Page 168 of Keeping Kasey
“My turn to talk, Goldie.” She must’ve waved him on dramatically because there’s a hint of a laugh in his words. “When you’re that bored, you start exploring—rummaging through drawers and cabinets, looking for anything to pass the time.”
Kasey doesn’t say anything, and I close my eyes, mentally cursing myself to hell and back.
I thought we dodged this bullet.
Does that mean he…
“My family stopped allowing alcohol at the manor and base years ago, except for family dinners. I figured they kept some hidden around, but I’d never found it—until you locked me in Logan’s bathroom.”
I chance a look at Kasey’s face, and it’s pulled tight with curiosity and concern.
“Logan’s got a compartment hidden behind his mirror with exactly three bottles of bourbon inside.” Damon pulls in a longbreath. “I was one hundred and eight days sober. The longest I’d gone without a drink inseventeen years.”
Was.
The feeling of letting my brother down fits right in with the rest of the guilt weighing on me.
“Damon, I—I had no idea.”
“For one hundred and eight days, I’d been under constant supervision. It’s easy to stay on the wagon when you’re tied down to it,” he says with a light chuckle. “All of a sudden, I was presented with the perfect opportunity. No one would blame me. They would be disappointed, sure, but I’ve been disappointing people my whole life. They would understand, and they’d holdyouresponsible, not me.”
There’s a long beat before Kasey asks, “You didn’t do it, did you?”
“I didn’t do it,” he says, and I can almost hear his smile.
“How? Why?”
I can’t see him, but I imagine my brother shrugging, an easy smile on his face.
“I don’t really know, to be honest. Maybe it’s because I got to know my sister for the first time in my life. James was reaching out just to talk, and Logan wasn’t constantly looking at me like I was gum on his shoe.”
The words sting—even more so when I admit that he isn’t wrong.
“Or maybe I just wanted to prove to myself that I could,” he says. “Whatever it was, I walked out of that bathroom, knowing that I wasn’t being forced to stay clean. Ichoseto. You gave me that.”
There’s a long silence, and I’m sure Kasey doesn’t know whether to saysorryoryou’re welcome.
She doesn’t say either.
“Something happened while I was gone—something that I will have to live with for the rest of my life,” she says in a tentative whisper. “What’s wrong,is that I’m picking up the pieces of my shattered life surrounded by the people who made it that way.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Kasey
Dread doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling coursing through me right now. The weight of discomfort swirling through my gut is just as physically painful as it is disconcerting.
Logan pulls his Carbon GT right up to the manor, and we don’t say a word as we get out.
He’s as reluctant to endure this dinner as I am.
We both worked more than two hours later than we were supposed to. Even Damon left earlier than we did, leaving me with a grumpy-as-ever Ford.
While things remain frosty between the cybersecurity capo and me, there’s no denying that things have changed since our talk yesterday. It’s a subtle shift, but the tension between us has melted with a sort of unspoken agreement. We might not like each other, but we’re at least starting to understand each other.
“We won’t stay long,” Logan says as we climb the stairs to the front doors.
“I’d prefer if we didn’t stay at all.”
