The air was warm.
Decorations were over the top.
Elise was happy.
My brother was trashed.
Elise was dancing with Saoirse, Rebecca, Simon, and the random girl Miles had brought. I was sending him death glares.
At least Miles’s state of inebriation was taking my mind off the fact that I had to pretend to be just friends with Elise. It sucked, and I did not see the wisdom behind it. Lying would only compound Elliot’s anger when we told him.
Elliot and Sam had some common ground, discussing Denver real estate development. While everyone was busy and happy, I walked up behind Miles. He was pouring himself another drink.
“You don’t need that,” I hissed.
“It’s a party.” He grinned at me, tipping the cup into his mouth. “You should have fun, Westie.”
Westie. It grated on me every time he said it. Even worse, that he and Elise were such great pals, he’d gotten her into the habit of calling me that too.
“Do you even remember whose party this is?”
Miles blinked at me. “Of course. I’m here to celebrate my best friend, Elise Michelle Levy.”
“Best friend?” I scoffed. “You’re not a very good friend, stumbling around, making a fool of yourself. How old is your date?”
His unfocused eyes slid to the woman in hot pink who’d accompanied him. “Sabrina is older than me, Westie. She’s your age, old man. And the only reason I’m stumbling is because I twisted my ankle when Sab and I went rock climbing this afternoon. I’m mildly blitzed. I wouldn’t get trashed at Lisie’s party. I might miss the cake.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Now that I looked at him, he wasn’t as wasted as I’d originally assumed. Nowhere near sober, but not about to black out.
“Did you go to a doctor for the ankle?”
He waved me off, taking another long pull from his drink, which looked like straight vodka. “Nah. I’m self-medicating. I’ll go tomorrow if it’s not any better.” He chuckled to himself. “By the way, not a good idea to go climbing after eating an edible.”
Any hope I’d had for him fizzled out in that instant. “You knew better.”
He winked at me. “Sometimes you have to do stupid shit and learn your lesson afterward. That’s what makes life fun.” Then he threw his arm around my shoulders. “Now, tell me what we bought Lisie.”
I tossed him off me. “You came to her party without a gift?”
“You are, without a doubt, the most uptight person alive. Of course I got her a gift. I wanted to know what you got her.”
My jaw was going to crack from how hard I was clenching it. “New hiking boots.”
What I didn’t say was I also bought her twenty pairs of those cheeky panties that drove me insane and a gift card to her favorite lingerie store so she could buy fifty more pairs or whatever else she wanted. Those gifts were for her, but they were most certainly for me too.
I’d also given her a Suunto Sports Watch to wear hiking, a cashmere robe, and Merino wool socks.
Then there was the body cream she had a small sample tub of and loved but told me it was too expensive for her to buy. I’d bought her two, one for my place, one for hers.
She’d been mad at me, but I’d told her they were nonrefundable so she’d have to get over it.
She swiftly forgave me when I gave her the gift I’d bought during the hours I was in my office while she’d slept last night. Cooking lessons for the two of us, along with all new cookware.
Miles rubbed his hands together. “Oh, I bet she liked that. Did you know she saw a mountain lion on one of her hikes?”
I would have laughed if it didn’t irk me that she’d revealed anything about her personal life to Miles. Not that I didn’t trust Elise around him. I just didn’t think he deserved to know her.
“Did she? She should be careful.”
Elise was unwrapping presents, cooing over everything with nearly the same amount of enthusiasm as she had when she’d opened mine. I could have gotten over it had she been closer. Instead, she was on the other side of our group, a big table between us, taking great care not to look at me for too long or pay me much attention at all.
It went without saying, I was not happy.
Miles shoved his gift at her. Since the time we spoke, he’d been drinking steadily. His only saving grace was the fact that Elise didn’t seem to be bothered by it.
Elise opened his present, holding up a gold chain with a chunky gold E dangling from it.
She gasped. “Miles! This is gorgeous. I love it so much. Thank you.”
He puffed his chest out, his face flushed. “Remember back in high school, when you had that E necklace? I thought you might like a grown-up one.”
She squeezed his arm. “I remember. That was incredibly thoughtful.”
