Page 108 of Stolen for Keeps
Something clenched in my chest, tight and thick. My throat closed up.
I looked at him. Really looked. And there it was. The same grief I carried, etched into the corners of his eyes, the weight of it carved into the man he’d become. The guilt too. The same guilt I’d worn for years, only he’d been carrying it alone.
I broke.
I turned to him, my forehead pressed to his, my hand thumping his back.
“I couldn’t lose you!” My voice cracked, harsh and helpless.
He drew a sharp breath, and for a long moment we just stood there, two grown men with our chests caving under years of unsaid things.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I left, even though you were breaking.”
Elia turned away, rubbing a hand across his eyes.
I went on, “I tried to forget—Buffaloberry, the house, Tessa, Dad. I became someone else. It was the only way I knew how to go on. That’s why I never called. Never came back. Youweren’t in my life, and it hurt, but I couldn’t survive losing you for real.”
He stared out at the dark street, silent long enough to make me wonder if he’d say anything at all. But then he sighed and said, “I didn’t know. I thought it was all because of Tessa.”
“It wasn’t on you. It was how I coped. Pathetic? Yeah. But it kept me from doing something I couldn’t take back.” I raked a hand through my hair. “Then two years ago, I almost lost you, and I was damn grateful when we reconnected. But even then, I still felt like a reminder of everything that went wrong. I was here, then gone. In, then out.”
The silence between us stretched, taut and brittle.
Then Elia said, “You are not our downfall, Noah.”
It took me a second to catch up.
He stepped closer and continued, “I should’ve told you that a long time ago. I wanted to talk to you so bad. But I didn’t know how.”
A laugh choked out of me. “Me neither.”
And then, in the middle of that quiet street, Elia did something he’d never done.
He pulled me into a full, crushing hug and cried on my shoulder.
I froze for a second.
Then I clung to him just as tightly. Let the tears come.
I didn’t care who saw. Didn’t care that we weren’t kids anymore, or that we’d spent years pretending we were fine.
Because in that moment, for the first time in too damn long, we weren’t pretending.
Elia finally pulled back, his voice thick when he said, “You’re my brother, Noah. Always have been. Always will be.”
I swallowed, my hand still gripping his shoulder. “You are too, El. You’re all I got.”
We reached the end of the street and did a lazy pivot, heading back toward the truck.
Elia stretched his arms, signaling that the worst was behind us. “So…what changed? What made you finally open that vault of yours?”
“Not what,” I said. “Who.”
His brow lifted. “Ah. So it was her.”
“She shoved me over the line,” I muttered.
He snorted. “Sounds like you’ve found yourself a keeper.”
