Page 211 of Push

John sat quiet for a minute. When I glanced over, he plucked at some grass. I could tell from the slump of his shoulders and the heavy crease between his brows that the loss wasn’t something that had ever completely left him. Was that my future? Nothing but days filled with regret? I could list a thousand regrets right now.

“I hadn’t spoken to my brother for nearly two years when I got word that he’d passed,” John said. “He’d wrapped his car around a tree when he was drunk out of his bloody mind. And I felt like a bastard for a long time because my first thought wasn’t about him at all—I’d just prayed no one else had been hurt in the accident.” He sighed. “I’d thought about reaching out to my brother a hundred times before he passed. Never had, though.”

“Did it ever get easier?”

“Every day got a little easier. Some days… I was back in a ditch, but Maree was there to dig me out. You’ve got to realize your brother’s addictions were all of him in the end. Nothing you could’ve done would’ve cured him. You couldn’t change it or control it. He needed to make those choices for himself.”

I grunted. “All his choices hurt the people I care about.”

“Then you did the right thing protecting your family.” John smiled before he nudged his shoulder into mine. “You still seeing that psychologist?”

I nodded. “Every Wednesday.”

“Good,” John said. “Keep up with your appointments. Talking it over will help. Wanna know what you absolutelyshouldn’tdo?”

My ears perked up. “Ye–yeah.” John’s advice had never steered me wrong.

“Don’t pull away from Gwen. Don’t even bother trying to shoulder all of this on your own.”

“But she’s dealt with enough already—”

John raising his palm was a polite way of telling me to shush. “Now, like I say to Josie,pause it and rewind. How did you feel when Gwen shut you out?”

“Hopeless.”

“And what did you want her to do more than anything?”

“Talk to me,” I grudgingly admitted.

“There you go. She’s smart, that one. She’ll be watching you like a hawk because she’ll know you’re not right. Shutting her out will send you two back where you started.” The corner of his lip quirked. “You’ve come a long way since we first met.”

“Light-years,” I agreed. “I never want to go back there.”

“Then choose to move forward.”

I shot John a skeptical look—it couldn’t be that easy—but he simply clamped a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

“Making that choice doesn’t mean life won’t be rocky,” he continued, “and it doesn’t mean you have to pretend you’re not grieving the man your brother could’ve been. All it means is that you’re choosing to focus on what’s important when you can.” His head jerked toward the back door. “The people in that house need you. You’ve lost a lot over the years, mate, but you have even more to live for.”

I was on my feet and pottering around the yard with John not too long after that. We made good headway on the back hedges, tidied up the magnolia tree, and shared some small talk aboutthe new car we’d been working on. Now and then, we stopped when the grief hit me so hard in the chest that I had to buckle over to catch my breath.

Gwen popped out with trays of Cat’s never-ending cooking and drinks, but before she could disappear back to the kitchen, I always snagged her hand, pulled her close, and kissed her. Not pecks. Deep, long kisses that made her blush and trip over her feet, giddy, on her way back inside.

John and I had just finished washing up and were about to flop on the couch to share a beer—well, me with my soda—when the doorbell rang.

I twisted around to glance at the front door. Relief filled my lungs first.

Liam?

Disappointment sucked the air out of them again. No, it couldn’t be him. He was allergic to ringing the doorbell.

It was ironic how my steps crawled now I knew that blond bastard wasn’t going to be on the other side of the door. Call me crazy, but I’d grown to almost like the guy, and I had a darkened room tucked away at the back of the house perfect for us to brood together in silence…

Sighing, I hauled open the door. Not Liam. The last person in the world I wanted to see was Elias, and it wasn’t even him. There was an even lower position on the list.

My mother.

She looked like the postcard of grief I remembered from my father’s funeral. Her hair was neatly pinned back, and she wore the same black dress, satin stole, and diamond necklace noosed around her throat. Could I laugh? Was it too soon?

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