“Wait a minute,” Sam chimed. “You two went to high school together?”
“We did,” Elise answered.
Sam leaned forward with interest. “Give me the history. What were you guys like? Did you ever date?”
My fingers curled, but Elise burst out laughing. “No. That’s hilarious. We very much did not date.”
Miles nodded, his head bobbing loosely on his neck. “Yeah. Ellie and I have been besties forever.” Then he frowned. “Wait. I can’t call you Ellie anymore. Sorry, Ellie.”
The hair on the back of my neck prickled. Elise had told me not to call her Ellie. I’d wondered why at the time but had dropped it. Miles knew, though. He knew something about her I didn’t.
Elise waved him off. “It’s fine.”
Sam turned to her. “Wait, what’s wrong with Ellie? It’s a cute nickname.”
Miles tried to snap his fingers, but when he couldn’t, he pointed at her. “Right? It is a cute nickname, but I had to go ruin it. I ruin everything.” His head dropped and Elise reached for him, but he flung her hand off and stumbled to his feet.
Elliot and I exchanged a glance. He lifted a shoulder. Neither of us understood what was going on, but my gut told me it wasn’t good. My gut told me to shut my brother up before he continued his path of destruction.
I got to my feet, but Miles was already ranting.
“I thought it would be funny, you know?” He shook his head. “Maybe I didn’t think that. Maybe I didn’t think at all. I saw you on the first day of school. You had a sparkly headband on, and you were laughing with friends. Friends, Lisie. You had friends, but I was supposed to be looking out for you when I had no one.”
He was staring right at Elise, red-faced, his chest heaving. “So, I called you that. Ellie the Elephant, and they laughed. Then I had friends. People laughed with me, they wanted to be around me.”
My mouth fell open, trying to wrap my head around what my brother was saying.
Elliot’s chair scraped back. He circled the table to get to Elise, who looked like a deer caught in headlights. She was frozen, eyes wide, watching my brother.
We all were.
There was no way he was saying what it sounded like. My brother was a fuck up, but if he did this…if he was cruel to her, even once…
“I’m sorry, Lisie.” He viciously yanked at his hair. “It snowballed, and I lost control of it. I made you miserable, but I wasn’t happy either.”
“Just say it. You bullied Lise in high school,” Rebecca screeched, cutting right to the chase.
Miles turned his head, nodding.
With his confirmation, my brain switched off.
I had no idea how I got to him. One second, I was on the other side of the table. The next, I was on top of him, my fists pummeling into his face, his chest, anywhere I could hit him. He barely tried to block me, taking it because he knew he deserved it.
“You hurt her? You hurt my Elise?” All I saw was red as I screamed in his face. “I trusted you and you hurt her?”
Arms wrapped around me, pulling me off him. It wasn’t just one man. It took Simon and Sam to pry me away from Miles. As soon as my weight was lifted, he sat up and scooted backward.
“I told you to watch out for her,” I yelled. “What did you do, Miles? What did you do?”
“I messed up,” he cried. “But she forgave me. Don’t you forgive me, Lisie?”
The fact that he looked at her, addressed her in my fucking presence, was so audacious, I could have sworn I was hallucinating.
“Don’t look at her. Look at me. Tell me why you bullied the girl I told you to watch out for.” I slapped my chest. “I told you to protect her when I went to college. I fucking trusted you.”
Miles staggered to his feet, leaning heavily against the back of a lounge chair. In my periphery, Elliot had his arms around Elise. Her other friends were crowded around her.
She was protected like she should have been all those years ago.
Miles’s gaze lifted, meeting mine before falling away. “Sometimes there isn’t a good reason. Sometimes people do bad shit they regret.”
“Not to Elise. You don’t just do bad shit to her and think I’ll ever be okay with you again. That is my girl, and she is ten times more important to me than you will ever be, Miles.”
He swallowed hard. “I know that.”
Him not defending himself or making a joke of the situation only made me angrier. I needed to fight him. If I didn’t, I would have had to ask myself how I’d missed this. My own brother had taken part in hurting my beautiful Elise while I’d been off at college, relieved to be gone.
