26. Wyatt
26
WYATT
We don’t bring it up again.
Matthias leaves twice more over the next week, despite having told Wylder he was off the schedule.
Whatever the fuck that means.
What schedule? Why is it so important? And is he killing people?
My suspicion that he’s an assassin grows with each day that passes.
Because every time, he leaves with weapons I wasn’t aware he knew how to use.
Each time he returns with someone else’s blood covering him.
Just like the first time, I force him to strip, watching his clothes burn while he showers. We don’t discuss it. It’s like we’re both pretending if we don’t acknowledge it, it doesn’t exist.
The distance between us is greater than ever. We’re still fucking, but that’s all it is.
Fucking.
There are no tender kisses. No cuddling through the night. No whispers in the darkness.
It’s a means to an end for us both. And the worst part?
I’m not even sure which of us is driving this. We’re heading for a crash that will wreck us, and I don’t even know who is behind the wheel.
But I don’t want that to happen. Not yet. He promised me until March. I’m going to cling on to him until then, damnit. I can’t let him go yet. I just can’t.
I’m not thinking about that today. There’s something more important happening—a distraction landing at the perfect time.
Jackson is coming home.
I’ve spent all week preparing his room. I did ask Matthias if he wanted us to get our own place but the frosty silence and angry frotting session that followed answered that question for me.
Everything is ready now. Jackson is being placed in a room on the opposite side of the house from ours because neither Matthias nor I are used to keeping the noise down at night—and since I saw him covered in blood, sex has gotten even louder.
I look around the room. Egyptian cotton sheets are on the king-size bed. A brand new game system sits alongside a flat-screen TV. I’ve even splurged on a high-end laptop in the hope he might be able to get his education back on track.
The car that Matthias sent for him rounds the top of the drive, and I can almost feel my heart beating out of my chest. Tears fill my eyes as I take in my little brother’s beaming grin. He’s back.
Finally.
As soon as the car comes to a halt, he’s tumbling out of it and straight into my arms. I cling to him, both of us holding tight.
“Wait,” I gasp as the realization hits me, pulling back slightly. “You’re standing? Walking?” I can’t contain the elation and shock in my voice.
Fuck, I can’t believe how much everything has changed.
“Surprise,” he chuckles. “They fitted me with a state-of-the-art prosthetic and I’ve been working with the physio to build my strength. Pretty soon I’ll be back playing baseball.” His gaze goes over my shoulder and he gives a slight nod. “Thanks for keeping my secret.”
I glance over to see Matthias hovering, his fingers tapping against his thighs, unsure, confused. “What does that mean?” I ask.
“Matthias paid for the prosthetic,” Jackson explains. “Came to visit me weeks ago and explained he wanted me to have the very best. I agreed so long as he promised not to tell you. So I could surprise you. Isn’t that great?”
Jackson’s enthusiasm allows a smile to form on my face. I can’t even be mad right now. I can be nothing but grateful that Jackson, the only family I have left, is doing well. And yet those secrets, the ones that Matthias and I have buried so deep are staring up at me. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing anymore.
“Yeah. It’s fantastic. I’m so fucking proud of you, Jack. Come on, let’s get you inside.”
Jackson moves past me, walking like he always used to, his mouth moving as he takes in the nice space.
As we pass Matthias, I hang back a little. I should be furious at him for keeping yet another secret. But how can I be when he’s made Jackson so happy?
“Thank you,” I choke out.
He inclines his head, trying to hide his small smile. “Anything for Jackson.”
His eyes meet mine and I read there what he actually means.
Anything for you.
Anything but the truth, apparently.
* * *
Later that night, Jackson and I are sitting in the new area I’ve designed in the yard over the past several weeks. While Matthias worked, I was able to create, to take the time to make this place even more of a home. I told myself that I was doing it for him, so he could use it when I’m gone.
Despite knowing I created it with me in mind.
For us.
