“He cheated on you?” my brother asked slowly, and I couldn’t help but smile over the indignation in his tone.

“He said he didn’t while we were together, like that matters. Can you believe it? That’s why I punched him in the throat. I hadn’t even considered he’d been talking to someone else before we split up, E. I felt so stupid—“

His thigh nudged my shoulder. “You are pretty stupid, but he’s an idiot, Flabby. You can’t be that surprised about it. You wanna be with some guy for the rest of your life that crab walks across the stage and wears tighter pants than you? No. No, you fucking don’t.”

I started laughing. “Yeah, I know. Shut up.”

“I know it’s hard to try to find somebody that can live up to me…” he began to say.

“Your mother,” I snorted.

Eli chucked behind me. He messed with my hair for a few minutes before finally speaking up again, his voice lower than normal. “Look, my lease in New York is gonna run out in three months. I’m kinda tired of living there, and I was thinking about moving back to Dallas for a while after this tour ends. We could get a two-bedroom apartment or a house or something, if you want. I’ll even let you split rent with me.” He nudged me again. “Think about it.”

With the amount of crap we talked about each other, to each other, it was easy to underestimate our bond. We were a tag team. We had always been one, and I would bet my life we’d be in our seventies still picking on each other. Just as I opened my mouth to tell him I would definitely think about his offer, someone banged on the door.

“Hey! Can I come in?” Mason’s voice bellowed from the other side.

“No!” we both yelled simultaneously.

He didn’t immediately respond, like he couldn’t fathom why he couldn’t. “Why?” he finally asked, sounding confused and disturbed.

“Eli’s showing me how he puts a tampon in,” I snorted, earning another sharp tug of my hair from my brother.

There was silence on the other side of the door for a minute, allowing Eli to finish my braid. It had always seemed like a miracle to me how gentle those big paws could be when they wanted. I’d seen them beat the crap out of toms, cymbals and faces alike. Hours later, those hands could make the most intricate designs to my shoulder-length hair. No one could say Eli wasn’t a multi-dimensional son of a bitch.

“I don’t get it… why can’t I come in?” Mason’s voice finally mumbled through the door again.

I hopped up and threw my arms around my brother, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek while he frantically tried to pull away in disgust. “Thanks, loser. You’re going to make my future niece a wonderful mother one day,” I told him right before he licked his index fingertip and dipped it into my ear. I made a face and swatted his hand away, afterward getting up to unlock the door.

Mason slipped in, clean-shaven and wet-haired. His alert blue eyes shifted across the small room curiously. I sat down next to Eliza, gently touching the neat strands of hair tucked across my head.

When Mason’s eyes landed on me, he frowned and ran a hand through his hair, pushing the damp strands away from his forehead. “You look like a girl.”

“I am a girl.”

Those same cobalt blue eyes narrowed and then further narrowed as he glanced down the length of my outfit before he flicked his gaze over to Eli. “Are you letting her go out like that?”

“Since when does she listen to me?” he scoffed, throwing an arm over my shoulders. “There’s nothing wrong with my Flabby if you don’t look too closely at her face.”