Talk about a way to lighten the somber memory of today’s anniversary.

And ease the anxiety over the judge sitting in the very top row of the auditorium, watching my every move to make sure that I’m fulfilling my obligation.

I force myself to concentrate on not screwing up, not on how little Miss Q just screwed me senseless in the alcove over to my right, but fuck if it’s not hard to do. Especially with her scent now seared in my psyche.

So I glance over to where she sits, head down, working on whatever she works on while I lecture, and I lose my train of thought. Well of course you did, dipshit. All you can think about is diving back beneath that skirt as soon as class is over. And God how I love her affinity for sexy-ass skirts.

I must be silent for too long because she glances up and meets my eyes before averting them quickly. But I catch the little smile that plays on her lips as she returns to pretending like she doesn’t care. Fuck if it’s not sexy and calls on me to have her again.

Yes, please. The sound of her voice saying that replays in my head as I refocus despite not being able to stop my own secretive smile at knowing what only she knows happened before class. I begin to give an answer, explain just how recreational drug use in Hollywood is the equivalent to putting a fat kid in a candy store and telling him to choose just one item, when a motion at the top of the steps catches my eye.

Why the hell is he here? And of course if I didn’t have Quin’s pussy numbing my mind the reason would be front and center.

Hunter slides into a seat in an aisle a third of the way down the banked rows. He has a baseball cap low over his eyes so one wouldn’t immediately make the connection that he was here, but I know my brother, recognize his clothes and his presence. Besides, I notice him only because everyone else is so busy looking at me.

Including the judge. How much more of a clusterfuck can this be?

As Hunter looks up and meets my gaze, the intense look on his face tells me why he’s here. My brother who uses everything else to help him forget—sex, booze, drugs, pushing my buttons—is here because today of all days, the anniversary of Dad’s suicide, he’s going to abuse the one thing he can without risking jail time. Me. Deep down I know somehow, some way, Hunter is here to try to hurt me for the fate he screwed himself out of but blames me for instead.

Jealousy is a mean, nasty bitch.

He flashes me a smarmy smirk, and I know I’m right. Fucking stellar. Is he here to try to rub my face in how he succeeded in making me bend when I shouldn’t have, take the blame for him, fulfill my promise to complete the seminar, to save his ass? My gut is uneasy with the possibilities and so I look away without giving him any reaction and continue on with my explanation to the class.

I don’t need this shit but I pull my head back from thoughts about Hunter because if I blow this lecture with the judge here then I’m the one fucking up, the one not fulfilling my promise to Dad to protect him.

The one who is weak.

And I know it’s fucked-up logic, deep down in my core I know it is, but it doesn’t make it any less powerful when history has already decided your fate today.

I trudge through the rest of the lecture, think I do pretty well considering the pressure coming at me from what feels like every angle, and roll my shoulders at the line of students waiting to speak to me after class. I’m not in the mood to be on in front of everyone, particularly not when I have the three people I don’t want interacting all within fingertip range: the one person deciding my fate, the one person I want in every sense of the word, and the one person I don’t want to deal with watching my every movement beneath his ball cap. My eyes keep flickering between them and the students in front of me.

Axe can tell I’m irritated and cuts the line off the same time that Quin starts packing up her bag. I make the rounds, catch sight of the judge as he pulls out his cell phone, and then look over to Hunt to find his grin wide, and eyes settling on Quinlan. When he looks back toward me, he gives me a subtle thumbs-up that causes dread to pour through me.

Vince is right, isn’t he? My brother will go after anything I want except for my music because the band protects me like a shield that he knows he’ll never break through. The one thing he hates the most—my success—he can’t touch, so he goes after anything else he can in my life.

And by the way he keeps eyeing Quinlan I know just how he plans to go about hurting me.

So what do I do now? Cause a scene where I can’t control what my brother will say and have the judge overhear something that might be damaging and fuck up all of this time I’ve put into trying to pay my penance? Lead him right to Quin like a dog to a bone? Neither is an acceptable option.

