Page 91 of The Bad Brother

“Does she know how you feel about her?” The look she’s giving me tells me she already knows the answer but I tell her anyway.

“No.” I shake my head. “She doesn’t know how I feel.”

Sloane knows that I want her.

That I pick her flowers and make her grilled cheese sandwiches at 3AM even though it makes me mad.

That I don’t want her to move out.

That she belongs here.

Belongs to me.

But she doesn’t know that I love her.

I don’t think something like that would even occur to her. That’s the kind of damage my brother can do to a person.

The kind of havoc he wreaks.

He wears you out. Grinds you down. Takes every part of you that makes youyouand kills it. Suffocates it until you’re nothing more than a shadow of who you were before you met him. It’s a slow death. You don’t even know you’re dying until it’s too late and you’re already gone.

Does Sloane know that I’m in love with her?

No.

But she should.

Even if she doesn’t believe me, she deserves to hear me say it. Even if it doesn’t change a fucking thing, I owe it to her—fuck, I owe it tomyself—to look at her and say the words out loud. To let her know that Ethan didn’t break her. No matter how hard he tried, he didn’t break either of us.

Staring at me from across the Jeep through its open doors, Riv shakes her head on anothermen are dumbsigh. “Well, if I were you, that’s where I’d start.”

BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ANDbecause every time I think about leaving and going back to the loft, I start to panic, I decide to stay at the hospital and work. Thankfully, aside from Orton Redford, it was a light day in the trauma center. A sprained ankle from sliding into home at the church league co-ed softball game. Six stitches to the chin for a kid who tried to do a kick flip on her skateboard. Singed eyebrows and some minor burns for a man who left the propane running on his grill a little too long before he lit the burners.

Thankful to be kept busy, I saw patient after patient, setting bones and stitching wounds, until it was well past dark and I’m swaying on my feet.

“Go home,” Lucy, one of the nurses that work the ER says, looking at me like she already knows what I’m going to say.

“I’m okay,” I tell her, pushing anI can go all nightgrin onto my face.

“Ma’am, youarenotokay,” Lucy says with a laugh. “You’re asleep on your feet like a punch-drunk boxer.”

“I’ll be fine.” Giving myself a mental slap in the face. “I just need some?—”

“Let me rephrase that—” Lucy arches an eyebrow at me. “go homeor I’m going to call Ragnar.”

“I—” Shaking my head, I stop myself from finishing my sentence because what can I say?I don’t have a home because the place I thought was home isn’t real and the people in it have been lying to me this entire time. “Okay.” Giving Lucy a nod, I concede because she’s right. I have to go home. I can’t hide forever. “I’ll just check in with Mr. Redford before I leave.”

“Really?” Lucy gives me a narrow-eyed look like I’m trying to pull a fast one. “You’re going home—just like that?”

“Really.” Giving her a bland smile, I nod my head. “I’m going home. Just like that.”

Besides, the last thing I need to do is upgrade myself on Ragnar’s shitlist. Especially now.

Walking away from the nursing station, I make my way to surgical ICU to check on Orton Redford. Giving the door a soft knock before pushing it open, I expect to find Reese sitting bedside, along with her brother, Billy—but she’s nowhere to be seen and the patient is sleeping.

“Reese went down to the cafeteria to grab some coffee,” Billy tells me with a nervous smile. “I think she’s afraid to fall asleep.”

Lifting Mr. Redford’s chart from its sleeve at the foot of his bed, I give him one of my practiced smiles. “I canunderstand that.” Flipping through, I note that his vitals are good. Stable.

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