He popped up off the ground and reached out, offering me a hand. I took it and let him pull me up, my body vibrating with fatigue.

“You never let it go to your head, though,” he allowed. “You always acted like Avery and I were just as important.”

“Of course you were,” I stated without hesitation as I dusted off my shorts.

“Yeah, well, our parents didn’t always think so.” He sighed. “Thanks for letting me have this,” he said, referring to our choice to move to New Orleans five years ago, so he could attend Tulane, “and thanks for letting me feel like a big brother for a change.”

I laughed, raising my fists and jabbing at him. “Yeah, you’re capable of it sometimes,” I teased in a light voice.

“Sometimes?” He held up his palms so I could slap at them. “I’m three years older than you, Pork Chop.”

“Only physically.” I shrugged. “According to studies, men trail women in maturity by eleven years.”

He jabbed back, and I blocked, pushing his thick arm off to the side and seeing him stumble.

“You and your statistics,” he complained. “Where did you read that?”

“The Internet.”

“Ah, the infinite abyss of reliable information.” He threw a few more slow punches, and I bobbed and ducked as we danced in a circle.

“Why don’t you try getting out of your apartment and testing those theories out on your own?” he challenged.

I hooded my eyes, annoyed. “I get out of my apartment.”

“Sure.” He nodded. “For work. Or with me. Or when you’re on the prowl.”

I inhaled an angry breath, jabbing him harder and finally catching him in the chest.

He grunted. “Ouch.”

And then shit got real.

He straightened, steeling his body and moving in, punching faster and making me duck, swerve, and sweat.

On the prowl? He knew he shouldn’t have made a dig at me.

Everything else could be Jack’s business. We didn’t make decisions without the other’s input, and when our world had fallen apart five years ago, I’d let him hold my hand from time to time to make him feel useful, but my sex life was the one thing I kept private.

Most of the time I stayed so busy that I didn’t miss men. And I certainly had no interest in inviting one into my life for anything long-term.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried, but I didn’t like messy and unpredictable, and relationships made me feel caged.

But once in a while I started to miss being touched. I missed being close to someone and being wanted. Even if just for a night.

So I’d go out and get it out of my system and then come home, my feathers smooth again. Sometimes it was a “friend” who didn’t have any more of an interest in a relationship than I did, but occasionally, when I wanted to push the envelope for extra excitement, it was someone new.

Someone unknown.

“I mean, at the very least,” my brother complained, “try taking an actual self-defense class instead of testing out moves on me that you learned from YouTube.”

I grabbed his hand and bent his arm at the wrist, making him hunch over with the pain. His face twisted, and I stepped up to him, gloating.

“You don’t like being my tackling dummy?” I taunted, adding pressure to his wrist.

He twisted his lips in annoyance, and before I knew what had happened, he’d grabbed my leg out from under me and pushed me down onto the ground. I crashed to my ass, pain spreading up to my hips and down my thighs.

He shot down, coming to bend over me and pin my neck to the ground with his hand.

I squirmed and tried to pry out of his grip, but it wasn’t working. I could feel my face tighten and rush with blood. I probably looked like a tomato.

He lightened his grip and narrowed his concerned eyes on me, speaking sadly. “You’re lonely, Easton.”

I blinked, the sound of my breathing flooding my ears and echoing in my head. I felt like I wanted the ground beneath me to open and swallow me up whole.

Why would my brother say that?

I was alone, not lonely, and it wasn’t like he had room to talk.

And my life was good. My apartment was gorgeous, I’d graduated at the top of my class at Loyola, and I had just landed a great position as a history teacher at an elite private school here in the city.

I was going to be a part of the future, doing work that meant something.

And I was only twenty-three.

I’d been focused, and I was still very young. It wasn’t like there was any rush. It wasn’t like I was going to be alone forever.

He released me and sat back, pushing his sandy blond hair back on his forehead. “I just worry about you,” he explained. “I still think you should talk to someone.”

I sat up on my elbows and gave him a pointed look, staying calm despite the anger crawling its way into my chest. “I’m fine,” I maintained.

“Really?” he challenged. “And how many times did you go back to check that you locked your front door this morning?”

I rolled my eyes, looking away. I should never have told him. My little compulsions made my brother nervous.

Okay, so sometimes I liked to make sure everything was in its place. Sometimes locking my front door four times instead of just once made me feel safer.

And sometimes I liked to count things.

But the truth was I simply liked to be aware of my environment and the people around me.

And I managed my habit well enough that people didn’t notice. My brother probably never would have if I hadn’t told him.

“I’m not the center of attention anymore,” I reminded him. “Stop trying to keep me there, okay? I’m fine.” I pushed myself up and got to my feet, dusting off my butt as he also stood.

“My bathroom door handle broke,” I told him, inserting my earbuds in my ears before he had a chance to say anything else. “So I need to hit the hardware store.”

“Well, do you want me to look at it?” He slipped back into his gray T-shirt as I veered around him back toward St. Charles Avenue.

I shook my head, joking as I walked away, “You wouldn’t know what you were doing any more than I would.”

“You got something against just hiring a repairman?” he shouted after me as I walked.

I turned, dishing his attitude right back at him. “You got something against tutorials on YouTube?” I shot out, and continued with my life motto, which he knew all too well. “Always go to bed smarter —”

“— than you were when you woke up,” he finished in a mocking voice.

I smiled and turned on “Hazy Shade of Winter” by the Bangles before jogging out of the park.

I spent the hour after I returned home crouched down next to my bathroom door as I pored over the instructions on how to install my new doorknob.

Luckily I’d bought a general tool set when I’d moved into my apartment two months ago, after graduation, but the clerk at the store had suckered me into a cordless power drill, which I was enjoying way too much.

Knowledge made us stronger, and I liked being able to do things for myself. Every new challenge was a mental checkoff of something I wouldn’t need to learn later.

My brother, however, didn’t share my need for autonomy.

When I’d moved in, he’d bought me a coffeepot as a housewarming gift. I’d bought a fire extinguisher and a thirty-eight-piece handyman set.

He’d gifted me with a wine rack stocked with pinot noir, and I’d added two more dead bolts to the front door.

Our senses of self-sufficiency were different, but then they had to be. Our experiences were very different growing up.

I smiled to myself, embarrassment warming my cheeks as I drilled in the screws. I was glad Jack wasn’t here to see how this was possibly the most fun I’d had all week.

I may have gotten overzealous and split the wood in the door when tightening the screws, too.

And I may even have crawled around my entire apartment tightening any screw I could find before I decided to put my new toy away for the day.