69. Chapter 69
Graham would remember Lake Havasu as the place where he spoke his peace.
And the city he was held hostage in, first by his old man’s exasperating requests, then by his ex-girlfriend who made her stand on the London Bridge to see a concert with some English guys she met in New Mexico Graham vaguely remembered from the pot tent.
Graham was prepared to drive all night if it got them to the next destination. There were four of them—they could drive in shifts and get through the rest of the letters in no time. It’s how they should’ve been traveling since the beginning. Was he the only one ready to put an end to their misery?
Since Lindsey wouldn’t get back in the car after the sunset photo unless Graham agreed to spend the night in Lake Havasu City, Graham—his heart nearly punching a hole through his ribs—agreed to spend the night in Lake Havasu City.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Jase had said.
His brother certainly kept an eye on her in her swimsuit all day.
Jase and Lindsey’s budding romance—if that’s what it was—felt like the uninvited fifth passenger in the station wagon, taking up all the breathing room.
While Jase chaperoned Lindsey’s concert adventure, Graham and Helen planned to get dressed up, gorge themselves on food not cooked over a fire or in convenience store microwaves, and have sex in the king-sized hotel bed.
The last thing he wanted to worry about while he was elbow deep in a medium-rare steak and balls deep in his woman was what might or might not be going on between his brother and the one woman in the world, besides Helen, of course, Jase had no business touching.
Graham waited until Helen was in the shower and headed down to Jase’s hotel room.
“You’re fast.” Jase opened the door with unbuttoned pants and wet, uncombed hair. “Oh, I thought you were Lindsey.”
“So you answer the door with your pants undone?” Graham pushed his way inside.
“Yes, please, come in.”
Graham surveyed the room, rubbing his beard. What did he expect to find? Lindsey naked and waiting on the bed?
“What do you want, asshole?” Jase buttoned his pants and grabbed the pit stick from his duffel bag. “Spit it out.”
Graham spun on the heels of his Birkenstocks. “Are you sleeping with her?”
“Who?”
“Don’t be a bitch.”
“Do you mean the woman you left, or the one you left her for? You’ve gotta be more specific.”
“I see you together, okay? No—don’t deny it,” Graham said, interrupting Jase’s rebuff. “How far has it gotten?”
There was a pause Graham didn’t know how to decipher.
“We’re friends, okay?” his brother finally said.
“Friends? Really? You’re all over each other.”
“Why do you even care? You dumped her.”
“I know. Just…don’t do it. Please.” After a tick, Graham added, “She deserves better.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Jase snapped, tossing his deodorant into his grungy duffel.
“She’s too good for you, man,” Graham said.
“Coming from you? You’re a real piece of work. Get out of my room.”
“Not until we close the book on this.”
“Close the book on what? She’s your ex-girlfriend. End of story. If she was so important to you, you shouldn’t’ve dumped her.”
Graham was shaking his head, lips tight to seal in the rest of what he didn’t want to admit to his brother. Five months of guilt he’d rather swallow than spit for Jase’s inspection.
“She’s too good for either of us, okay?” he said.
“Well, you’re half right.” Jase dug through his bag and came up with a bottle of cologne and sprayed his chest underneath his T-shirt.
“I’m being serious,” Graham said. “She did everything at the end for Dad.”
“What do you mean everything?”
“I mean all of it. She arranged his care. Set up round-the-clock nurses. She visited him almost every day. She planned his funeral.” He cleared his throat. “She was the only one—”
“What?”
Graham still remembered the time on the dashboard when his phone wouldn’t stop ringing. 3:07. He couldn’t tear his eyes from those stupid glowing numbers.
Couldn’t put his foot on the fucking gas pedal.
“You weren’t there,” he finally seethed. “You weren’t fucking there, and I—I couldn’t…”
Jase dropped the cologne on the bed, his face falling flat. “You weren’t there when he died?”
Graham’s eyes leeched tears of loathing he felt for both his brother and himself. “I was in my car at the end of the driveway. And I just sat there. I couldn’t do it. But she was there. Of course she was. She was always there. Except, apparently, if you were, which doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“I’m sorry, man, I had no idea.”
“That’s why she’s here. It’s why he wrote her into this trip. I mean, I took him to some appointments, and ran errands, and whatever, but she organized her life around taking care of him. The only thing I can’t understand is why he didn’t leave her a cut of the money.”
Jase sat on the edge of the hotel bed and ran a hand through his damp hair. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to her for taking advantage of her.”
“I’m not…I didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, you will. Don’t treat her like your other girls. If you think she was easy to leave… She’s the best person I’ve ever known. She’s perfect.” He shrugged as if there was nothing else he could’ve done. “She just wasn’t Helen.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When was I supposed to do that, Jase? When you didn’t show up for the funeral?”
“You should’ve fucking told me. I thought you were there! One of us should’ve been.”
“Yeah, one of us should’ve been. I’m not here to talk about how we’re both terrible people. I’m asking you to keep your freewheeling dick away from Lindsey.”
“You don’t know a goddamn thing about me or my dick.”
“Oh, so you wouldn’t sleep with her, then cut and run the second this trip is over? Leaving is the only thing you’ve ever been good at.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Jase stood and swatted the air so close to his brother’s face Graham felt the breeze on his nose.
“The last thing I want—the last thing Dad would want—is for you to take advantage of the situation.”
“How very high-and-mighty of you. You’re the only reason she’s in this situation.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Just tell me—ARE YOU SLEEPING WITH HER?”
“No, I’m not fucking sleeping with her.”
Graham studied his brother for a lie, not entirely sure if he’d recognize it.
“Good,” he said finally.
“I can’t fucking believe you,” Jase growled. “You put this responsibility on me. I didn’t want it. It wasn’t supposed to be mine. Now it’s my job to keep her here after you fucked up, and you want to tell me how to do it?”
“I never asked you to persuade her with your dick, asshole.”
“Get out of my room. Get out!”