Page 25 of Every Sunset

“Our mom was cut off from her family when she chose to marry our dad. They met in college and fell in love, but our grandfather never approved of dear old dad, and he told mom she wouldn’t get a single cent if she chose to marry him.

She did anyway and never spoke to her family again.

Dad got a monthly allowance from the estate of his wealthy parents for life until they died, then he’d inherit everything, but our grandparents were pretty young.

I think they’re still alive now to be honest,” Maddox went on, looking to Logan for confirmation.

“Were last I checked,” he agreed with a nod.

“Last you checked? You don’t see them?” I asked.

“No. We’ve never even met them. I guess they meant it when they told my mom they’d never wanted anything else to do with her,” Maddox shrugged.

“Anyway, mom and dad eventually got caught by a potential investor who looked into the hotel development plans a little deeper than usual. They were arrested when I was ten and Madd was eight. Our parents never stood a chance of fighting the charges when the cops uncovered countless people they’d stolen from across the country.

They went to jail and we went into the system. ”

“Your grandparents?” I questioned.

“Didn’t want anything to do with us,” Maddox cut in.

“At first we were put in a foster family together. It was a shock to the system for both of us, coming from the wealth we were used to, instead living in a place that barely fit anyone in and leaked when it rained. The foster parents weren’t abusive or anything, but they could care less about anything more than making sure we ate enough to survive,” Logan explained.

“When I hit my teens they decided I was too much trouble after I got into a fight at school. I was taken away from there and from Madd.” I could hear the pain in Logan’s voice as he spoke of being separated from his brother.

I could hear it so clearly I felt the pain of it myself.

Maybe that was why they were so close? Maybe why they did everything together, including relationships, apparently.

“How long were you separated for?” I asked reluctantly.

“Too long,” Logan almost growled. “I got bounced between group homes for a while, until I decided enough was enough. I split and managed to hitch hike to LA, far enough from my past for anyone to come looking for me to drag me back again. I managed to get some work unloading deliveries, and restocking bars. Paid under the counter shit. Thankfully, I was pretty big for my age so no one even realized how young I really was.”

“And how young were you?”

“Almost fifteen. Once I had enough money I jumped on a bus back to the foster home I left Madd in. He was still there, thank fuck. We ran that night, and I had the money to get us both back to L.A.”

“You both survived alone after that?” I gasped. Logan wasn’t even as old as Max and he was responsible for his little brother. How did they manage that?

“It wasn’t easy, but it was so much better than being apart from each other.

Logan found work and he brought me along to the places I could earn something at too.

Sometimes we’d have enough to find a hotel or motel to sleep in.

Most of the time we slept rough. We survived, and we even finished high school with some extensive lies about our parents working away a lot.

“When Logan left high school he worked days at a diner, and nights at this club in the city. He made enough to get us an apartment and things got better after that. I worked my way through college, with a few scholarships along the way, then I joined the academy. I think I wanted to be a cop because I felt this need to do some good, I guess. Maybe to counteract what our parents did, or maybe just to try and catch thieves and criminals like them. I’m not sure, I just know it’s all I ever wanted. ”

“What happened?” I asked, in little more than a whisper, unsure I really wanted to know.

Logan and Maddox had clearly been through enough in their lives before they even got to adulthood.

I didn’t want to hear about anything else happening to either of them.

It wasn’t fair, but then I knew only too well that life never was.

“I made it. Even made it into S.W.A.T. I had a team that felt like family to me, and a career I loved and planned to do until I was too old to keep going. Logan was in the city too, managing the club he started working at straight out of school. We lived in a converted warehouse apartment we loved, close to the beach and things were good, weren’t they?

” Maddox asked his brother, who just nodded with a look of sadness.

“Then I fucked it all up,” Maddox sighed.

“Madd. Don’t. You didn’t do a damned thing wrong,” Logan growled, and I suspected he had said those same words countless times to his brother since whatever had happened.

“I was an idiot. I should have realized.”

“Realized what?” I asked.

“One night after my shift I went to the bar across the street for a drink. I was headed to meet Logan at the club, but it was early,” Maddox began, and when I looked at him, his eyes were no longer on me or Logan.

He was staring blankly past me, clearly reliving what happened that night.

“This cute woman came over and sat beside me at the bar. She started talking to me and she seemed nice. I wasn’t really interested in it going anywhere, since Logan and I had just split with a girl we’d been seeing together for a few months. ”

“We were a little burned from the break up, since we’d both really liked the girl we were seeing, Hannah, and we thought it was going well.

It really knocked us when one night she turned up at our place, and simply told us she was seeing someone else.

I’m still not sure what went wrong to be honest, but she just left after announcing that, refusing to explain any further, or even talk to us.

She walked out and we never saw her again,” Logan explained.

“Sounds like a lucky escape if you ask me,” I told them both confidently.

Why would anyone walk away from Maddox and Logan?

Well, anyone who didn’t live in the midst of the shit show I was caught in right then, anyway?

If I were free and able to pursue the relationship the guys had mentioned to me earlier, you can bet your ass I’d have dived on them.

Things were just too complicated though.

“Yeah, probably,” Logan chuckled.

“Anyway, I chatted to the woman at the bar for around an hour. She bought me a drink and I bought her one, but I made it pretty clear I wasn’t looking for anything and she seemed good with that.

I was half watching the game on the screen over the bar and listening to her talk about the salon that she worked at, when all of a sudden she leapt into my lap and smashed her lips against mine.

I had no idea what she was doing, but I pulled away and stood, putting her on her feet so I could get away, but she got what she wanted. ”

“What? To kiss you?” I asked confused. It was not cool that the girl took liberties with Madd when he’d made things clear to her, but I didn’t understand how it ended his career and left him as jumpy and paranoid as he sometimes became.

“To kiss me at the exact moment her husband walked in to the bar,” Maddox replied angrily.

“She’d caught her husband cheating on her, checked his cell or something.

I don’t really know, but she decided to get revenge.

Her husband was a detective with narcotics, and he and his buddies always came into the bar at the same time on a Friday night.

She set me up, timed it all perfectly so the second she saw him coming, she could jump into my lap and make it look like I was all over her. ”

“No way!” I gasped. “That’s insane. What happened?”

“I tried to explain the second the guy charged forward and started yelling, but he wasn’t listening.

He went to hit me and I dodged him, still trying to explain it wasn’t what it looked like.

The husband went for me again, spoiling for a fight as his wife just stood aside happily watching.

I managed to get the upper hand, since I was way fitter than him, and his buddies pulled him away.

I grabbed my shit and left the bar as quickly as I could, not wanting to get into shit for fighting with another cop.

My career was everything to me and I refused to have it fucked up by what had happened. ”

“But it wasn’t over?” I guessed, and Maddox shook his head as he lowered his gaze and absently ran his hand back and forth through his hair.

“Madd came to the club to meet me. He walked because he’d had a few drinks, and it was only a few blocks. He made it two of those blocks before that fucker smashed into Madd with his car on a quieter back street.”