My mind whirls as I try to wrap my head around the smartest thing to do. Of course it would be to tell Quinlan what his modus operandi is but I can’t do that right now, not with the judge sitting up there listening to every word and smart enough to conclude that I’m lying about the drug charge. On the flip side, if I show Hunter that I really am into Quin for more than the quick fuck I explained our little hallway groping at the house to be, he’ll be all over her to hurt me.

To get me back for kicking him out of the band and then signing the record deal without him.

And his immediate reaction? Instead of getting the help I set up for him so that he could earn his way back into the band’s good graces, he took the one woman besides our mother that I’ve ever allowed myself to feel anything beyond mutual companionship for and tried to ruin me by hurting her.

Because fucking our band manager’s sister, my then girlfriend, and getting her pregnant and dropping her once the damage was done … Yeah, those were fucking stellar moves. Telling her to get an abortion or else he’d go public about one of her little fetishes was even better. Losing our manager over it was just the icing on the cake.

Whatever I have that he wants, he takes on his own terms. At any cost is his motto.

I glance up at the next person in line the same time I see Quinlan stand and pull her bag onto her shoulder. The judge is still staring at his phone, still within earshot, and Hunter leans forward in his chair to watch the action unfold between her and me, completely oblivious to our third-party observer. My head is a mess, striving for a course of action that will cause minimal consequences for me, plus avoid any heartache for Quin. I just hope that somehow she will get the hint, see my twin up in the audience, and figure out between his actions last time and his presence this time what I’m doing.

It’s a long fucking stretch of an assumption but it’s all I’ve got.

“Hey, Hawke,” the sorority girl Quinlan called Delta Sig says as she sways her body from side to side, chest forward so that I can see just how perfectly her letters bend across her more-than-handful-size tits. I stare at her, a moment of regret causing me to pause when I see Quin walking toward us, eyebrows furrowed in curiosity how I’m going to handle perky sorority girl now that I’m having smoking-hot sex with her in the school alcoves.

And shit, I’ve done nothing more than kiss sorority girl, and since the exchange was less than memorable her name escapes me momentarily. Hunt is now on the move, slowly walking down the stairs, his eyes tracking Quinlan as she walks my way, her short skirt showcasing her killer legs, and fuck me because I know my brother’s enjoying the sight of them right now.

I look back at Delta Sig and smile softly although I know it doesn’t reach my eyes. She’s so caught up in the idea of me she won’t notice the difference anyway. “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Good. Good,” she says, twisting her hands in front of her and all I can think about is the damn candy sitting on the table behind me that Quinlan brought me. Fuck, how am I going to do this? “I brought you some Skittles since I saw you like sweet things.”

Just like you, right? This isn’t my first rodeo, so of course my mind fills in the blanks for her. She reaches out a bag to me. “Thanks,” I say as I take it and toss it on the table behind me.

Delta Sig bites her bottom lip in a calculated move that I’ve seen more times than I care to count. God, the girl just tries too damn hard. When you wear a sign screaming I want you to fuck me so I can brag about it … Yeah, it’s not very appealing to me. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out for a beer at Sully’s Pub.” She takes a step closer, bottom lip back between her teeth again. “And then we could head back to my place if you want.”

And there she goes and gives me an opening and an out that I can’t refuse. My head is screaming no, telling me to find another way to get Hunt to fuck off and leave me so I can drag Quin right back to that console and work some of my emotional duress out while fucking her tight, hot pussy until I feel better. But I know I have to play this game or else she’ll be the consequence.

The judge clears his throat and I glance up to see his attention focused back on me. Shit.

I can feel Hunt’s stare as he stands on the bottom step at Quin’s back. I can see Quin staring at me in my periphery, and Delta Sig is begging me with her big blue eyes that are smoked up a bit too much for a school day. She definitely had her plan of action today and I know I’m an asshole for using it to get me out of this situation and then turn her down without giving her the other kind of action she’s hoping for.