21. Chapter 21
“Your brother’s naked. Do you think you can do something about that?”
Graham looked up from his phone at Helen standing over the bed holding a box.
“Where have you been?” he asked. He’d been mindlessly scrolling his seldom-used Instagram for longer than he’d ever admit. “I’ve been texting.”
“You seem absolutely shredded by my absence,” she said.
Helen tossed the box on his stomach.
“What is this?” he asked with a grunt.
“It’s your junk. I’ve been helping your ex pack.”
“What?” He peered inside. Junk, as she said. He chucked it over the side of the bed. “What were you doing with Lindsey?”
She scrunched her nose. “I needed some fresh air.”
“Okay.” Graham ran a hand through his greasy hair, dragging his fingers down his greasy cheeks. Okay, yeah, his bedroom stunk and he was likely contributing to the funk. “Did you get my messages?”
“My phone is off.”
“Why?”
She waved at the clothes on the floor, the closet spilling boxes he hadn’t attempted to pack, the TV in the corner playing a game show, the bong beside the bed. “It’s offensive in here.”
At least he’d been smart enough to stash the bag of chips under his bed and brush the crumbs off his chest before she came home. Wearing yesterday’s boxers and a sheen of sweat from lying in bed all day, Graham hauled himself into a sitting position. His head reeled at the movement.
“Right, yeah, I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s not just that.”
Of course not.
“I didn’t come here to watch you get wasted and clean up after you every day.”
“You’re pissed about last night?”
“I’m upset that it’s a pattern now.”
A pattern. He supposed she had a point, given his tongue was still rancid with bourbon. He would’ve made a joke about Cock in his mouth if he didn’t think Helen would collect his balls for the infraction.
“When did all this start? Drinking every night. Smoking every day,” she said. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
This was one of many problems with his fiancée getting friendly with his ex.
“You’ve been talking to Lindsey about me?” he asked.
“I have eyes. Is this grief?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m worried about you, Graham. And about us.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve got to pull you out of this.”
“Helen, I—”
Before this woman walked into his room, he was watching dog-shaming videos, knowing they were funny but lacking the capacity to laugh.
Now she was prodding the knot in his chest for a way to unfurl it.
He tried backing away from her, to get her proverbial claws out of him and relieve the pressure in his sternum, but she stepped between his legs.
Before this woman—reluctantly—walked back into his life, he would’ve kept mindlessly scrolling until Lindsey showed up and he would’ve mindlessly fucked her.
Then he would’ve downed enough liquor to shut his mind off so he could pass out and have a few hours of silence without grief or guilt or the nagging of his conscience that said his dad wouldn’t want this for him, and he’d have to give up all his destructive coping mechanisms to heal.
“I’m a mess,” he finally choked out, gesturing to his sticky body and the literal mess in the room. “And I…I can’t sleep. Unless I’m drunk, I can’t fucking sleep at all.”
“For how long?”
“Since Dad got sick. I can’t sleep. And I can’t work it out of me, this”—he rubbed incessantly at his chest—“this energy. I feel wired and exhausted at the same time, and I don’t know what to do with any of it.”
Helen set his shaking hands on the sliver of skin between her T-shirt and shorts, and ran her fingers up his arms, over muscles that had swelled since their first go-round.
“Explains why you’re lifting so much. And…other things.”
He ground out, “I don’t know what the fuck to do about it.”
Helen drew her fingers up his neck, into hair that probably coated her fingers in grime and said softly, “Let me help you.”
The knot in his chest squeezed out an anguished sound. It was ugly and as desperate to escape as he was to keep her from hearing it. Her nails gently scraping up and down his scalp loosened the edges of the knot, and more sounds punched out of his lungs.
She pulled his face into her stomach, and he smelled her—the soft, sweet smell of Helen’s skin had become home to him—and the rest came flooding out. He wrapped his arms around her waist and completely fucking broke.
His body shuddered with chemo treatments, the bruised veins in his dad’s bony arms, pale skin turning paper-thin.
A once-virile man, the man, the liveliest, snarkiest, strongest, most opinionated pain in Graham’s ass, being consumed one cell at a time, wilting, withering, wearing out, drying up, giving up, and there was nothing for Graham to do besides drive the car and hold his old man’s hand when he was offered it.
Nothing in his wasted life afterward mattered.
He worked a lousy job, lived in a lousy apartment, been a lousy boyfriend.
He wasn’t lively, snarky, or strong. He was a speck in his dad’s shadow, and he’d spent his entire life trying to come out from under it.
Now the shadow was gone and Graham was exposed, and the light of the truth fucking hurt.
He was nothing. Not even a shadow of his old man.
The truth, in full daylight, was that Graham was a stoner, a borderline—or not-so-borderline—alcoholic who hurt good people for the privilege of breaking down in Helen’s arms.
“I got you, baby,” she whispered. Baby. She didn’t use pet names often. He was crying like one. Crying, pulling her into his lap, pawing at her for a way inside.
“We’re taking care of this.” Her words vibrated against his neck. She took his face in her hands and pierced him with her stare. “We’re getting you out of this.”
“How?” he whispered.
Helen set her palm on his galloping heart. “Together.”
He nodded and she stood. The absence of her weight and warmth sent another shudder through his empty, aching chest.
“We’re changing the sheets, putting the bong away, and cleaning this room. All of it.”
He sucked in the first truly deep breath he’d taken in months.
“We’re starting with you.”
Graham tracked her to his suitcase in the corner where she rummaged for a clean pair of boxers, then to his bedroom door.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She turned, her voice husky. “Shower. Now.”
He scrambled to his feet. The room swayed as if he was twenty pounds lighter and needed to relearn how to walk. She smiled, and it was amused and slightly wicked, tightening another appendage due south from his chest.
Without this woman, the void of death and denial would’ve swallowed Graham whole.
Then he got it. The brilliance of his father’s plan splayed out like a map with a single black line between him and where Helen beckoned him to follow her.
Austin wasn’t just reconnecting Graham with the one that got away.
Jason Sr. had tossed his son a life raft, the only thing that would hold his head above water as the rest of his world sank around him.
Helen. And Helen was home.