Page 33 of Loving You Always

Surreal. It couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t Walsh’s best friend, his brother, whose nose gushed blood under the relentless anvil of his fist. Even the blood pouring from a gash above Walsh’s eye wasn’t real; it wasn’t enough to wrest him from the nightmare of friendship slaughtered in the very house where they had played.

“Daddy!” Jo screamed, running toward Uncle James’s study.

Unc rounded the corner, his glasses resting low on his nose, the document he’d been studying still in his hand.

“What the hell! Break it up!”

Uncle James plunged into the merciless battle between the two men. He pulled at Walsh’s shoulders, trying to dislodge him. He grabbed Walsh’s arm before his fist could connect again with Cam’s face.

Cam dragged himself to sit against the wall, elbows resting on the knees he pulled up. He offered a maniacal grin, blood lacing his teeth and running down his chin.

“You’re such a spoiled bastard,” he spat at Walsh, the look he leveled at him malevolent.

Cam gestured to the stately foyer.

“You’ve had everything since the day you were born. All this. The best schools, great family. A mother…”

Cam’s voice broke. He closed his eyes and shook his head, wiping at the blood on his face.

“And you just had to have my girl.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Walsh heaved precious air through his lungs, spent from their violent exertion. He stretched out on the floor, looking up at the crystal chandelier overhead. “We didn’t…we never—”

“Just because you never fucked her—”

“Cam, good grief,” Uncle James said. “That’s your wife.”

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Cam dragged himself to his feet. “She’s not my wife anymore. At least not for long.”

“What’s he talking about, Walsh?” Unc asked.

Walsh couldn’t meet the disapproval and disappointment in his uncle’s eyes.

He remained silent, banging his head once against the floor. He felt like an insect Cam had stretched out beneath a magnifying glass, three sets of eyes singeing him with unrelenting sun rays. They all watched him with varying degrees of censure and judgment.

“Oh, nothing to say now?” Cam swiped at his still-bleeding nose with the hem of his shirt. “Let’s just say that Walsh and Kerris had a…special relationship that didn’t leave much room for her husband.”

Walsh gulped back the shame boiling up in his throat, never taking his eyes from the glittering light fixture above. His faulty character was on display here in the house where his mother had raised him, where Uncle James had taught him to be a man.

Walsh forced himself to sit up and face Cam.

“I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry.”

“Is it true?” Uncle James, face a blank sheet of paper with just a few lines, waited for Walsh’s response.

Walsh looked at his uncle, unable to apologize.

“I love her. I loved her before Cam even married her.”

Walsh turned his eyes to Cam, who looked back at him like an enemy.

“What I regret is not telling you, Cam. Thinking I could handle it. Thinking it would go away. The kiss you walked in on should never have happened.”

“Jesus, Walsh.” Uncle James’s disillusionment whooshed from his mouth in one quick breath. He ran his hand over his face. “How could you?”

“What? Kiss her?” Walsh stood to his feet. “One kiss. If it had been up to me, she would have left your ass a long time ago, Cam. That would never have happened, though. And you know why? Because that’s the kind of woman you married.”

Cam looked back at Walsh, unblinking and silent.

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