“She’ll never want to speak to you again,” Delanie says, and I nod. “She’ll kill you if she ever sees you again!”

“Yeah, I got that,” I say, letting out a breath. I don’t miss the tap against my shin though from Jude.

“You’re a dick,” is her decision and I shrug.

“That’s the rumor on the street,” I say, exhaling a breath as Jace steals back her attention.

Thankfully.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as she leans over, kissing him fully on the lips. “I’m sorry your brother is a dick. You’re great though.”

He smacks her ass before pulling her in tight. “Not my problem, those two. But you were great last night and this morning.”

“Aw,” she says, cupping his face. “I just want to bottle you up and carry you around.”

“He gets an aw for having a one-night stand, and I try to be a gentleman and get a bruised jaw,” I mutter to Jude, which causes him chuckle.

“Girls be nuts.”

“True that,” I say, rolling the puck off my blade, missing the crossbar but getting it in the net.

“Call me if you ever get to Nashville, okay?”

“For sure,” she agrees, pressing her lips to his once more. Since they are disgusting, I shoot the puck, hitting it off the side of the pipe. Jude taps me on the shin before taking the puck and shooting himself, getting it smack-dab in the middle. Delanie then says bye to Jude but flips me off as she walks away, and I can’t help but laugh.

“I’m not a bad dude,” I say out loud, more to myself than my brothers.

But both of them nod. “You’re not,” Jude says. “And I don’t admit that much.”

“What the hell happened? Baylor called, pulling Delanie out of bed. I had at least another two hours of nasty time.”

Sending him a look of little sympathy, I say, “Sorry for ruining that.”

“It’s fine. What happened?”

Letting out another breath, I lean on my stick and explain to my younger brother what happened. I really don’t think he cares, but when I finish, he shakes his head.

“Bitches be crazy, man, and she was hundred shades of it. I didn’t trust her from the beginning,” he says, reaching for a spare stick and grabbing a puck.

And that bugs me. “’Cause you don’t know her. She’s really great.”

“How can you say that when she punched you and called you out like she did? You don’t have daddy issues, and she’s lucky you even wanted to touch her.”

Shaking my head, I look up at the sky, drawing a breath in through my nose. “Because she was different. I deserved it.”

“How did you deserve it? You were trying to do right by her.”

Jude rolls his eyes. “Jace, were you listening? He didn’t tell her the truth; he covered it up because she was so mad. She wasn’t listening to reason. She was drunk.”

“Oh,” Jace says then with a shrug. “Well, who the fuck cares? You won’t ever see her again. No reason to let her ruin the rest of our vacation. Plenty of hot sexy bitches left.”

“Ah, to be young and not care one bit about anyone else’s feelings,” I mutter, receiving a glare from him.

“It isn’t that I don’t care, it’s that you are allowing her to have too much power over you. Her loss, man, let it go. Let’s go parasailing or something,” he says with a shrug.

But I don’t want to go parasailing. I want to make this better, but I’m not sure how. I’m actually half tempted to go by their house and see if I can see her. To apologize. But I doubt she’ll see me. She’d probably try to drown me in the ocean.

Shooting the puck, Jude says, “I’m sorry, dude. I know you really liked her.”

Looking over at Jude, I tap his shin. The manly hockey way of saying thanks and a billion other things. “Thanks.”

“Fuck, you two are my role models? Two crybabies?” Jace says then, visibly annoyed with us.

“Hey, fuck you, you little shit. We are great role models,” Jude says, standing up a little taller.

“In every aspect of life except girls.”

“What does that mean? I have a great relationship,” Jude says back, scrunching his face up, and even I’m confused by Jace’s little outburst.

“Yeah, but you cried over her for fucking hours, and now you’re crying over some chick that means nothing to you,” he says, pointing to me, and all I can do is glare at him.

“How do you know she doesn’t mean anything to me?” I ask, incredulously. “Obviously she does, or I wouldn’t be so bummed about it. Not everyone is programmed to just walk around, fucking anything with tits and leaving them behind.”

“It’s a better life than actually caring about someone,” he says. “Use and dump, that’s my motto.”

This little shit.

“You say that because you haven’t met someone worth making a life with,” Jude says.

“Whatever, y’all are weak,” he says, shooting the puck quickly into the goal.

For some reason, the little shit’s comments have pissed me off, and I find myself closing the distance between us. Reaching for his shirt, I yank him to me, his eyes going wide as he looks up at me.

“Listen, you little shit, not everyone is our dad, okay? So shut the fuck up and grow the fuck up, because you aren’t him either,” I sneer. He sputters something, fear visible in his green eyes, but I don’t let up, not even when Jude tries to stop me.

“Whoa, killer, back down,” he says, but I smack him away.

“And if you think you’re gonna be Dad, you have another thing coming. I will beat you stupid. No girl deserves to be treated like that, and every time you fuck a girl and leave her behind, think of how our mother felt when our dad did it to her.”

Breaking away from me, he pushes me off him. But instead of snatching him back up, I let him be as he says, “Damn, dude, I’m just having fun! Why you being a dick about something that isn’t even a big deal? I’m not hurting anyone!”

“Yeah, well, your fun hurts people in the long run. Respect girls, okay?”

He doesn’t say anything, just glares before stomping into the house like a little baby. When he reaches the door, I fully expect him to look back at me and tell me he’s calling Mom. But to my surprise, the door slams behind him as Jude comes into my heated view.