Free Trouble by Taylor Jamie Beckett

break your legs
or your arms if I want to. Don’t ever talk like that to me. I’m not
using her and I don’t want to put tadpoles inside her if that’s
what you’re implying.”
    Byron
struggled to breathe as Matt continued to pin him down.”You like
this don’t you? Breaking my arms or legs and then perhaps another
hug to make me lose my self-respect,” he said angrily.
    “ I don’t like what I’m doing and I’m not hugging you! I wanted
to be like a brother to you.”
    “ While holding me down like this?”
    “ Look at what you’ve done to me.” Some blood trickled from his
nose and lips to Byron. “You hit me first. I held you down to stop
you from hitting me and making me too angry to forget myself. Why
do you dislike me?”
    “ I don’t dislike you. I asked you a simple question because
Natalie is like a sister to me and you humiliate me.”
    “ You are violent. You punched me. I’m just so frustrated. You
make me feel like I’m some rotten scum,” Matt said with a pained
look as he let go of him.
    Byron
dived for the reclining chair. He whirled around with the gun in
his hand. He was shaking visibly.
    “ You think you can go around breaking bones when you don’t want
to discuss issues,” Byron’s face was livid with anger.
    “ You hit me first and I lost my cool.”
    “ You think you can come here from Indiana and mess around with
her? Sow your wild oats and then boast about it on facebook or
youtube?”
    “ I’m not here to mess around with girls. And stop saying that
I’m the hotshot son of a doctor. Do you want to know the truth?”
Matt had stood up. “My dad hates me. He even told me that my birth
was an accident. I’m not going to hurt Natalie if that’s what you
think,” he said angrily. “You hate me so much. I just don’t know
why.”
    “ I don’t hate you.”
    “ I thought you were my friend, a brother but you’re just like
Russ. Before you shoot let me spell out one thing for you. I love
Natalie!” he said defiantly.
    It
occurred to Byron that Matt was so very much like him in
temperament. It was as if he was looking at a clone of
himself.
    He was
ashen faced when Matt’s words sunk in. “Oh my God,” he gasped as he
put away the gun. “I almost shot him,” he was mumbling to himself.
He cradled his head. “I can’t believe this! Oh my God!” He was
shaking uncontrollably and gasping for air as he rolled
over.
    Natalie
ran from the mansion as Matt turned him around hovering over him.
He was hyperventilating. She held Byron tenderly, fanning him, her
eyes moist.
    “ He’s like a brother to me,” she said defensively to
Matt.
    “ He likes you.”
    “ Sometimes I regret not being able to have a friendship with
him.”
    “ He’d like that I’m sure,” there was a slight note of
bitterness in his voice. “He’s kind of obsessed with
you.”
    Natalie
looked sharply at him, “He understands that since he’s like a
brother to me it’s hard for me to relate to him as a girlfriend.
He’s accepted that. That’s fine with him.”
    What
Natalie had not told anyone was that she was going through so many
emotional issues especially with her parents’ divorce. She wanted
to preserve the brotherly relationship with Byron because it helped
her deal constructively with her own issues. He was going through
his own challenges and was struggling through it. She did not want
to complicate their lives with a romance that might get too hot for
them to handle. Sometimes having only a little of what was good was
the better option. Too much overflowing love from Byron could be
destructive if she was not able to contain the tsunami like
emotions.
    “ I wanted so much to be his friend,” Matt groaned.
    “ You can still be his friend. He’d love that very
much.”
    “ Now I’ve messed things up.” (“By hitting your brother” but he
did not say that.)
    “ You haven’t made a mess of things. I’m taking up your offer of
the 2 weeks,” Natalie