Chapter 5 #2
I ignored him and tried the knob, and it turned and opened.
I didn’t worry about walking in on anything anymore.
Caleb and his ex had officially broken up for good.
I was pretty sure the stress from my dad had a lot to do with it, but I felt bad because they’d been off and on for so many years, everyone had assumed they’d make their way back to each other.
But three months after she walked out, she hard launched her engagement on Instagram to the guy who sold smoothies at her gym. Ford insisted he was hot, which made me feel even worse for Caleb, but he wasn’t interested in our sympathy.
Apparently, he was only interested in picking fights, which I was starting to think was some sort of recessive gene we all carried.
Making my way through his living room, I stepped around the dining room table and out the sliding glass door that was sitting open.
I followed the smell of hot metal across his yard, then came to a stop when my cane hit the low metal fence that separated the grass from the rocky ground where he had his smithing shed.
I knew better than to get too close to his forge without a sighted guide. I had six scars on my right arm from learning that lesson.
“I told you to fuck off,” Caleb called. If he said anything else, it was drowned out by the hissing sound of his blowtorch.
Shifting to the right, I felt around until my fingers found the stone bench, and then I sank down and twirled my cane between my knees as I waited.
And waited.
I could do this all day, even if I didn’t want to.
“He’s being very stubborn.”
Oh, that voice.
Heat rose into my cheeks, and I tipped my head down in hopes Vanya wouldn’t be able to see my flush. His large body settled beside me. It was clear he was trying to keep space between us, but he was too bulky for that.
His thigh pressed against mine, hips nudging me gently as he settled, and it took everything in me not to collapse in his arms and just exist in his overeager embrace.
“It’s not that,” I said. “I broke our pact, and he’s pissed at me.”
“No,” Vanya said, then let out a tiny sigh and swayed into me. His breath hit my cheek, voice rumbling against my ear. It was a low, heavy, soothing tone. “He secretly is happy you went to visit. He’s angry he is not brave like you.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“He talk a lot when he’s working,” Vanya said. “Talking to himself, maybe. Forget I am here listening. He teach me engraving machine and say, go nuts. Which is bad advice. Never go nuts with engraving machine. Is how you get bad scars.”
“Tell me you didn’t hurt yourself.” I grabbed at him, feeling along his hands, and it took me a moment to realize what I was doing. I couldn’t bring myself to let go. I ran the tips of my fingers over his calloused palms and the rough skin around his wrists where his hair grew thickest.
“Am not hurt today,” he said very quietly. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried.” I wanted to sound angry. Incensed, even. Instead, the words came out nearly a whisper. Forcing myself to pull back, I folded my hands between my knees and squeezed them tight like a vise. “And he is pissed at me, even if he’s pissed at himself too.”
“Yes. Your family turning so much hurt into so much anger. Is bad habit from all of you.”
I wanted to be offended, but he wasn’t wrong. It was a big fat Adams’ family curse.
“If you go talk to him, he will listen. Come. I can bring you.”
I rarely trusted anyone to guide me around my brother’s hot-as-fuck altar to Hephaestus, and I refused to look too deep into why I willingly put myself into Vanya’s arms, like somehow I knew it would be impossible for him to lead me into danger.
That was a terrible way of thinking.
That sort of thing got people flayed alive.
But it was Vanya, and deep down in my bones, I knew he could never hurt me. That if I were safe anywhere at all, it was beside him, just like this.
I flexed my fingers on his arm and realized I didn’t have my cane. “Wait. I—”
“Is here. I pick it up for you,” Vanya said.
I hadn’t even realized I’d dropped it. I’d been too fixated on touching him again. Jesus, this man was going to ruin me, and he wasn’t even trying.
Gripping my cane like it was a literal lifeline, I made my way over the stone path Caleb had put in himself. It was very tactile and allowed him to move around without using his own cane, but I didn’t know it well enough to go without mine.
It was a sad moment of realization that there were pieces of my brother I’d let slip away, and I hated that a big part of the rift was all my fault. My secrets, my anger. Not all of it, of course. We all had our shit. But I knew the part I played.
Once Jonah and I had been picked up by our teams, and once Caleb had moved out on his own, we drifted. We wanted to stay a united front. We said it all the time.
But in reality, we had each become our own island.
Even when Jonah and I were living together, it was lonely. It felt like an overcompensation for a childhood that taught us we were no more and no less than what the world thought of us.
Our mother had us believing for so damn long that the more people who loved us online, the more we were worth something.
And it didn’t take someone with a psych degree to tell me that I’d taken some of that with me into adulthood once I’d broken free of my mother’s grasp. I knew damn well that was the reason I was afraid to change what people thought of me.
They thought I was slutty and funny and whimsical and whatever else they saw in me. An easygoing, cool guy who didn’t let the world bother him.
If they knew the truth—if they knew I was a high-strung jackass with low self-esteem who was rarely attracted to anyone and most of the time couldn’t get hard, even for porn—would they like me then?
Would I still be worth something?
Deep down, I knew the people who really loved me wouldn’t care, but mounting that risk felt like climbing Everest, and I was not in that kind of shape.
“Caleb,” Vanya called as his steps slowed.
He started hammering louder.
“Okay, you can be pissy, but your brother is here, and if you don’t take him, he will fall into fire and melt. Like wicked witch.”
