Badd Motherf*cker: Badd Brothers (20 page)

“And you think that’s me?”

Brock just shrugged. “That’s up to the two of you, whether or not he’s willing to actually man up and let you in, and whether or not you have the patience to put up with his emotionally-stunted nonsense.” He slapped the bar top with his palm. “And I, for one, hope you do, and hope he does.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Another lift of his shoulder. “He’ll asshole his way out of having to be vulnerable. I’ve seen him do it any number of times. He doesn’t like it when things get real, so he puts up these spiky death rays of asshole behavior, to just sort of push people away. Doesn’t work on us, of course, since we’re his brothers and we see through it, but for women…? He’s a bad boy, you know? Like, true-blue, down to the bone bad boy. Chicks love it, short term. But trying to push through the asshole to get to the truly decent guy lurking beneath it takes more than anyone’s ever been willing to put up.”

A big booming voice broke the skin of the quiet discussion. “Quit boring the lady with your girly psychobabble bullshit, Brock! Time to do shots!”

The man accompanying the voice must have been Baxter, according to Sebastian’s description. Big, burly, thick, bull-necked, full of blustering thunder and power. Same as Sebastian, Zane, and Brock, Baxter had brown hair and brown eyes, but like each of his brothers, he wore it differently. His arms were so huge I found myself wondering how he even managed to wipe his own asshole, and his chest was actually some kind of tectonic plate, but his waist was a trim wedge hugged by a green and yellow University of Oregon T-shirt. He occupied a huge physical space, but as he left the stairwell and swaggered across to the bar, it was clear he was also one of those people who just dominated any room he was in, through virtue of sheer volume, bluster, bravado, and power of personality.
 

He slid behind Brock, trailing his fingers along the bottles of booze lined up on shelves. “Eeny…meeny…miney…mo!” He tapped a bottle of Johnny Walker, Jack Daniel’s, Wild Turkey each in turn, and then at the word “mo” stopped on a bottle of Patrón Silver.

Brock whacked Baxter on the shoulder. “It’s
noon
, moron. We’re not doing shots of tequila.”
 

Baxter ignored him, poured three overflowing shot glasses full of tequila, rummaged around under the bar for a tray full of sliced limes and a salt shaker. “It’s always time for tequila, you little bitch!” He set a shot glass in front of me, grabbed my wrist, licked it, shook salt onto it, tossed me a lime. Held up his glass to me. “To my brother Sebastian—asshole extraordinaire, and owner of the meanest right hook I’ve ever fucking felt; and to you, Dru, for being woman enough to get even his tightwad panties in a hell of a bunch!”

He clinked my shot glass with his, spilling tequila all over my hand and his, and then he slammed his glass against Brock’s glass who, despite his protest, was doing the shot with us. We licked the salt off our hands, did the shot, and then sucked the limes, each of us doing the requisite post-tequila shot grunt.

I noticed, then, that Baxter had a shadow on his jaw, too. “Wait, Sebastian punched you, too?”

Baxter poured another shot and downed that one, no salt or lime or gasp. “Yes, he did. The fucker. I always forget how hard that bastard can hit.”
 

I frowned. “Why’d he hit
you
?”

Zane appeared, then, grabbed the bottle of tequila and stole Baxter’s shot glass, did two shots in short order, forgoing the salt and lime. “Because the dumbfuck had the balls to ask Sebastian why he had his panties in a bunch.”
 

“To which Sebastian replied ‘not wearing any panties, cocksucker,’” Baxter said, rubbing his jaw, “and then he decked me.”

I looked in turn at Zane, Baxter, and Brock, each of who bore some kind of mark from Sebastian’s anger. “So he’s clocked all three of you…” I grabbed the bottle and did another shot, but I went with salt and lime, because I clearly wasn’t on the same level of hard-drinking badassery as the Badd brothers. “Which leads to tequila shots at…twelve-oh-nine on a Monday afternoon?”

Zane nodded. “Yep. I mean, I don’t know about these fuckers, but I haven’t been to bed yet. Took an overnight from London to LA, and then connected from LA to Seattle, and then from Seattle here, and that was the
short
leg of my journey. So for me, it’s basically still Sunday, according to the ancient rules of staying up all night.”
 

“And I got cheated on, on the day of my wedding,” I said. “Which was two days ago—and then I met Sebastian and had him mess me up in all kinds of ways, so I feel a little entitled.”
 

