I turned around quickly, caught off guard by how much I hadn’t been paying attention to not notice someone approaching. Sure enough, at the edge of the driveway between this house and Dallas’s was the same man who I’d helped weeks ago. The one who had gotten jumped. The brother. Jack, Jackson, Jackass, whatever his name was; it hadn’t been included on the team’s website.

The yellow discoloring over half his face confirmed it was him even if his features weren’t too familiar to me. He was just as tall as I remembered, and finally seeing him without blood covering his face, I could see he was better looking than the man who was my real neighbor, his brother.

I shook my head, a little uncertainly. Did he have an attitude or was I imagining it? “No. He’s smelling the trash can.” Why did I feel like I’d gotten caught doing something bad?

The man frowned, his gaze darting to Mac, who at the sound of a stranger’s voice had straightened his head and cocked his ears back, his lean body turned in the stranger’s direction. All his attention was focused on the person who was on the verge of standing too close to me. Or maybe he didn’t like the sound of his voice. Knowing Mac, it could be either or.

“I hope you’re watching him. Nobody needs to be stepping into dog shit,” the man grumbled.

I’d put my neck on the line for this asshole? His brother had been the one to come thank me—not that I had needed or wanted a thank you for helping him out—but it would have been nice. “If he poops, I’ll pick it up. But he hasn’t,” I said to him calmly, trying to figure out what might have crawled up his butt.

“I don’t see a bag in your hand,” he tried to argue.

Did he think he was the neighborhood watch?

“He just ran across the street, why would I have a bag on me?”

“Jackson, cut it out,” a deeper, rougher voice chimed in before either one of us had a chance to say something else.

There was only one person that voice could have belonged to: Dallas.

The man’s face went red and his entire body went stiff at getting called out by his supposed brother. He turned his body as the other man, Dallas, made his way down the pathway from his door, arms loose at his sides as he came toward us. But it wasn’t the ancient jeans he had on or the one-size-too-large dirty T-shirt he had on that caught my attention. It was his facial expression. There was a scowl on Dallas’s face that said he couldn’t believe what the hell he’d been hearing and he was disappointed by it. I would know, I’d been the cause of that look on my mom’s face enough times in my life.

Dallas kept coming, his gaze frozen in place, on his brother to be specific, who wasn’t moving. Neither one of them said a word until he stopped right next to the man talking to me, his forehead furrowed as he said in a low voice that wasn’t low enough for me to not hear, “We talked about this shit.” He spat each word out, anger lining each syllable.

I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t wonder what kind of shit they’d talked about. Being a jerk? Unfriendly? Both?

“I already told you to quit being an asshole to the neighbors.”

That explained it.

Somehow I must have disappeared to both of them because the man I could only assume was named Jackson turned to face Josh’s head coach. His neck was red, and I’d bet five bucks it wasn’t the sun to blame. “You’re not my fucking dad, asshole, and I’m not a fucking kid. You don’t get to tell me what to do—”

This was awkward.

And I wasn’t going anywhere.

I glanced from one man to the other, noticing their similarities, which were quite a bit actually. They both had the same long, straight nose, heavy brow bone and strong jawline. Both were handsome in a way, depending on how you looked at them, but Jackson was prettier even though he looked older, more like a cover model, where the only thing cover model about Dallas was his resting bitch face that was too aggressive to be on the cover of anything other than a survival guide magazine. That was it as far as similarities went though. Where one of them had long hair, the other had it shaved down. One had a beard; the other had thick stubble. Blond and brown. Green eyes and hazel ones. A jerk and not as much of a jerk. That last one was still out for judgment. Dallas’s saving grace was that he’d been nice to Louie and Josh.

“I get to tell you what you fucking do since you’re living at my house,” the man named Dallas kept going as if I wasn’t there. “My house, my rules. We went over it already. Don’t make it seem like I’m springing this on you.”

Maybe hanging around wasn’t a good idea after all.

I eyed the distance between my house and where I was. Then I squeezed Mac’s collar tighter. When Rodrigo and I argued, we had always done it away from other people… and a day later, we were usually on good terms again.

“Fuck off,” the Jackson guy spat, shaking his head, his rage clearly obvious to anyone within a quarter of a mile. “I’ve had about enough of your shit. I don’t need this.”

Dallas laughed that same bitter, wretched laugh I’d heard out of him the day he’d been arguing with the woman outside of the house. I couldn’t tell if it was out of rotten humor or if he was genuinely bothered and trying to cover it up, but… it hurt me. “All I’m asking is for you to be nice to the fucking neighbors and quit doing dumb shit, Jack. There’s nothing for you to have ‘enough of.’”