When I got back to my brother’s apartment, he was still passed out face down on his couch. I was wound so tight from having to sit across from a girl I used to want to give the world to that I could barely focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
I hit him in the back of the head. “Wake the fuck up.”
He mumbled into the cushion. So, I shoved his legs off the couch and sat next to him.
He glared over at me through groggy, sunken eyes. “What the hell, man?”
“I just did your chores and studied with Aubrey. You owe me.”
He shot up off the couch. “You what? What time is it?”
I let him work through it.
He paced toward the clock in the kitchen, squinted, and paced back. “It’s noon? I told your ass to wake me up at eight!” he yelled. He stomped into the kitchen and back again. “You saw her? Is she pissed?”
I chuckled while he swore under his breath.
When he started to search for his cell, I said, “Calm down. She’s taken care of. I helped her with her class like I said.”
“You helped her?” He eyed me. “You helped her? Ha!”
He went back to shuffling through the cushions looking for his phone. I wondered whether or not that had to do with him not trusting me with her. “You act like I can’t be cordial to your high-and-mighty princess.”
“Damn right you can’t be cordial. She can barely stand to be in the same room as you!” He threw his hands in the air. “Where the fuck is my phone?”
I pointed to the table in the dining room. Jay couldn’t compose himself for the life of him. Made him a great actor, able to display every emotion, but a terrible businessman.
Before he dialed her number, I walked over and leaned on the table. “We talked, Jay. We can stand to be in the same room, all right?”
He studied me for a beat and then said, “You apologized?”
I glanced toward the ceiling. I knew that’s what everyone wanted. My family had said their piece more than once regarding Aubrey. “The past is the past. She doesn’t need apologies. I’m going to help her through the rest of the class.”
He started to say something.
I held up a hand to cut him off. “Thank me for it later. You’re off the hook, and this will give Aubrey and me a chance to put the past behind us.”
He tapped his finger on the dark wood of the table. “That’s impossible, man. You don’t know what you—”
“We’re adults, Jay. What we had when we were kids is irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant?” he spit back at me, taking a step toward me.
“You want to do this now?”
His eyes narrowed. “No better time for it.”
I sighed, knowing the look in his eye. The tabloids used to say my brothers and I looked exactly alike. Sure, there was a resemblance but not the way they described it. There were times like these though when I saw it all too clearly. This look was the exact look I had when my anger boiled over and I couldn’t control a damn move I made.
I cracked my neck, trying to release the tension and stay calm. “She’s fine, and we’re fine. She doesn’t need anyone to coddle her.”
“How the hell would you know?”
“Because I was there that night, and no one’s coddling me.” I crossed my arms.
That deflated him a little. “You were able to disappear after that summer and do what you wanted. You got to follow your dreams.”
“Oh, fuck off. Those weren’t all my dreams. I went and made a life for myself. It wasn’t all rainbows and fluffy shit, Jay.” I ran my hands through my hair down to my neck.
He just shook his head at me. “She had to go back to school, Jax. You know what that did to her?”
“She’s fine,” I shot off loudly, surprised at how quick I retaliated.
I didn’t want to hear how much she’d suffered because I’d suffered too. I realized too late he wasn’t in the mood to be tested. His eyes widened before he reared back and threw a punch across my face.
“Fuck!” I roared as I bent over. I went straight for him, rushing my shoulder into his stomach and slamming him to the ground.
We rolled around the living room like idiots. I can admit to the stupidity, but damn I was pissed. Truth was, I couldn’t honestly remember the last time I’d been this immature since being out of my mother’s home. The only time I sparred was at a training facility to keep in shape.
Getting this physical because of emotions was a regular occurrence when we were growing up but Jay and I had been too distant for too long to engage. I hadn’t tested my brother in a long time, and I was surprised to find that I couldn’t tell who had the upper hand.
Back in high school, we’d been close enough to know exactly what buttons to push. Jett had beat me to a pulp more than once and I had done the same to Jay. He was the youngest and had never even gotten a punch in. Now, for every punch and headlock I got him in, he got me in one.
“You’re losing it,” he grumbled when I’d subdued him in a headlock he couldn’t break.
“Shut the fuck up or I’ll choke you out.”
He shoved at my arm as we both laid there, him struggling to get out of the hold and me seriously considering watching him pass out.
“You would have ducked that punch a couple years ago,” he wheezed.
I squeezed him tighter, “I let you get one good one in.” Then, I shoved him away as he gasped in air.
“You know you deserve to get your ass beat,” he managed.
“Maybe,” I sighed and we laid there, both out of breath for a minute.
“She had to face everyone and tell them why you left, why she wasn’t good enough for you to stay, why you visited the guy who burned her house to the ground and almost killed her. I had to listen to her cry at night and try to explain why you left. She might not act like it, but she’s still broken.”
I kept my eyes on the ceiling, not wanting to have this conversation anymore. “That was years ago.”
“But you’re here now, bringing up the memories from those years ago.”
“Maybe I should go back to Chicago.” For some damn reason, that made my chest hurt.
“Fuck, man. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s best.” He looked defeated.
I felt just how he looked. The next question out of my mouth I didn’t plan for. “Is she really with him?”
Jay didn’t say anything, just shook his head.
I waited him out, not willing to take the question back.
“If you stayed just to figure that out…”
“You know I stayed for my app launch and because I need a break from everything.”
“I’m not giving you details about her love life, man.”
“Supposedly, it’s your love life.” I smiled. But only a little. My neck always tightened when I saw a magazine with Aubrey looking longingly at Jay. Even if I knew it was just the perfect photo at just the right time at just the right angle.
Jay laughed. “At least for once they said she was leaving me for someone and not the other way around.”
What the media didn’t realize was that Aubrey was really leaving me behind. They never photographed Aubrey with anyone but my brother. I never worried about them, knew Aubrey and Jay were just friends. Then Rome was in the picture and suddenly I was damn close to buying the magazines just to figure it out.
“Jay, he was all over her at your graduation ceremony.”
“Man, that’s none of your business and you know it.”
“Fine. Do you trust him with her though?”
He sighed. “She’s like my baby sister. I don’t trust anyone with her. She trusts him though.”
I grunted.
“Jax,” he said in warning. “It’s taken this long for her to trust anyone. Katie and I have been the only ones she confided in. You know how fucking lonely that must have been, to only have us?”
“Well, I don’t know why she picked you two. Katie is …” I trailed off. There weren’t words to describe her.
“Brutal.” Our eyes met. I could see there was an unspoken agreement there. Katie was a fierce best friend, the only one I would want for Aubrey.
I nodded and we both chuckled. The anger toward each other from over the years seemingly diffused.
We turned our heads and exchanged a knowing glance. His smile toward me was genuine for the first time in years.
