Page 21 of Love Thy Brother
Embry snorted. “Really? That’s what you think of me?”
“All right. Put it this way, if Riv had lived your life, he’d have shot a thousand men in the face by now.”
No, he wouldn’t. He’s not a killer any more than I am.
But his temper, man. It made him dangerous, and in that, he and the good father were the same.
Embry nudged me. “What happened the night you were together?”
Nope, not going there. But Embry had this way of dragging shit out of me without saying a single fucking word. I ran my tongue over my split lip, still tasting claret. “I don’t know what happened. Not really. Just that I dragged him out of the Joker and took him home. Then I woke up naked in his bed.”
“You don’t remember anything else?”
A wave of guttural pain washed over me. “Just flashbacks of how it felt. His face when—fuck.” I drove my knuckles into the old wooden table, craving more blood than the stale shit souring my mouth. “I was so messed up back then, and I ain’t felt the same since. I went to River that night thinking if I could just be close to him, everything would come right again. And it did for as long as I lost myself in him. Then it was morning before I knew it. My phone was blowing up with texts from Cam wanting to know where the fuck I was, so I left. Snuck out while River was sleeping.”
“And you never went back? Never told him what happened?”
I shook my head. Slowly. Like the passage of time between now and that night. “I left it too long. By the time I found my balls, he was done with me.”
“He was angry. Hurt. There’s a difference.”
“Not one that matters.” I studied my smashed-up hand, wishing the ink away so I could see the wounds better. “I always promised him I’d never do something I’d walk away from. I’d never fuck him and dump him. I promised him that night too, over and over. Then morning came and that’s exactly what I did.”
“Not because you wanted to, man. He knows that.”
“It doesn’tmatterwhat he knows. It happened and it’s killing me. It’s like part of me got ripped out, and even if Riv forgives me, if Nash does, I’ll never get it back—that first time, you know? I wanted it so much, I wantedhim, and now I want to fuckin’ die.”
I hadn’t said those words out loud until now, but as they left my mouth, I realised how true they were, how unhinged I felt, and it scared me.
Scared Embry too. He had this calm he forced on himself for everyone’s benefit but his own. It made him unnaturally still sometimes. Which made it obvious when it slipped away and a deep-rooted fear seeped into his stormy eyes.
He glanced over my shoulder. A moment later, another brother flanked my side. By his silence, I knew it was Saint.
By the fact he laid a hand on me, I knew I was a fucking mess.
Embry evaporated. I forced myself to face my quietest brother, and Saint rubbed my shoulder, just once, before his palm fell away.
I dumped my head on my folded arms. “You’re getting better at that.”
“Am I?”
“Yup. It’s less like a scuttling spider now.”
“Shh.”
That was Saint-speak forshut the fuck upwhen he didn’t have the syllables to spare.
We sat in peace for a while. I was too in my head to deduce if it was deliberate or if Saint was working up to whatever he wanted to say.
I’m so tired.
It wasn’t beyond me to take a nap outside, but Saint possessed this weird energy that kept me awake. Life support. That’s what it felt like.
“He came to you in the hospital,” Saint offered an untold time later. “After whatever happened to make him so angry with you.”
“I remember. He asked me to leave with him. The club, thefamily. Everything. I wouldn’t do it.”
“And you won’t, because you know it’s not what he wants either.”
