As the bell above Stamina’s door jingles in my ears, my glove-covered fist collides into Saint’s nose with a thud. My older brother is usually more on the ball when it comes to deflecting the jabs I hit him with when we go a couple of rounds in the ring. He isn’t quite as tall as me—Landon secured the title of being both the oldest and tallest in our family, and Caidyn, although both wiser and older than me, is a good inch shorter, but Saint knows how to command the ring.
We’ve been sparring together since we were kids. My dad, although a little chubby around the midsection when he sailed past fifty, always implemented a strict exercise regime for my brothers and me. At the start, I thought it was about peak physical fitness. I learned otherwise when my baby sister grew into her lanky legs and teenybopper bra.
My parents will never admit it to Justine’s face, but she wasn’t planned. Dad was a week out from having a vasectomy, and with four boys under the age of five, Mom had closed up shop years earlier—around the time I popped out.
Justine, as forever stubborn as she is, had other plans.
My mom was so convinced she was having another boy, she booted me out of the nursery, touched up the paint my older brothers chipped while tackling their newest sibling into submission, then chose the perfect name to go with Landon, Sebastian, Caidyn, and Maddox.
Oh, did I forget to mention Saint’s real name is Sebastian? We call him Saint because he’s nothing close to saintly. Town Stud is the only title his name will ever wear, and he’s more than happy to keep it that way.
Justin was a tough name. It belonged to a person who wasn’t to be messed with. That’s why when ‘Justin’ came screaming into the world weighing an impressive nine pounds without any dangly bits between ‘his’ legs, Mom tacked an ‘E’ onto the end of ‘his’ name and went about her day.
That’s very much how my parents operate. They’re strict and a little unknowledgeable when it comes to electronics, but they love their kids to the core. I don’t think there’s anything we could do that would see us shunted out of their lives for good. Not even Justine getting ‘friendly’ with a boy she just met in the hot tub on her eighteenth birthday saw them giving her the cold shoulder. They said she was an adult, and in turn, they’d treat her like one.
She didn’t get off quite so easily with her older siblings.
We watched her like a hawk—we still do.
Unlike the woman responsible for the brand-new shiner forming under Saint’s right eye, Justine has lived a sheltered life. She has no clue how cruel the world can be, and if I have it my way, she never will. A big brother’s job is to protect his baby sister. Nothing should come before that—although I see things changing when women without our blood are thrown into the mix. We’ve already noticed it with Landon. I don’t see Caidyn being too far behind him.
In a way, I’m lucky. With Justine having four older brothers and me being the youngest of them all, the weight on my shoulders is nowhere near as heavy as Landon’s and Saint’s. That doesn’t mean I can get slack, though. As my father always says, “Slacking off is the quickest way to an average life.”
After drifting my eyes from Demi Petretti, voted most attractive, most likely to succeed, and all-around badass by every male in a five-mile radius of Seacoast Private Academy senior year almost four years ago, I punish Saint’s ribs with a left-right-left combination.
He groans through the pain of a possible cracked rib, but not once does he stray his eyes away from the area Demi is mingling. I can’t say I blame him. That girl doesn’t just have the smarts to be in the top two percent of students at our school, she also was in the top two percent in the state. Add that to the fact she’s as hot as sin, and you’ve got a lethal combination any man would be lucky to stumble upon.
Unfortunately for me, by the time I worked up the courage to do something about an almost decade-long crush, Saint announced an interest in Demi. That put her off-limits, and the reminder she’s out of reach has me punishing Saint with my fists so rebelliously, he has no choice