Before, the space was bland with nowhere to sit. But an online order and my new credit card fixed that. Now there’s a comfortable L-shaped corner lounge set, a stone firepit, and a table for drinks. It’s a fancy table too—it raises up when you have guests over so you can dine at it.
I’ve just finished showing it off to Jackson when he fixes me with a steely look. “So, seriously, what’s going on?”
I shift on my feet, feeling my cheeks grow red. “We’ve been over this already.”
“We have, and I thought it was bullshit then. Seeing everything today though kind of confirms it. You said that this marriage is supposed to be fake.” He snorts and then shakes his head.
The paper from the beer bottle comes off in my fingers. It sticks and I wriggle my fingers to detach it as I say, “It is.”
“Yeah, all right, bro. But then why are you renovating Matthias’s garden? Why haven’t you gone back to work? Why did he come all the way out to see me at the rehab center just to make sure I was getting the best care?”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Shit, I should’ve been the one to do that. I’m sorry. I assumed the phone calls were okay. I wasn’t thinking…”
“Stop. The phone calls were fine,” he interjects as he rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t assume anyone would come, so the fact that Matthias did? It suggests he cares, and I guarantee you, it’s not me he’s doing this for.”
I sigh, putting the beer down, the label now in tatters at my feet. “I’m not saying he doesn’t. We both care…that’s not the issue.”
“Then what is?”
I glance over at his baby face and smile softly. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Sometimes, adult relationships are complicated.”
“Bullshit,” he says flatly. “I’m eighteen, dude, nearly nineteen. Don’t treat me like a child. I have eyes, you know. I can see what’s going on between you.”
I sigh. Being a pseudo-parent to a know-it-all teen is definitely not what I signed up for. But he’s not wrong, and far more wise than I give him credit for. “Do tell me then. What do you see?”
“You’re not pretending to be a married couple, you are a married couple.”
I run a hand across my jaw and sigh loudly. “Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s going to end in March regardless.”
“Why?”
I throw my head back on the sofa and look up at the wide sky. These are the same stars Matthias and I used to lay under, to count, to examine. But that was a different version of us. A version we can’t return to.
Even if we might want that.
“Because he hurt me once,” I confide quietly. “I can’t let him back in like that, not fully. It…fuck, it broke me the first time. If he did it again, it’d ruin me completely.”
Jackson mulls that over for a minute and then asks, “All right, that makes sense, but what if he doesn’t?”
I sigh, rolling my head to the side to look at my younger brother. When he falls in love, I pray he has an easier time of it than me. “It’s not as simple as that. Matthias is a man with secrets. How can I be with him when I don’t know a significant part of him?”
“Can I be honest? It feels like you’re overthinking all of it. If you like each other, just give it a go. Unless…” His lips pinch as he thinks about something. “Actually, before I tell you to go for it, tell me what happened when he hurt you.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “So I can decide if I want to root for him or not.”
I drum my fingers on my leg as I consider it. I’ve never told anyone. Not my mom. Not Jen. Certainly not the fucking cops.
Maybe telling Jackson will help leech some of the poison out.
“Matt and I were friends a long time ago,” I begin quietly. “We met when we were eleven.”
Jackson’s mouth falls open. “Oh shit. I had no idea.”
“Yeah, I don’t tell many people. It was…it feels like a lifetime ago.”
“Yeah, all right. Go on. Tell me everything.”
So I do. Over the next hour, I tell my brother countless stories from my formative years. The summers spent outdoors with Matthias. The winters on the phone with him. How Matthias was my best friend. My confidant. The one person I trusted above any other.
My soul. My light.
“Fuck. Me. I had no idea,” Jackson murmurs. “You never mentioned him. Like ever.”
I give him a tight smile. “I know, but you were young. We were friends before you were born. Only four when it all went to shit. There was no reason for me to bring it up.”
Jackson’s silent for a beat. “What happened? It must’ve been pretty catastrophic given how close you were.”
Leaning forward, I pick up my beer again. It’s warm now but I glug it down anyway. I need the liquid courage as well as a few more seconds to collect myself.
