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I wanted to turn hard. My blood, my guts, my brain. Every tender thing in me solidly against him. If only it worked that way.

Instead I stayed soft. Heart soft. Brain soft. Blood hot and pumping, always, for him.

“So,” Ruckus said from behind me. “Are we pretending the goat isn’t there?”

I turned around. “What goat?”

Clayton kicked Ruckus’s shoe. “Shut up.”

Ruckus looked slowly down at the foot that had touched him, then up at his brother.

“What goat?” I repeated.

“Nothing,” Clayton said.

“There’s a goat?”

“No.”

Ruckus smiled at me. “There is absolutely a goat.”

“Ruckus,” Clayton warned. There was nothing threatening in it. Ruckus looked delighted.

“Where is there a goat?”

“You don’t need to worry about it,” Clayton told me.

That sentence guaranteed I would worry about it.

I turned in my seat. “Chief, d’you know about the goat?”

Declan’s jaw shifted. That was all I got.

I stared at him. He still didn’t look at me.

“Does Riot know about the goat?” I asked.

Silence. Interesting.

I turned slowly toward Clayton.

He gave me his sweetest smile.

I knew that smile.

That was the smile Clayton used when he was absolutely full of shit.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Just tell her about the damn goat,” Ruckus told him.

“I don’t know why you’re all so hung up on this.”

“I found out about the goat thirty seconds ago.”

“Exactly. And already you’re obsessed.”