19. Grady
19
GRADY
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Red. Why?” I hand the bottled soda to Elliot where he’s leaning against the gym wall. We came back to grab his equipment bag, but I made us stop to get some snacks out of the vending machine in the hallway first.
Elliot hums, a small smile playing on his lips. “Red? Really? You never wear anything red.”
“Because it would look ridiculous on me,” I push the bag of chips toward him, hoping he’ll eat more while we’re talking. “And who says you have to wear clothes that are your favorite color?”
“No one but,” Elliot frowns, digging a chip out of the bag. “People do that. They gravitate toward things that are their favorite color. That’s why I have so much shit that’s green.”
“I don’t really like my favorite color anymore,” I admit, knocking my shin against his foot. We’re sitting close enough for our shoulders to brush, but my legs extend past his by several inches.
“How could you not like your favorite color? It’s your favorite .”
He sounds so adorably frustrated by my answers that I contemplate letting him sit with it for a while longer, but I don’t want him to not have this piece of me. It’s one of the few things I can be honest with him about, and I find myself desperate to have that connection between us. “I grew up far poorer than I should have; my dad had a couple costly addictions, and my mom, brother, and I bore the brunt of it. Like, my dad always had nice cars and new clothes, but Theo and I had to share a twin mattress in the living room of our one-bedroom apartment our entire childhood. Which got interesting the older we got, since he’s built exactly like me.” I chuckle at the memory, surprised that enough time has passed for me to look back on it fondly.
“Our dad died when I was seven and instead of things getting better, we were somehow even worse off. We didn’t have money for anything that wasn’t a necessity—bills and food, in that order. It was just the way of life, until one day Theo showed up with this ancient piece of shit Mustang. It was beyond falling apart, but it still drove. He was seventeen, and he’d been working two jobs and going to school for the last few years, on top of doing random jobs through the summer so he could buy food for this girl he liked.” I smile at the bag of chips Elliot gently pushes my way, taking one and rolling it through my fingers.
“Anyway, this Mustang was awful. It was like he took out an advertisement for how poor we were and decided to drive it around town to make sure every person knew how hard we’d been living. I was already the too-tall kid in the hand-me-down clothes who couldn’t talk about anything but baseball, and now everyone knew I was the poor kid, too. I thought my life was over. But then, Theo made me spend the summer helping him fix the car. We, uh, appropriated a lot of the parts,” I shoot Elliot a guilty smile. It may have been almost twenty years ago, and I paid all the businesses back with interest out of my first MLB check, but it’s still embarrassing to admit.
“It was the best summer I ever had. Just hours and hours spent with my brother fixing up a car. I felt normal for the first time ever.”
Elliot’s fingers lace through mine, dragging my gaze up from the floor between us. “Was the car red?”
A deep laugh rumbles through my chest when I realize how far I got off topic. “No, but the seats were deep red leather. They were gorgeous and easily the most expensive thing I’d ever had my hands on, even though we nicked them from a salvage yard.”
“That sounds like a good memory,” Elliot smiles, leaning his shoulder further into mine. “Why don’t you like red anymore?”
The honest answer is that it reminds me too much of the bad times. The years I spent cleaning up bodies for the MacAlisters. The hours and hours spent scrubbing blood off of every surface imaginable. I can’t tell Elliot that, and I wouldn’t want him living with that knowledge anyway. I give him an amended answer, one that isn’t a lie but isn’t the whole truth.
“That was the last summer I spent with my brother. It was the last time he and I were ever really in the same place, physically and emotionally. He was working all the time after that, and then he fell in with people he didn’t want around my mom and me, so he disappeared. It felt like I lost him, but unlike my dad, who couldn’t have come back if he wanted to, Theo could have come back to us, and he didn’t. It didn’t matter what I did to be close to him, he would push me away. We fought right before I graduated high school and didn’t talk for a long time after that. Then, our mom got sick, and I went back to Forest Falls to say goodbye to her. That fucking car was still sitting in her garage. She loved that stupid Mustang as much as I did, and it broke me to see it again. I think she always hoped it would bring Theo and me back together. I wish it would have.”
My voice gives out on the last words, and I realize how close I am to crying. This is why I don’t share my past with anyone. It’s too hard to navigate all the bullshit, and what I can tell people isn’t exactly happy stories about a well-rounded childhood.
“I’m sorry about your mom.” Elliot’s head drops against my shoulder as I whisper a gruff “Thank you” back to him. We sit in silence for a long time before Elliot shifts, his hand squeezing mine a few times. “I wasn’t driving.”
“Weren’t driving when?”
“The wreck I was in when I was seventeen. I wasn’t driving, but my best friend was. I knew he shouldn’t have been behind the wheel, but when you’re seventeen, you feel invincible. Bad things won’t happen to you ; you have your whole life to live. Except, bad things happen to good people all the time. At any age, for any reason. Sometimes, for no reason at all. Sometimes you’re just born into a shitty situation, and you claw yourself out with your bare hands,” he squeezes my hand again, and I feel it spread through my entire body. “And other times, you make a mistake. And that mistake leads to other mistakes, which snowball into something you can’t undo.”
He gets quiet for a moment, and I press a kiss against his hairline so he knows I’m still listening. “I think we all end up living with the weight of our childhood on our shoulders. But one of the best things about life is finding the people who will share that burden with you. The ones who won’t judge or push but will listen to what you’re willing to share and help shoulder the weight until you can breathe again.”
“Is that what Scott does for you? He helps you breathe?”
