“As if having you for a dad won’t be torture enough.”

Evan sent him a withering look as Kelsey gasped and spoke to Alex in mock indignation. “Did you hear Uncle Brian? He’s saying mean things about your daddy.” She smothered the baby’s face with kisses.

Oh, sweet Jesus. Here comes the baby talk. It was on the tip of Brian’s tongue to say he was going to step out for a smoke. And then he remembered. Fuck.

You could still use it as an excuse, he thought. He hadn’t told anyone he’d quit so he wouldn’t have anyone except himself to answer to in case he failed.

“Brian, you look great,” Kelsey said suddenly. That brought his head up. “Really.”

“Hey,” Evan chimed in. “You could almost pass for normal.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Brian grumbled, tugging at his long sleeves. Goddamn, but he needed a cigarette. He shouldn’t have let himself think about it a minute ago. He could practically feel the shape of the cylinder on his tongue. He could taste it. Could feel his lungs expanding with sweet, soothing, blissful…

Carcinogenic smut! Stop it, dammit!

“Are you okay?” Kelsey asked.

“No,” he snapped, giving up and shoving the sleeves up his forearms. “It’s too f**king hot for this shit.”

Kelsey covered Alex’s ear and drew his head to her shoulder. “Don’t cuss around the baby!”

“Jesus Christ. He doesn’t understand what the hell I’m saying.”

“You have a date later or something?” Evan asked.

“No, man. I just thought, since it’s almost your birthday and all, that for one night I would appear to be everything you ever wanted me to be.”

The indifferent expression Evan had been wearing turned icy cold in an instant. “Why do you have to be such an ass**le all the time?”

Brian stopped fidgeting long enough to bat his eyes. “Because I only ever wanted to be like you.”

Kelsey muttered something about needing to change Alex and scurried out, knowing full well what was coming. Brian didn’t know why it always came to this…well, yes he did, and it didn’t have anything to do with nicotine withdrawals, though he supposed that could exacerbate any heated situation.

The fact was, no matter what he did, being in his brother’s presence lately never failed to make him feel like something that had crawled out from under a rock in a scum swamp, and the “normal” comment had only driven the dagger deeper.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew he was the black mark on the family, the monkey wrench in Evan’s political endeavors…and he had them, whether he admitted to it or not. The guy’s dream since high school had been to be a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Yet he was stuck deep in the heart of f**king Texas pretending to be content slaving away as an assistant DA.

Maybe it was Brian’s own fault for taking so long to get his shit together. But he had it as together now as it was ever going to get. Everyone might as well face that fact.

“You said I looked almost normal? Dude, it’s relative. To me, you’re the freak. Keep that in mind and get off my ass.” Brian swigged his energy drink, wishing it were a beer. Or hard liquor.

“I never called you a freak. What’s your deal? You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

“The difference? Is that I’m joking around, and you’re not.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. Why are you always so pissed at me, Brian?”

“Whatever. Happy f**king birthday.” He slid off his stool. Evan crossed his arms and blocked his way.

“You’re not leaving.”

“You think you’re stopping me?”

“I am. If I have to throw you in the pool like last year.”

“I seem to remember you making that trip with me.”

“Guys.” Kelsey reentered the kitchen without Alex and insinuated herself between them. She put her hands on Evan’s chest. “Come on. For one night, let’s not do this, okay?”

Brian held his brother’s cold stare, and it was Evan who finally blinked and looked down, focusing on his wife’s face. “All right, but only because you put so much work into this.” His green eyes flickered up to Brian again. “Not because he doesn’t deserve a beat down.”

“Try it, you motherfu—”

“Brian!” Kelsey turned to him. “Please stop. You’re both acting like kids. Call a truce for tonight.”

“I’m hearing enough from him right now, and that shit is about to be magnified f**king tenfold when the others get here. I’m done listening to it.”

Kelsey looked practically on the verge of tears. “Look, I’m sorry. If I knew some way to get you to get along, I would do it. I just—”

“Stop worrying about it, baby. It’s been like this since he was twelve years old. It’s not going to change now.” Evan put his arm around her shoulders and glared at Brian over her head, as if to say See what you’ve done now, you ass**le?

His fault, again. As if he needed to feel crappier. Lack of nicotine was short-circuiting his brain. He was never a paragon of virtue, but lately he felt he was teetering on the knife’s edge of sanity, about to fall off on the wrong side. “I’m sorry, K. I’ll be good. Seriously, you’d probably have to beat me away from shrimp manicotti with a stick, anyway.”

“Thank you.” She reached up to give him a quick hug, and there was a knock at the door.

What followed was a blur of relatives oohing and ahhing over Alex. Then they all did the same over Kelsey and how great she looked and how no one would ever think she’d had a baby only three months ago.

Brian maintained his safe perch on the kitchen barstool and knew it was only a matter of time before he would be forced to interact, but put it off as long as he could all the same.

His older sister, Gabriella, came in to give him the obligatory hug, still wearing her SpongeBob scrubs and her brown hair pinned up from her shift at the pediatric ward in a Dallas hospital. Then she went straight back to dishing out baby advice Kelsey hadn’t asked for.

His dad naturally questioned him about how the business was faring. Then dished out advice he hadn’t asked for.

His mom looked him up and down and beamed, making him bristle to the point that he began considering that Mohawk again.

Evan generally ignored him.

All in all it was a typical Ross family get-together.

And they wondered why he never brought any girlfriends around? Jesus. His earlier thought about inviting Candace had been ridiculous, he’d known that, but it would hold true with anyone he was ever interested in. What would the poor creature have witnessed so far? Him being an ass**le and almost coming to blows with his brother over nothing. Damn near making his sister-in-law—who championed him way more than any of the rest of them—cry. The look of relief from his mom to see nary an inch of anything inked or pierced. His sister treating him like a casual acquaintance rather than someone she’d grown up with.

He told himself it didn’t matter. Until something his mother was saying in the living room drifted through the other various conversations and perked his ears up.

“…can’t believe I finally have a grandbaby and now you might be taking him away.”