Page 53 of Faux Beau

His answer was to scrape a hand through his hair.

“Jax, you didn’t come here in the middle of the night to discuss pickles.”

“I’m always up for a good pickle debate.” Milly lifted a brow and he let out a sigh. “Some things are hard to talk about.”

“In my experience, those are the things that should be talked about the most.”

“Am I a selfish prick?” he suddenly asked, and she could tell that he believed it to be true.

“You are the exact opposite of a selfish prick.” He didn’t believe her. “You walked away from your season to help with your family’s event. You’ve stepped into a project mid-way, which means that you either have a second life as a corporate bulldog or you’re spending all your free time researching how to become one.” She took his hands. “Jax, you are helping me with my parent problem and my sister’s wish that I go after fun. Those are not the actions of a selfish man.”

“But I should have been helping my family all along. And you and I made a deal, which is more beneficial to me than you. And I offered to help with the fun because I want to get in your pants again.”

Want. Present tense.

She led him to the couch and sat, pulling him down next to her. “You’re not fooling me, Macintyre. And where is this all coming from? I could tell something was up today.”

“The entire office knew something was up.”

Sensing he needed someone to hold on to, she laced their fingers and rested them in her lap. “Siblings argue. Siblings who work together, I imagine, argue more. And things that are said during a sibling argument don’t count. That was one of Zoe’s rules since she was the shout-first-and-think-later one in the family.”

“Well, I’m the shout-first-and-think-later one of my family. And the last time I shouted at Lucas it was so loud it’s still echoing a year later.”

“You guys haven’t spoken in a year?”

“Angel, I haven’t been home in a year,” he said, resting his head against the couch back and closing his eyes. “And besides talking with him about family and work stuff, and then today, we haven’t spoken at all.”

Before Zoe’s death, Milly couldn’t imagine not speaking to her sister for an entire week let alone an entire year. The whole town knew Jax and Lucas were inseparable. What could have been so horrific to sever that kind of bond?

She turned her body and tucked a foot beneath her, so that she was facing Jax fully. “You want to start with what happened today?”

“Today I learned that while I’ve been off acting stubborn and sanctimonious, counting all the ways my brother wronged me, he’s been here in Sierra Vista holding the family lodge together. Pretty much all by himself. As kids, it was the two of us against the world and we promised to always have each other’s backs. I didn’t live up to my end of the bargain.”

“That must have been hard to hear.”

“I used to accuse him of not listening but, as it turns out, I’m just as bad.” He rolled his head to meet her gaze. “Peggy and Kent got an offer on the lodge and they want to take the deal.”

Milly didn’t know how to respond. The Carmichaels were Sierra Vista and Sierra Vista was the Carmichaels. She couldn’t imagine a situation where they’d want to sell. Then again, she’d never imagined that Lucas and Jax would have gone an entire year without speaking.

“I know deep down they don’t want to sell, but in order for them to retire, they’d need to. My siblings are on board to find a way to keep the lodge in the family. All except Lucas. At first, I thought it was because he wasn’t getting the bigger picture, but today I realized that he gets it more than any of us ever could. He’s been running the lodge by himself for the past year. He even walked away from … I promised him I wouldn’t share his business, so all I can say is that it was something important to him and he gave it all up to run the lodge.”

“Is that why the Cup is so important to you? Because it might be the last?”

“I want to say yes. I want to say that I’m doing it to help the family and prove to Lucas that he doesn’t have to carry all the weight all the time. But what if I did it just to stick it to my golden-boy brother? Prove to him that I could do it better?” He dropped her hand and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his head dropped to his chest. “Does that make me a selfish prick?”

She wove her fingers into the hair at the base of his neck, using her nails to gently scratch his scalp in a soothing rhythm. “It makes you human. But I don’t think that’s the reason you’re doing it. I think that this is your way of showing the Carmichaels that you love them. Of showing your brother that, even though you aren’t on the best of terms and you are on opposing sides of a big decision, you have his back. Did you ever think that this could be about reconnecting with your life here?”

“I wouldn’t have to reconnect if I’d never left in the first place.” He gave her a sidelong glance and the anguish swimming in his eyes broke her heart. “My mom wasn’t the most present parent. After my dad died, she couldn’t cope and became an alcoholic. She’d promised us so many times she’d get sober, to make amends, and I always believed her. Lucas gave up on her not long after the Carmichaels took us in. I just couldn’t let go of the hope that one day she’d get it right. All it takes is getting it right once and then the past doesn’t matter.”

Milly’s stomach sank at the idea of a young Jax struggling to get it right, afraid that when he did it would be too late for the people who mattered.

“No matter how often I blew it or purposefully shoved their love back in their faces, Peggy and Kent always gave me a second chance.”

She noticed the way he called them by their first names, whereas Lucas referred to them as Mom and Dad. She wondered if Jax knew that part of the reason he put distance between himself and home and the people he loved was because he was afraid that, somehow, he’d ruin things and lose it all.

“I don’t want to let them down. I know they will regret selling, so I’ve been thinking about a solution that benefits everyone. If I go to the Carmichaels with my idea, it will be like I’m going against my twin. But if I don’t speak up, the lodge gets sold and there will be a lot of broken hearts.”

“So it’s a good-for-all, bad-for-one kind of situation.”

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