clients past exhaustion.
“Epsilon should be good,” Banks says. “For SFO, Oscar is probably pushing twenty-hours. Farrow could be going into thirty.”
Gut reaction, I glance down the shoreline and spot the bleach-white haired bodyguard, covered in skull and dagger tattoos. Farrow Redford Keene looks between a swashbuckling pirate and a fucking guitarist in a rock band.
He’s neither.
In actuality, he’s a doctor. Now a bodyguard again. Assigned to both the med team and security team, and he’s out of earshot while talking to Akara. The Omega lead is catching Farrow up on what he’s missed in security.
Farrow turns his head slightly.
I scout the other side of the beach to avoid our eyes meeting. Muscles flexed, I suck in a strained breath.
Banks plants his gaze on me. “I thought you said you were snapped to?”
We always say that to one another: you need to snap to. Can’t live in the past. He’s referring to Farrow. My past mistake. My fuck-up.
What I haven’t been able to mentally drop.
What I need to fix.
These men on the team are my responsibility.
My client is my life.
It’s what I live by.
And you fucked it, Thatcher.
I rake my hand across my jaw. “I shouldn’t have punched Farrow.” I haven’t said it out loud to my brother. Not until now. He’s just known I’ve been neck-deep in regret.
He’s been seeing and feeling my fucking torment the same way I can tell he’s in physical pain. It’s not some “psychic” connection. You just live with someone for twenty-eight years, and they’re a part of you like that.
“Yeah,” Banks agrees in a deep whisper. “But you’re not the first guy to hit someone else on the team, and you’ve already paid a three-fucking-grand fine.”
Doesn’t matter. I rub my mouth roughly and then drop my hand.
I knew Banks would try to release me from my sins, but I don’t deserve that kind of absolution.
Jane runs on loyalty and trust—like I do—and in one instant, I broke both. I compromised my ability to effectively communicate with her. Because I fucking punched Farrow: her best friend’s boyfriend.
And it goes far beyond ruining the good thing I had working with Jane. I would’ve never wanted my men to do what I did.
I’m ashamed.
I don’t care if I’m the third or fourth or hundredth fucking bodyguard to hit another bodyguard. I let my anger and frustration get the best of me.
I should’ve cooled off and kept my mouth shut.
But I was fucking fuming that day. Farrow told Omega that he decided to quit security—so he could finish his residency and become a concierge doctor—and I lost it.
I’ve always wanted him to choose this team first, and hearing him pick the hospital felt like a betrayal that I feared come to fruition. A betrayal not only to security but to his client.
And I reached a point where I wanted to sock Farrow hard. To provoke him, I took a personal shot and implied something about Maximoff Hale that I knew would set him off. Something I don’t even fucking believe.
I insinuated Maximoff would sleep with any bodyguard that joined his detail.
Farrow charged. I swung.
“Thatcher.” Banks bites his toothpick and sends a hard look at me that says, don’t do this to yourself. My brother can’t stare at me for more than half a second.
We’re on-duty.
We need to scout our AO, and our area of operations tonight happens to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
I study the darkened sand fifty meters away.
Silence passes.
Until I break it.
“What I said—I can never take back,” I tell my brother.
He cocks his head slightly. “Everyone knows the straight shot to Farrow is to go after his boyfriend.”
I glare at the horizon. “And I’m the shitbag who took it, Banks.”
He looks right at me, but I’m not turning my head. My narrowed eyes are in a vice that I can’t loosen, and I don’t like glaring at my brother.
That one moment has haunted me for months. I personally attacked Farrow, caused friction in SFO, and I disrespected Maximoff. A guy who’s only shown a high-level of respect for every bodyguard.
Maximoff also just so happens to be Xander Hale’s older brother. Xander is a kid that Banks and I spent over five years protecting together. And what Xander means to me—means to us …there are no words that can even encapsulate how much I feel for that kid.
I swallow a jagged rock in my raw throat. Hurting these families is gut-wrenching. And it contradicts my whole purpose.