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It was exactly what he wanted. For his children to revere only him. For his wife to want only him.

It was disgusting.

And he didn’t want to be that.

He also wanted to break Michael’s teeth.

Because Bix made him the most feral version of himself, and if that wasn’t reason enough to keep distant, he didn’t know what was.

He had a gift for Bix, anyway. The kind of sentimental bullshit he wouldn’t normally do.

But he knew her. And that was a hell of a thing. Different.

He liked Andrea, but he didn’t know her.

Not really. Bix had shared things with him, and he had watched her grow and change.

And now that asshole was talking to her.

She said they were just friends.

That could change, though. It could. And if it did, then what the hell did that mean for him? For her?

You should be happy about it. It’s the kind of normal that she thinks she wants.

And that was when he realized, really, truly, that this wasn’t altruism for him. Not anymore.

He’d wanted it to be.

But it wasn’t.

That was just a fact.

He was a hell of a lot more complicated than that.

It was longing and possession; it was this intense desire to understand somebody, to feel close to them when he never had before.

It was admiration. The kind that went down bone-deep.

Something he wasn’t entirely certain he understood.

And it was important to him that he understand his motivations. Because they’d been lost before, and so had he. Because for a lot of years, he’d been absolutely certain of everything he did, and why. And with her, there were things he couldn’t explain. He didn’t like it. He also knew there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Because here he was. Right then, everything felt uncertain. The whole damned world. And it made him wonder if he was wrong. About himself, about everything. About the facade of certainty that had surrounded him for all this time.

Right then, he felt like he didn’t know anything.

All because he was watching Bix talk to some other man. He’d never been jealous a day in his life. Not until the other day. Had he had stayed in his gut and grown and changed and lingered, in spite of what she had told him.

It made him feel like... like an asshole. An out-of-control asshole. And he hated every single thing about it.

But she was his. How was it fucking fair that Michael got to come in and—

What the hell is wrong with you?

They all got seated for the meeting, with Bix by his side, and he was grateful for that, but Michael was on her other side, and he didn’t like that at all.

He knew that Michael was part of the brewing initiative, and therefore it was actually reasonable, but he didn’t care for it.

Sawyer Garrett got up and gave an introduction, along with the minutes, and then they got an update from Fia on the farm store, followed by a good reportfrom Gus McCloud on the goings-on at McCloud’s Landing.