Page 117 of Legally Ours

I opened my mouth to say I didn't know, but I realized I did. There had been several mechanisms I'd noticed over the last several months.

"He runs," I said. "Exercises like crazy."

Kieran nodded, as if waiting for me to continue.

"He...smokes," I said with a dirty look at Brandon, who exhaled forcefully out of his nose. Then I looked up, full of sudden epiphany. "He fights."

"I do not fight," Brandon put in, removing the arm around my chair so he could set both elbows on the table. "You make me sound like a schoolyard bully."

"You kind of were back then. I believe that night I literally pulled you out of a basketball court in Southie." Kieran turned back to me. "See that scar above his eyebrow? That's from the nasty gash he had that night. Swelled his eye completely shut."

All three of us turned to examine Brandon, whose ears were bright red. I had noticed the scar before, but he'd always blown off my inquiries. "Kid stuff," he'd say. "Just messing around."

"Yeah, well, you should have seen the other guy," Brandon mumbled, clenching his fists on the tabletop.

"Oh, I did," Kieran returned. "Pretty sure you broke Jimmy Calhoun's arm. Ma said he was in a cast for two months after that."

Brandon smirked. But I no longer found the conversation amusing. I was under the impression that his brawling had ended when he met Miranda, but apparently, that was just the heavy stuff. This was news to me.

"You did give Harvey a split lip yesterday," I said quietly.

Brandon looked up with an expression that was half irritation, half concern. The tone of the conversation was still light, but my gut clenched. I had seen a little of what he was capable of at our engagement party two weeks ago, and it was terrifying. He was incredibly lucky that Trout hadn't pressed charges, which I suspected was only because of the fact that I could also counter with sexual assault claims––claims that Trout had apparently dealt with before. Since then, there hadn't been any more outbursts or panic attacks, but something seemed to be simmering just under the surface, and when Brandon let it out during his training sessions, Harvey usually suffered for it.

"That wasn't fighting. We were sparring. It's part of my training regimen."

"Well, it wasn't the first time," I murmured before diving back into my wine glass. "The guy's going to start including plastic surgery as part of his fee."

Kieran just smirked. "Your workout regimen is to bust up your trainer's face? Sounds like not much has changed."

This time she was on the receiving end of Brandon's glare, but Kieran just cocked an eyebrow. I grinned and then stood up to clear the dishes. Kieran was better than anyone else at deflecting Brandon's intimidations. Maybe it was because they had grown up in the same rough place. She had that same kind of hardness about her––maybe even more so. After all, she'd had to stay until she was eighteen.

"Anyway," Pushpa said, somewhat eager to dispel the tension. "I was there that night they came in––working the graveyard shift in the pit."

We all turned our attention back to her. Pushpa had been regaling us with stories about her job all evening––listening to her was like listening to someone narrate Grey's Anatomy.

"It was about two in the morning when Kieran walked in with an absolutely pissed blond giant wrapped around her," she began. "She was the most impatient thing I'd ever seen. Instead of waiting to be placed in a bed like everyone else, she dumped Brandon in a seat and started walking around the emergency room, looking for doctors to see him right that minute. She practically ran straight into me in the middle of a crowded ER. Very insistent, she was."

I glanced at Kieran, who said nothing. "Then what?"

"I tried to tell her that she needed to wait her turn like everyone else, but, and this may truly surprise, Kieran doesn't listen to the word 'no' very well."

Pushpa smiled with recollection, and Kieran shrugged, as if familiar with the critique.

"Why do you think I made partner by thirty-five?" she said. "You think John Knightly wanted me to be the first female partner at Kiefer Knightly?"

Pushpa shook her head fondly, then turned back to me. "Eventually, I did get around to sewing up Brandon's face."

"Hurt like hell," Brandon joked as I returned to the table. "Pushpa is brutal."

"I don't think that's true. You simply have no tolerance for pain," Pushpa returned cheekily. "Anyway, once I was finished, Kieran chased me down the hall. I was still a total mess. Blood from the cut had gotten all over my scrubs, and I needed to change. But she stopped me, and started gabbing on and on––"

"Correction: I do not gab," Kieran interrupted.

"Gabbing on," Pushpa replied with another bright smile. "About my skills and how my stitches were very tight indeed, and loads more other things that informed me she didn't know a bloody thing about surgery."

I chuckled at Kieran, whose dark eyes, despite her omnipresent frown, glowed toward her wife. Brandon reached over to grip my hand, clearly thinking the same thing.

"And just when I'm about to ask this strange, mad girl why she is going on and on about some article she read in Harper's about the life of a surgeon, she stops talking just long enough to kiss me, right there in the middle of the ER." Pushpa held a hand to her lips, as if the touch could resurrect the memory. "I was so angry."