Page 30 of Choose Me

She pats my arm like a matronly aunt. “I haven’t had as much to drink as the three of you. I’ll be fine driving home.”

“You sure?” She nods, so I turn to Gunnar. “What about you?”

The glare I get is a sobering mix of anger and disdain. “You know, I finally got Bjorn to stop playing dad. Mostly. Now that you’re home I have to put up with you doing it?”

The mood in the room shifts and I’m instantly on alert. Dammit, we were doing so well!

Bjorn throws his napkin on the table. “Really? You had to go there?” He sounds hurt and angry.

Gunnar holds up his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just… we’re good. But, you know, sometimes you still act like my parent instead of my brother.”

Bjorn scowls. “Well, maybe sometimes you still act like a kid who needs to be parented.” My stomach drops and I clench my fists. Fuck. This is how it starts, and it’ll only escalate from here.

“I’m thirty-two Bjorn.” He turns to me. “And Erik, I can decide all by myself if I can get home in one piece. I don’t need either of you to parent me.”

Bjorn rolls his eyes. “I’m not trying to parent you. I’m trying to offer you a place to stay. If you, as your adult self, feel you’d prefer not to drive, I have plenty of room here.”

Gunnar opens his mouth, and I can tell it won’t be anything pleasant. I stand up and grab my empty plate, pick up Astrid’s, and head to the kitchen.

“That’s right, Erik, run away like you always do.” I wince as Gunnar turns his anger on me. “Bjorn, why don’t you parent Erik? Maybe give him some of your conflict training, so he stops avoiding the family.”

Astrid’s voice cuts in. “Gunnar, stop.”

“Why? Things get a little loud and unpleasant and Erik runs, but no one ever calls him on it.”

“Gunnar.” Astrid’s voice is strained, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“He just picked up and left, and we’re all pretending that it never happened. But you’ll jump all over me because I tell you I’m perfectly capable of determining if I can drive home.”

I set the dishes next to the sink and hunt for containers for the leftovers, trying to block out the escalating argument but Bjorn’s voice cuts through Gunnar’s rant. “I don’t think this is a conversation we need to be having right now.”

Gunnar snorts. “Of course you don’t. But I think it is. Maybe it’s time we talk about the fact that Erik up and left everybody and then didn’t come home for fifteen years.”

Jesus, I want to be anywhere but here. But I can’t leave or I’ll prove Gunnar right. Though why I care about that is beyond me. He’s not wrong. I did run, and I stayed gone. Andthisis exactly why.

I could say all of that. I could go back into the dining room and blast Gunnar with the truth. Tell him I left because the bickering and nastiness set my teeth on edge. But I won’t, because I can’t. Just thinking about saying something makes my skin feel too tight. I keep my mouth shut and pull a few containers out of the cupboard, filling them with the leftovers.

I’m so lost in my head that I don’t hear the footsteps on the tiled floor until there’s a hand on my shoulder. “Hey Mus, let me help you with these.”

I shake my head, “It’s okay, Bean. I’m fine.”

She pulls a zipper bag from the drawer and dumps the extra noodles into it. “It’s not all right. And those two are idiots. I told them to go watch TV and cool off.” She tosses the bag of noodles into the fridge and sets the pot in the sink. “Gunnar’s sleeping here, by the way. His grown-up ass made that decision.”

I’d laugh if this wasn’t so sad. “It’s fine. I just don’t understand why they have to go at each other like that.”

Astrid takes the container and spoon from my hand and pulls me into a hug. “I know. You never did like it when anyone argued. Especially when Mom and Dad had one of their rare fights.”

I hug her tightly. “You’d always knock on my door and crawl into bed with me. And it’s not at all embarrassing that the eight-year-old was comforting the twelve-year-old.”

“Well, Bjorn certainly wasn’t going to. He was fifteen and too cool for any of that ‘baby emotional stuff’.” She leans back and looks up at me. “I swear they mostly have their shit together. Every once in a while, they fall back into old habits, but it’s rare.”

I drag my fingers through my beard and wonder if my being here was the trigger. “Lucky me. I get to experience the now rare family fight.” I’m still on edge, but I can hear the TV and voices speaking at normal volume, so at least they aren’t still arguing.

She takes a step back and finishes putting the food away. “But we love them, so we put up with their shenanigans.”

I snort. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You love them and you know it.” She gives me a gentle shove.

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