The Bear’s Mail Order Menage

He could hear Joshua calling for him to stop from the table, hear the anger in his voice over the somehow blasphemous and truly awful mention of his poor sister. Jesus, Cali. How could he have spoken about her like that?

He had made it sound like she didn’t matter, like she wasn’t the only girl he had ever loved in the exact way that Joshua used to describe Alina. He could feel his stomach churning just thinking about it. Yes, he most definitely had to get out of here because there was a very good chance he was going to be sick all over the floor.

“No! You hold it right there! I’m not done with you yet, you son of a bi*ch.”

Andrew stopped but did not turn. It had started to rain outside, a cold, hard rain accompanied by a rolling dark sky. It hit his skin in sheets, desperately trying to cool the heat pouring off his skin. Even without turning he could feel Joshua approaching him, coming up behind him with a low growl of complete rage.

“Turn around.”

Still Andrew did not move. He felt frozen in place, bound by the things he had said and could not take back.

“I said turn around, you coward! You are going to face me after the things you just said. You won’t speak about Cali that way and then just walk off.”

Andrew could feel the fight draining out of him but he turned nonetheless. He saw Joshua standing there, every bit as soaked as he was himself, saw how close he was to shifting. In all of the years they had lived and fought together they had never fought in their bear forms. It was much too dangerous a thing to do and there was a very good chance that at least one of them would not make it out alive.

Things were beginning to escalate even beyond the point that Andrew had been pushing for. Just like so many other things that had come before, he had let things move beyond his control.

“I loved her too, Josh. I did. Just like I loved you.”

“You don’t even know what that word means. You don’t throw love away because a person made you mad. If you loved me, you would let me be happy, let Alina and me be happy. You don’t feel anything. Not a damned thing.”

Joshua was trying to get him worked up now, trying to get him to shift so that they could have a genuine animal fight. Well, if that was what he wanted, that was what he was going to get. Andrew channeled all of the rage he had left and willed himself to make the change, to just duke it out and have the thing be over with.

The sound of the diner door banging open again and a woman’s shouts is all that stopped the impending clash of the two titans who were also brothers.

“Hey! You two cut it out, you heat? Stop it right now. I already called your mamma, just so you know. She’s on her way up here as we speak. Just what exactly do you want her to find when she gets here? Another dead child? Two? Ain’t she suffered enough in this world without having to see the two of you destroy yourselves? Go home, both of you. Go home and cool off. This ain’t the wild west. We aren’t going to do things this way.”

The mention of their mother was just enough to keep the two men from descending into utter madness. Andrew turned and began to walk as quickly as he could. Thankfully, he could hear Joshua doing the same. There would be no death, no Cain and Abel fight, at least not today. But this thing that had been done, that was here to stay. Even if he wanted to, Andrew couldn’t see a way to make things right again. He just wasn’t a man built for forgiveness. It wasn’t in his DNA.