“You know that, yet you fucking bullied her? I didn’t think a lot of you before, but now—”
“Weston, stop,” Elise cried. “Don’t say something you can’t come back from.”
She wouldn’t be happy with me for speaking to him this way, but she was a far better person than I was.
Miles raised his head, his face flushed. “You think I didn’t know that? The second you met the Levys, I didn’t even exist to you. And guess what? I was jealous. In my warped child’s mind, they took my brother from me.” He threw his arms out, but they quickly flopped at his sides. “You left, and there was no one to protect me, but you told me to protect her. I wanted to hate her, and I tried to. I was fucking awful to her. There’s no excuse, and I can’t make it right or change what I did. So, you can write me off, fire me, never see me again. That’s what you want anyway.”
I shook my head. “No. You don’t get to be the victim here.”
Elliot broke away from his sister, taking Miles by the shoulders. Elliot’s control was like iron. He had to be homicidal but kept it locked down. He was doing it for Elise.
“You need to leave. This is my sister’s birthday, and now you’ve ruined yet another thing for her.”
He shoved Miles, not hard, but he was wobbly enough on his feet that he stumbled forward, ending up in front of Elise.
“Lisie…” he croaked.
She reached out, stroking his cheek. “I really wish you hadn’t done this.”
“I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “I know you are, but you should go now.”
He glanced around at everyone with wild eyes, like he didn’t really know what he should have been doing. That was when Saoirse took over. Wrapping an arm around Miles’s poor date and hooking her other arm in Miles’s elbow, she walked them both to the elevator.
Elliot rounded on me as soon as my brother was out of my sight.
“Care to tell me why you keep referring to my sister as yours?”
His arms were folded over his chest. Face blank. He knew.
“Elliot, stop.” Elise went to him, standing in front of him so she was between us, even though we were still feet apart. “We were going to tell you next week.”
He wouldn’t look at her. “Why is my sister saying ‘we’? You should have been the one to come to me.” His jaw rippled. “How long have you lied to me?”
That was a complicated question, and my mind was still half blacked out with rage. Tears rolled down Elise’s cheeks, and I was about to lose it.
I made eye contact with Rebecca. “Take her away,” I said through clenched teeth. “She doesn’t need to be here for this.”
Simon and Sam were still at my side. I nodded to them too. “Take her, please.”
“Weston, no, please—’ Elise swiveled to her brother then me—“this doesn’t have to happen. We can all talk.”
Elliot’s gaze remained firmly on me. “He’s right. This is between Weston and me.”
She sniffed, wiping her cheeks, and it killed me. Absolutely killed me not to hold her and tell her it would be okay. I couldn’t make any kind of promises to her right now, and I had the feeling if I tried to touch her, Elliot would toss me off the roof without even blinking.
“If you hurt each other, don’t bother coming to me afterward.” She pointed back and forth between us. “That’s for both of you. I will never forgive either of you if you do.”
I wouldn’t touch Elliot, but I had no idea where his head was. “I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
A shudder racked her whole body. She turned away from me, pressing a hand to Elliot’s chest.
“If you’re mad at him, you have to be mad at me too. Remember that.”
Then she left with her friends around her.
Bereft and confused, I sank into my original seat and picked up my drink. I needed to blunt some of tonight’s revelations. If I thought too hard about the dramatic change Elise went through between when I left for college and when I came back…
No.
I’d have to confront that later, when I could look at Elise and assure myself she was okay.
Elliot took the chair across from mine, his fingers curling around the arm so hard they were white at the tips, and his knees vibrated with tension.
He stared at me with a steady, level gaze. “I can’t decide who I’m more angry at, you or Miles.”
“You didn’t know what he did to her?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I knew she was teased and having a hard time. But our mother was unwell, our father was gone, I had moved away, so I didn’t…” He clamped down, turning away. “I should have known, but once I was gone, I didn’t want to go back. Not because of Elise. Never her.”
“I know.”
When I first met Elliot and he brought me home, the Levys were warm and bright. Their mom was eccentric, kind of off the wall, but in a lovable way their pragmatic father balanced out. They talked, laughed, hung out together. Even Elliot. And I had been accepted into their fold.
