Page 50 of Hothead

Luke’s eyes squeezed shut. He could still see the look on his brother’s face. The disappointment.

“The first time, I didn’t exactly give him a warm welcome. And the second time ...” Luke let out a heavy breath. “The second time ... he turned up at the group home and caught me doing something I shouldn’t have been doing.”

“What does that mean?” He didn’t need to see to know that Rachel’s eyes were boring into him.

“It means I was an angry fifteen-year-old, sick of living in group homes, and I wanted out. And I stupidly thought stealing from the cash box and jacking the manager’s car would be enough to set me up.”

He was an idiot. It was the dumbest thing he’d ever done. Something he still regretted to this very day.

“So ... not a great first impression, huh?”

He could hear the amusement in Rachel’s voice. It was enough for him to open his eyes and turn his head toward her. Yes. He was right. Big ass smile.

“You think that’s funny, huh?”

“I mean, it’s a little funny. You obviously think that makes you the worst person in the world or you wouldn’t be acting so dramatic.”

“Rach, I could have gone to jail ... gotten a record. It could have stopped me from becoming a firefighter.” How was she not getting this?

Her whole body twisted until the side of her cheek was pressed up against the gray cotton cushion. “You were just a kid. Besides, I take it your brother stopped you. Talked some sense into you?”

“Yeah. He did. ’Cause I’m the screw-up and he’s the literal award winner in this fucked-up family.” His hand ran over the top of his shaking head. “I couldn’t even be nice to him. He wanted to help me.Knowme. But I told him to leave. Told him I wanted nothing to do with him.”

That feeling in his stomach that had been there ever since he’d read Marco’s letter was bubbling again. Enough to cause acid to rise up until the taste of guilt bathed his tongue. What would have happened if he hadn’t chased his brother away that day? How would his life have turned out? He would have had a family. A brother. Someone to spend holidays with. Someone to rely on. Someone to call when things went bad.

I wouldn’t be alone.

“Stop!” Rachel cried, snapping him out of his melancholic musings. “You need to stop, sugar. You’re beating yourself up over something that happened twenty years ago.”

“I was an asshole.”

“So what’s new?” Rachel’s hand went to his arm, tugging until she’d managed to twist his body to face her. “Seriously, Luke, you werefifteen. Cut yourself some slack. Besides, what was stopping Marco from trying again anyway? He knew where you were, clearly. And he never forgot you ... otherwise he wouldn’t have written that crazy letter. Stop putting all this on you.”

“I should have reached out. I should have given a shit.”

“Yeah, and I shoulda bought that winning lottery ticket last week too,” Rachel mocked. “Sugar, the past is the past. If you’re living in it, then you’re doing something wrong. You came here for advice, right?”

Luke grunted.

“Well, my advice is to snap out of it.” She had got to be kidding. He gave her a look that conveyed as much too. Which she ignored. “You’re not the only one who would love to go back and change something they did in the past, and you won’t be the last. But seeing as that’s not gonna happen, you need to work with what you’ve got now. You may not have had a chance to get to know your brother when he was alive, but you’ve been given a rare chance to get to know him now. Through Bella. Don’t waste that. Don’t let this opportunity be another one you’ll regret not taking.”

It killed him to admit it, but Rachel was right. He couldn’t change the past. He had no other choice but to live with it. That and his new stomachache.

Another grunt and Rachel was pulling him into a hug. Rachel hugging him wasn’t new. The lack of awkwardness, though, was. He actually didn’t mind it.

That’s a first.

Was it though? It was no coincidence that he’d spent the past couple of weeks curled up with Bella. Maybe all that physical contact had done something to him. Another part of him was broken.

Or fixed.

“Okay.” He sighed as he pulled back from her embrace. “I’m ready to talk about Bella now.”

“Yeah?” Rachel grinned.

“Yeah.”

Here goes nothing.

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