Page 54 of The Lies We Told Ourselves

I could hear Xander’s footsteps as he jogged down the steps behind me, and I gritted my teeth as I pushed my feelings down.

He was my brother, and that won him a certain amount of understanding. But I wasn’t living my life the way we had in thepast. I wasn’t shutting up and watching anyone treat the people I cared about like shit.

“Val, come,” I snapped, immediately feeling bad as she looked up at me from my side. “Sorry, girl.” I ducked down and ruffled the hair at the back of her neck, keeping pace until he reached the barn.

Unfortunately for Xander, the closer we got to the door, the more my frustration built.

Three steps inside and I was spinning on the spot, grabbing my brother by his starched shirt collar and tossing him against a stall door.

“What the fuck!” he gasped as he bounced off the wood, and I pushed him back to pin him in place.

“What the fuck? Damn straight, what the fuck, Xander! What do you think you’re doing?”

His brow furrowed in confusion, but he didn’t push me away from him. He hung there looking almost resigned and waiting for what came next.

It made me pause, and my gaze moved over my brother as I really looked at him for the first time since he’d arrived in town.

With a sigh, I stepped back. “What’s going on, Xander?” I asked, slightly calmer than before.

He brushed his hands over his shirt like he was trying to straighten out the non-existent wrinkles. It was a tick he’d had since he was a kid. It came from the impossible standards our parents had held us to and Xander’s constant pursuit of them.

Until he stopped.

And he went off to college, barely ever returning to town again.

Xander’s eyes moved to his shoes, and then he went to move past me. “What did you need help with?” he said as he tried to walk away.

I didn’t push him back this time, even if the anger inside me really wanted to. My hand came to his shoulder, and I stopped him in his tracks.

“Don’t do that. Don’t ignore whatever it is you need to talk about.”

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “You’re not exactly one to talk. A minute ago, you were throwing me across the barn, and now you want to hold hands and talk about our feelings?”

“I’m not holding your fucking hand. Now tell me what’s going on?”

Xander sighed. He moved back to the stall door and leaned against it of his own volition this time, but his eyes stayed on the ground as he tried to find the words for whatever it was he was struggling to say.

“I messed up, Book,” he finally said. When Xander looked up and finally met my eyes, I almost didn’t recognize my brother. “I really messed up.”

My hand moved back to his shoulder, but instead of shoving him away from me, this time I pulled him closer and hugged him tight. I stepped back from a bewildered-looking Xander.

“It won’t be as bad as it seems. We’ll fix it, but you’re done being rude to Reece. Whatever stick you shoved up your ass before you came here, you need to pull it out. And you owe her a damn apology.”

Xander’s eyes widened almost comically. “I wasn’t…” Then he sighed. “I’ll apologize. I’m sorry, Book. I didn’t mean…Hell, I’m too lost in my head. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.”

“It’s never as bad as it seems,” I repeated and then nodded toward the back of the barn where the little unnamed mare was still stabled. Xander followed as I headed to the hay storage. Val pushed her way between us and then moved closer to Xander like she always did when someone was hurting.

“I’m an alcoholic.” Xander laughed wryly, and my shoulders tensed at the impact of his statement. “I’ve never admitted that to someone I know before.”

“Okay, well…”

“And I lost my medical practice.”

“What!”

Shit, that wasn’t the right reaction, but hell, you didn’t just casually drop a statement like that and expect a person to shrug it off.

“Yep, everything caught up with me, and my partners didn’t want to deal with the fallout, so they strongly suggested that I let them buy me out, and then casually threatened they’d report me to the medical board if I didn’t.”

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