Things changed once their father died, but I was so far entrenched I stayed through the chaos and darkness. I stayed for Elliot and Elise, but myself as well, because no matter how shitty the Levy household was at times, it was always preferable over my own home.
“I need to know exactly what he did to her.” He rubbed his hands down his shaking thighs. “Then I’ll be able to decide what action needs to be taken.”
“I can deal with my brother.”
“I don’t know that I trust you to do that.” His gaze turned razor sharp. “Did you touch her when she was a kid?”
My head blew back like he’d physically hit me. “No.” That was all the denial he was getting from me. He should have known better than to even ask.
“When did it start?” he pressed.
“When she came back to Denver. But it’s been there for a while now, at least for me.”
“Whose idea was it to keep it from me?”
“It was mutual. We were planning to tell you next week.”
He angled forward. “It was Elise’s idea, wasn’t it?”
“It was mutual.”
He huffed something close to a laugh. “I know my sister as well as I know you. She considers everyone’s feelings when making decisions, while you make up your mind and act. There is no way on this planet waiting was a mutual choice. You deferred to Elise in this.”
I blew out a breath, letting my beer bottle swing between two fingers. “Does it really matter?”
“It does to me. I’ll forgive Elise for anything. You don’t have that luxury.”
I grimaced, knowing I could lose him, but I wasn’t going to say what he wanted me to. “The choice was mutual. The brunch Elise asked you to put on your calendar next weekend was when we were going to tell you.”
He stared at me for a long time then gave a slight nod. “What would you have said?”
I’d thought about this since things started with Elise. How I would explain. How much was any of Elliot’s business. He was her brother, but he’d been a parent to her also.
“I would have told you we’re in a serious, committed relationship. That my intentions for her are not short term. I would have explained thought and consideration went into the decision we made to be together, including your feelings, but in the end, our feelings for each other were paramount.”
He lowered his head, pressing two fingers to the space between his eyebrows. “Admirable you’re willing to get serious, but why did it have to be my sister?”
“It couldn’t have been anyone but Elise.”
“She’s too good for you.”
“I don’t deny that.”
He glowered at me. “You know, yet you let this happen?”
“I didn’t let anything happen. It was a decision. I’ve also made the decision that Elise is my priority.”
He scoffed at that declaration. “Interesting, but forgive me if I don’t believe you. You weren’t able to do that with the last one.”
If I hadn’t been so on edge, I would have laughed. He still disliked Marisol so much he wouldn’t say her name.
“It’s not about ability. It’s a choice and a desire. Nothing I can say now will convince you I’ll be a good partner to Elise. I can’t show you the future. But I do think you know me well enough to understand when I decide I’m going to do something, I don’t back down or accept failure.”
He finally lifted his head. “Do you love her?”
A rush of…not panic, but a strong, overpowering emotion hit me. I swallowed down the knot in my throat. “That’s not something I’ve told her yet.”
“But do you?” he pushed.
Another swallow. “I’ve loved Elise for as long as I’ve known her. It’s evolved over the years, and what I feel for her now is vastly different from what I felt for her when we were kids.”
“It’s love, though.”
I nodded. “I’m not saying it to you before I say it to her.”
He chuffed. “Never thought I’d be having this conversation with you.”
“Neither did I.” I scrubbed at my jaw, antsy to get away but needing to know Elliot and I would be okay. “I’ll be good to her.”
“I really don’t want to end our friendship, but I will always choose my sister over you if that’s what it comes down to.”
I heaved a heavy breath and told him the stark, honest truth. “I understand that because I would choose her over you too.”
He blinked at me and stayed silent, obviously contemplating my words. I thought about what I’d said too. It had come out before I even considered it, but if push came to shove and I had to choose, Elise would be it, hands down.
“As you should.” He pushed back from his seat and stood. “I’m going to see my sister now.”
I bit my tongue to stop from telling him I should have been the one going to Elise.
“Don’t give her shit,” I warned.
He lowered his chin, giving me another long, heavy look. “She’s always been the most important person in my life.”
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving me with no idea what he was thinking.
At least I was no longer burning with rage. There was no room for it, not when I was filled with a consuming worry that I wouldn’t be Elise’s choice after Elliot got to her.