“And we’ve both been punched,” Baxter pointed out, slugging Brock in the shoulder, “which gives us a good excuse. But you know me, I don’t really need an excuse to get shitty, na’mean?” And then he promptly did a third shot.

I was feeling my first two, so I held off. “Why is Sebastian going around hitting everyone?”

“I told you,” Brock said. “Because he’s an emotionally stunted caveman.”
 

“Oh,” I said.

Baxter laughed. “And because he’s an idiot. Thinks we’re gonna just let him get away with hitting us because he’s all pissy about things.”

I glanced from brother to brother to brother in turn, once more, and noticed each of them had the same expression going on…and Brock was doing a second shot too, and then a third. They were all looking at each other, exchanging those meaningful glances in which men who know each other well have a tendency to do when they want to communicate.

“I’m guessing you’re not planning on letting him get away with it?” I asked, warily.

Zane chuckled darkly. “Hell no.”

Baxter corked the bottle of Patrón, replaced it, and then slammed his fist on the bar. “Ready, brothers?”

Zane and Brock answered in unison. “Ready.”
 

All three swaggered off toward the stairs, Zane going up first, Brock second, and Baxter third. Baxter reappeared almost immediately, eyeing me. “Dru? If I were you, I would…um…duck.”
 

I blinked at him, and then he was gone, and I heard his feet on the stairs. A few moments of silence, and then a wordless bellowing roar from Sebastian…

Thuds, bangs, the crash of something breaking, more thuds so hard and loud the walls shook…

And then several pairs of feet stomping on the stairs, more thuds, and then Sebastian’s voice shouting and bellowing and cursing.

“LET ME GO YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!” I heard him shout, and then Baxter and Zane appeared, each holding one of Sebastian’s thrashing arms, and then Brock with his feet.

They carried him across the bar, and he was kicking and thrashing so hard they were obviously struggling to keep hold of him. Baxter had a bloody lip, Zane’s nose was trickling blood, and Brock’s shirt was ripped…and they didn’t even have him outside yet.
 

I waited until they got him through the door, and then I followed, tentatively, to stand in the doorway as the brothers unceremoniously tossed Sebastian onto his ass in the middle of the street, and then each of them jumped back a good foot.
 

Sebastian came up swinging, lunged for Baxter first, and that right hook of his connected with a sickening crunch that sent Baxter stumbling backward. Brock and Zane closed in, and the fight that followed was a brutal knock-down, drag-out bare-knuckle brawl between four massive, powerful men. And even though it was three on one, Sebastian was in such a horrific rage he held his own for a while, snarling, seething, cursing, roaring, lashing out with feet and fists and knees, taking nonstop hits from his brothers without slowing down.
 

It was still three-on-one, though, and Sebastian, even as powerful as he was, didn’t really stand much of a chance. Eventually Brock got one arm in a lock and Zane the other, and Baxter followed in with a scything uppercut fist to Sebastian’s gut, which took the wind and the fight out of him.

All four brothers were bloodied, by that point. I saw at least two broken noses, everybody’s lips were split, jaws were bruised…

But Sebastian was subdued. They let him fall to the ground, gasping, blood oozing down his chin and nose, and from a cut over his eye. Zane flopped down to sit beside him, and then Brock, and then Baxter, each sitting facing Sebastian so they formed a ring of brothers. For long moments, nobody spoke.

And then, slurred by split, bloody lips, Sebastian spoke. “I miss him, goddammit.” His voice was thick.

“Me too,” Zane said. “I’ll never get over missing his funeral.”
 

“Nobody blames you for that,” Baxter said. “Not like you had a choice.”

“I lost my best friend that day.” Zane’s voice was quiet, low, rough. “Never told any of you.”

Sebastian looked up at Zane. “You did?”

Zane nodded. “Marco. Took a stray round…it happened so fast—my head wasn’t in the game, it was on Dad, on you guys, missing the fucking funeral…Marco shouldn’t have had his head up and I didn’t say anything to him. I’ve lost guys before, obviously, but Marco, man…we went through BUD/S together.”
 

“Jesus, dude. I had no idea.” Sebastian wrapped his arm around Zane. “That sucks.”

“Yeah. I lost Dad and Marco within days of each other.”
 