When the bottle is empty, I say, “When we were in high school, I wanted to go into law. I worked my ass off in school to get a scholarship. Graduated top of my class. Got accepted into Yale and everything.”
I stare off into the distance, picturing myself as I’d been then. Filled with naive, youthful optimism. “I just had to get through the summer and all my dreams would come true. Matt got into Yale as well. I was looking forward to being able to see him every day, not just during the summer. He was excited too, or so I thought. We talked about it constantly. Our plans, what we were going to do together.”
Live together, wake up in the same space, spend nights watching movies. It was a dream. A fucking dream that turned into a nightmare.
I close my eyes as the memories of that night wash over me.
My phone vibrating with a message.
Panic and confusion rushing through me.
Running through the woods.
“One night that summer, he messaged me,” I explain. “He was frantic. Said he was in trouble with some fucker at his school. A dealer. That he was being bullied and was made to carry out some sort of job.”
“That sounds shady as fuck.”
I grunt in agreement. “Yeah. I was fucking terrified. He kept messaging me, each text getting more desperate. He was supposed to collect some package and deliver it to the guy, but his dad had come home early. Was refusing to let him leave the house.”
“Shit. You offered to do it for him, didn’t you?”
“Of course I fucking did,” I reply. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for him.”
I hadn’t even questioned what the consequences might be until everything went to shit. Looking back, I should have known that it was more than a friendship, that the reason I was so heartbroken was because I loved him. Even then.
“It was a setup,” I whisper. “The whole thing.” I remember the flashing lights, the way the cuffs felt around my wrists. How afraid I was. For me but mostly for him.
“Fuck,” Jackson curses. “You don’t think Matthias arranged it, do you?”
“I didn’t at first. I was convinced it was all a misunderstanding.” I choke as my throat constricts at the memory. “Honestly, I was relieved. Fucking grateful that it was me in cuffs, and not Matthias.”
Jackson squeezes my shoulder as I fall silent, swiping at my eyes. Fuckers are leaking without my permission again. “What happened?”
“I was put in a cell,” I say flatly. “Told that the amount of heroin they’d caught me with would see me doing ten to twenty in a maximum security prison. I’d told them that it was a mistake, that I hadn’t known what was inside. That if they went through with this my dreams of being a lawyer would be crushed. And you know what they did?”
Jackson shakes his head.
“They laughed,” I say bitterly. “One even said I was nothing more than naive trailer trash. But the consensus was that I could kiss my fancy college education goodbye, and that I’d only ever see the inside of a courtroom from the defendant’s table.”
“That’s low,” Jackson says. “I take it you didn’t tell them about Matthias.”
“’Course not. If I was going down, I wasn’t taking him with me. Better my life ruined than his. That’s what I’d thought, anyway.”
“What did you do?”
“I called him. You get one phone call, that’s who I chose.”
He stares at me. “What? Why didn’t you call a lawyer?”
I snort. “How the fuck would I have paid them? We were barely on the poverty line on the best of days.”
“But…why Matthias?”
“Because he was my go-to person. I thought…” My voice trails off. “I thought he’d be able to fix it. To explain that it was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. Or, at the very least, he’d have some ideas to help me out.”
“And did he?”
I laugh bitterly, seeking out the stars once more. “No. He never answered.”
“What? Why?” Jackson runs a hand through his hair. “Okay, well, there must have been a good outcome because you’re here with your law degree, and not in jail.”
I shrug. “Honestly? I don’t know what happened. I put it down to pure fucking luck at first. The police left me in jail overnight and the next day, told me the charges had been dropped. Apparently, the dealer came forward and claimed full responsibility.”
Jackson’s face holds a level of doubt that suggests he might make a fine lawyer one day. “That does seem weirdly lucky.”
“And suspicious, right?”
Jackson nods. “Yeah. That too. Why would the guy hand himself in when you were going to take the fall?”
“It’s never made sense to me,” I admit. “At the time, I was just so fucking relieved to be out of there. I wouldn’t do well in prison, so I didn’t really question it. It’s only since I’ve gotten older that…yeah. It’s strange. I don’t get it.”