“That was water,” Caleb snarled. The hammer clanged as he dropped it. “Vanya!” he shouted as Vanya took his arm away from me. “Don’t you fucking…do not walk away! God damn it!”
“He can be such an asshole sometimes,” I said quietly.
“Takes one to know one.”
“And another one to draw the picture,” I shot back.
He huffed, then snorted, and his hand touched my elbow. “Come on, dipshit.”
I trusted Caleb even more than Vanya. He led the way past his tables and eventually to cooler air. We were around the back of his smithing shed, where he’d set up a few tables under his shady trees.
It was getting cold fast, but it felt good after being under the blazing hot awning of his work. I sat down with a small sigh, stretching my legs out in front of me as I folded my cane and set it next to my feet.
“So. Are you here to apologize, or—”
“No.” I took a calming breath. “Look, Dad wasn’t even awake when I was there, okay? And if he was, he wouldn’t have recognized me. He doesn’t know anything anymore. I did this to quiet that ugly little voice in my head that sounds like Mom.”
“Did it help?” His tone was a little less aggressive now.
I couldn’t stop a laugh. “No. Even thousands of miles away, she’s still fucking with me.
” I rubbed my hand down my face. “I don’t regret going, but it felt pointless, and it just ended up pissing Jonah off more than if I hadn’t come at all.
” I paused, then added, “If there had been a time Dad could have told us he regretted the way he handled things, we’re well past that now. ”
“I hate this. I…fuck.” The bench creaked as he sat down. “I hate that we have to live with this feeling, you know? This anger? I have nowhere to fucking put it.”
“Is that what happened when you and—”
“No,” he interrupted roughly, like he was afraid to hear her name. “I don’t want to talk about her, okay? It is what it is, and that was a long time coming.”
“I’m sorry.”
He laughed, and the sound was bitter. “I figured you’d be happy to invite me to your slut club.”
I sucked in a breath with my wince.
“Sorry,” Caleb said after a beat. He didn’t sound it though. “Anyway, if we could not talk about any of that…”
“Yeah, fine, whatever.”
“So is that what you came here for?” he asked after a minute. “To tell me to be nicer to you about Dad?”
“I…” The answer should have been yes, but I knew it was a lie. I came here for one reason only, and he’d walked away. “Is teaching Vanya hard?”
“Uh,” Caleb said, clearly confused by my question.
“I guess? I mean, it’s not harder than anyone else though.
He’s kind of a hyper golden retriever, but he listens well, and he’s only burned himself a few times.
And, well, there was the incident with the engraver, but he learned his lesson pretty quick. ”
I don’t know why that made me feel a type of way. I couldn’t even name the emotion. “Well, if you want me to talk to him about leaving you alone—”
“No. I like his company. He’s nice and kind of hot. It feels good to be flirted with after everything, you know?”
Rage rushed through me. I had no business feeling it. But dear god, it almost consumed me.
“So, are you two, like…becoming a thing?”
Caleb let out a laugh. “I wouldn’t say no if he wanted to, but I don’t think he’s that interested. I think he flirts with anything that speaks.”
My swallow caught in my throat. It was true. I mean, I’d been subjected to it firsthand, so I knew how Vanya was with people. And, of course, I was the pathetic jackass who thought I was special.
He probably fucked me because he felt sorry for me.
“Alright, well, I’m gonna take off.”
“Gee, so soon?” Caleb asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Sorry to interrupt your peace.” He didn’t try to stop me, which told me I had one more relationship to repair with one more brother as soon as I was able.
But right now, I needed to get the fuck out of there before I exploded. I had no idea where Vanya was, but I wished I could have fucking Daredevil powers so I could toss my cane into the bushes and run like hell so he couldn’t catch me.
Instead, I did a very swift walk into the house, knocked my hip against the kitchen table, which was sure to leave a bruise, took a wrong turn at the living room, and ended up barreling into Vanya, who was just coming out of the bathroom.
He let out a quiet oomph, which was barely audible over the running toilet, and when he caught me with his massive grasp so I didn’t hit the ground, I got a strong whiff of Caleb’s orange-scented hand scrub.
“I expected sighted people to actually watch where they’re going,” I snarled.
He pulled his hands away. “Door was closed. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’m not fucking hurt.” I spun and went back the way I came, and when Vanya’s steps echoed mine, I froze. “Don’t follow me.”
“I…Micah,” he said. He sounded helpless and unsure. “Is only way to walk.”
“Uhg, fine. Whatever.” Gritting my teeth so hard my temples hurt, I ignored him and picked up the pace, smacking into the wall and feeling along until I found the opening that would lead into the hallway.
“Why did he design this fucking house like a maze?” I muttered to myself. The door was easy to find after that, and it wasn’t until I made it to the end of the street that I realized I hadn’t called for a car.
I found the curb with my cane tip, then collapsed down and forced myself to take a few calming breaths before opening the app. My finger hovered, my brain telling it to double tap to open it, but I was…
Shit.
I was afraid to walk away like that. I was afraid to leave Vanya thinking I hated his guts.
I opened my texts instead.
Me: Sorry for being a dick. It’s been a rough day.
I waited for some kind of answer, but I was met with silence—which I wholly deserved. I called for the ride, and luckily, there was a driver nearby willing to make the long drive back to Salem.
It wasn’t the worst day I’d had in my life, but it was one of the worst ones I’d had in a damn long while.
And I had no idea how I was going to change that.