I was just standing there, in the doorway, hand over my mouth, full of so many conflicting emotions I didn’t know what to do about any of them. I wanted to smother Sebastian with kisses, wipe away the blood, take him inside and make him feel better, get him to talk about his dad, but I was a little frightened of how well he fought, how savagely. Of course, none of them were trying to really truly
hurt
each other, but they weren’t holding back much either. Above all, I just wanted Sebastian to…let me in, I guess.

But this scene, with his brothers…it wasn’t about me. It was about them; I was just a spectator.
 

I didn’t understand, honestly. I couldn’t fathom what kind of bond they had that could let them batter each other bloody like that, and then sit there sharing deeply personal thoughts, arms around each other.

“We all miss Dad,” Baxter said. “You know how much fucking tequila I’ve put away the last few months because of it? Coach Baldwin nearly benched me a few times.”
 

Brock spat a mouthful of blood, wincing. “None of us are really handling this very well, I guess.”

“What,
you
? Mister well-adjusted psychology major?” Baxter said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “I don’t believe it.”

Brock shot his brother what I thought was an uncharacteristically foul glare. “Fuck you, Bax. You think I’m unaffected?”

Baxter held up his hands, unwilling to start another brawl, apparently. “Just saying, you probably sat in on therapy sessions every week instead of drinking your feelings away like the rest of us.”

Brock reddened. “So what if I did? I don’t care to pretend I’m not feeling things, and while I may have given in to the desire to numb the pain with alcohol more than I’d like to admit, letting go completely just wasn’t an option for me. If I get in the cockpit hung over or still drunk, I’m gonna kill myself or someone else. I can’t
afford
to drink my feelings away.”
 

Baxter gripped Brock’s shoulder and squeezed, shook it. “Yeah, well, somebody in this damn family has to be an adult, huh?”

Sebastian’s shoulders shook, then, and my heart squeezed in my chest. “It’s stupid…it’s so stupid—”

“What’s stupid?” Brock asked.

“I’m
angry
at him,” Sebastian said, his voice breaking. “At Dad—I’m so fuckin’ pissed at him for leaving. Why’d he leave? He just fuckin’ left me here alone, left the bar on me and, just like after Mom passed, I didn’t have a choice but to fuckin’—to just do what had to be done. I didn’t
want
it. I was gonna see if he could hire somebody else to fill in so I could—I dunno what. Do something else for a change. But then he died, and I just—fuck.
Fuck
.” He shook his head, rubbed at his eyes as if he could rub away the pain. “Fuckin’ hate this bullshit.”
 

“When Marco died,” Zane said, his voice thoughtful, careful, “me and Cody went AWOL. We took a Humvee and a bottle of some shitty booze and went off into the middle of fuckin’ nowhere. We drank ourselves stupid and cried our eyes out like little bitches. You can’t ignore this shit, Bast. You gotta let it out. It’ll fuckin’ eat you alive if you don’t.”

“Yeah, but I’ve just—” Sebastian shoved the heels of his palms against his eyes and rubbed hard. “I’ve just been so fuckin’
alone
.”

“Not anymore, brother,” Zane said, roughly grappling Sebastian into a hug against his chest, holding him there. “Not anymore.”
 

“All’a you just fuckin’ left me here. I know you had your lives to live, but—fuck,
fuck
—
goddammit
!” Sebastian’s shoulders heaved again, and this time they didn’t stop, and Zane just kept a harsh hold on his shoulders, refusing to let him go even though Sebastian was struggling, trying to get away, trying to deny the release of emotions.
 

My heart hurt, hearing the ache in his voice, the raw agony of loss and loneliness, and I understood then the reason for his walls, the reason for hiding behind the macho asshole façade. He was in pain, alone, and refusing to deal with it. Until now I think he’d refused to even acknowledge that he had a problem.
 

Brock and Baxter closed the circle, wrapped their arms around Sebastian, and inside the safety of that huddle, I heard him finally let go, finally allow himself to grieve for the loss of his father and the months and years of loneliness.

I just stood there in the doorway of Badd’s and watched, feeling like an outsider, but privileged to be able to witness the moment.
 

After several minutes, Sebastian straightened and stood up, grabbing the back of his shirt and pulling it off, wiping his face with it. Then he turned and helped each of his brothers to stand up.

He looked up and saw me standing in the doorway of the bar.