“What happened then with Matthias?” Jackson asks. “I get that what happened was shitty, but I doubt he meant for any of that to happen. Was it really worth throwing away your friendship?”
My chest constricts tightly and I rub at it absently. “No. It wasn’t. Not for me, anyway. But after that, Matthias blocked my number. I waited for him in our spot for days. Weeks. He never showed.”
The dawning horror on Jackson’s face is a reflection of how I’d felt at the time. How I still feel, if I’m being honest. The slow descent into grief—denial, anger, and finally acceptance. “He ghosted me. And even then I was stupid enough to hold on to hope. All the way up until the day I went to Yale to find that he wasn’t there. He’d switched to another university.”
“Fuck. And you didn’t hear from him again?” Jackson asks, his eyes intent on mine.
“No,” I say softly. “I saw him at a few social events years later, but we never spoke. If he saw me, he’d turn and walk the other way. We didn’t speak again until the day the Buckinghams bought out Lawson and Smith and he was announced as the new partner.”
“I remember that,” Jackson murmurs. “That was meant to be your job, right?”
“Yep,” I lift my face to the sky. “And you know the worst part? That day, his first day at the firm, he walked right up and hugged me. Fucking hugged me. Like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t landed me in jail and then fucked off for the next decade and then some.”
Like he hadn’t torn me apart. Like I hadn’t had to sew myself back together for years after that.
Jackson gives a low whistle before slowly shaking his head. “All right, bro. The entire situation is fucked up. But there’s still something I don’t get.”
“What?”
“Why’d he ghost you?” He taps his fingers against his chin. “Why didn’t he take your call that night? Why send you there in the first place?”
I heave a sigh. “Believe me, I’ve asked myself those questions enough to drive even the sanest man to the brink.”
“From everything you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound like he would have done any of that,” Jackson persists. “Are you sure that’s the whole story?”
“It’s not.”
Both of our heads whip around at the sound of Matthias’s grim voice. He steps out of the shadows, and I groan inwardly. Just how long has he been hiding there, listening to me pour my heart out?
From the intensity of his stare, the thin set of his mouth, and his arms folded over his chest, I’m going to assume he heard everything.
“Hey, there!” Jackson says, waving his hand.
But his greeting goes unanswered as I stare at my husband—the man who I’ve loved as long as I can remember.
Jackson slaps his hands on his thighs abruptly and stands. “Right, I think that’s my cue. Later guys.”
With that, he walks off, leaving Matthias and me alone. Any other time, I’d be pleased with the speed and ease at which he’s moving with his new prosthetic, if it weren’t for the fact he’s abandoning me.
Matthias slides into the space Jackson left open, so close to me, our legs touching. Everything inside of me leans toward him.
“You ready to talk about this now?”
I exhale shakily and fist my hands on my thighs. “What if it ruins everything?”
“Wy…” His hand slides over mine, his thumb caressing my skin. “Everything’s already ruined. I think it’s time one of us admits it.”
I blink, my vision traitorously blurry. “Fuck you. This is all your fault.”
His thumb stops its movement. “How so?”
I don’t look at him as I confess, leaving it between us and the stars. “Because you made me fall in love with you. It’d be so much easier if I could hate you. This wouldn’t matter then.”
His voice breaks. “You love me?”
Exhaustion weighs heavily on me as I twist to face him. “Yeah. I do. I don’t know when it happened, or if it’s always been there. But I’m so fucking tired of hiding it. I’m weary of having to try and pretend. Aren’t you?”
His throat clicks as he swallows. “You have no idea.”
The tension between us pulls tight as we sit on the fragile ledge of the future. Whatever happens next will send us over the edge. To happiness or heartbreak.
It’s time to find out which.
“Okay,” I say finally. “I’m ready. It can’t be as bad as the version I’ve lived with all these years.”
Matthias laughs bitterly. “Oh, Wy. My love. It’s so much worse.”