Elliot tilts his head until we’re looking directly into each other’s eyes. “He does, but so do you.”
“Me?”
“You,” he agrees, his eyes softening into something I can’t name. “You’re nothing like I thought you would be.”
“I should hope not.” My fingers brush through his hair before dropping to slide along his jaw. “You hated me.”
“I’ve never hated you, Grady.”
It’s what I’ve always hoped he would say, but that doesn’t make it feel any more real. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t like me then because he likes me now. He likes me enough to share his burden, and I refuse to screw that up.
Our kiss is gentle, hardly more than a press of our lips together before it’s over, but it immediately jumps to the top of the list as my favorite kiss of all time.
“Come on,” I brush my lips against the tip of his nose before shifting to stand. “It’s late, and we could both use some sleep.”
Elliot is swaying on his feet by the time we make it to his hotel room, and he mumbles a soft good night before disappearing behind the door. I want nothing more than to follow him into the room. We could curl up on his bed, wrapped around one another as we sleep the heaviness of the night away, but what would the morning bring? How would Elliot look at me if we woke up in bed together? If this wasn’t just an experiment but something we did every day? Could I be that man for him? Would he want me to be?
I let the thoughts plague me all the way back to my room, but I stop short of going inside. There’s a small sitting area across the hall where the vending and ice machines are humming the night away, and I find myself drifting toward them like a moth to a flame. I can’t sleep yet—not with everything swirling around in my head.
Dropping heavily into one of the oversized chairs, I dig the phone out of my pocket and stare at the black screen. I hadn’t intended to tell Elliot about my brother; he isn’t generally a part of my life that I share with people, and for good reason. My thumbs shake as I tap out Theo’s number, half of me hoping he won’t answer and the other half desperate to hear his voice.
“One a.m.? Really?”
“That’s some fast math for you, brother.”
“It’s a one hour time difference between Forest Falls and Houston,” Theo grumbles, his tone full of fake sarcasm. “You fucking dick.”
“You’ve been keeping tabs on me, then?”
“Keeping tabs is kind of my thing,” Theo sighs, and I try to imagine what he’s doing right now. He sounds far too awake to be home, making me think he’s working. I know he wouldn’t answer his phone if he was on an active run for the MacAlisters, but I don’t know what downtime looks like when you work for the mafia.
“What are you doing right now?”
“Watching Julius get his ass handed to him by Vincent,” he snorts, and I hear someone shout on the other end of the line. Based on the creativity of the cursing, I imagine it’s Julius making his grievances known about his loss.
I settle further into the chair, my eyes locking on a crumpled bag of Skittles in the vending machine across from me. “You guys are sparring in the middle of the night?”
“We work nights, so this is midday for us.”
“How long have you been on nights?”
“Eight-ish months.”
“Oh.” The word hangs between us, saying everything that we aren’t acknowledging. I should know that about him. I should know a lot of things about him. There are the things I do know; that he’s dating the woman he’s been in love with since we were kids. He still lives in that odd little house on Orange Street. He works for the MacAlisters, even though he has the option to get out now. Theo could walk away, and they would let him, but he hasn’t. He hasn’t even tried. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be.”
“You don’t even know what I’m apologizing for.”
“You’re my brother,” Theo huffs over the sound of someone being bodily slammed into the ground. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. People don’t get to treat each other like shit, and all is forgiven simply because they share some DNA.”
“You didn’t treat me like shit.”
“I blamed you.”
Neither of us needs me to expand on that thought; we both know I’m talking about our mother. She could have come with me. She could have lived out her final years in peace. She could have died somewhere other than that piece of shit town that took everything from her, but she didn’t. Our mother refused to leave Theo there alone, and I blamed him for it.
“Matthew—”
“Are you really dating Charity Lawson?”
Theo is quiet for a long moment, but he doesn’t seem lost for words or uncomfortable with the question. His joy spreads through the phone, happiness pulsing down the line before he even opens his mouth. “Yeah, I am.”
“That’s amazing, Theodosia.”
Theo barks out a laugh at the childhood nickname, and I suck in a breath at the sound. It’s been years since I’ve heard my brother laugh. I know he has laughed in that time, often and enthusiastically, if Callum is to be believed, but I haven’t been around to witness it. We haven’t had an opportunity to laugh together in years, and that’s on me, not him. “You’re a shit, Grady.”
“I learned from the best, Grady .”
Theo snorts, and I hear the noise levels around him change. He’s no longer surrounded by the sound of fists on flesh but rather a softly buzzing silence. I imagine it doesn’t sound all that dissimilar to what he must be hearing on my end. “She came to town a few months back.”
“How’d you get her to stay this time?”
“I’m quite convincing when I want to be.”
It’s my turn to snort, but the sound is more forced than intended. “Any tips for your baby brother?”
Theo is quiet for a moment before he asks, “You looking to tie someone down?”
“More like trying to get him to see me,” I admit, rubbing a hand across my sternum. “We both know I can’t tie anyone down.”
The longer Theo goes without talking, the more the silence seems to squeeze around my lungs. It’s as if the background noise where I am is synching with his, drowning me in a cacophony of nothingness. Eventually, Theo clears his throat, and I relax in my seat again.
“I know you told me not to ask,” he hedges, and I grimace at my warped reflection in the black metal plate at the bottom of the vending machine. “But this wouldn’t have anything to do with Elliot Bennett, would it?”
“You remember his name?”
“When my baby brother calls me out of the blue, begging me to track someone down, I remember who that someone is.”
“I didn’t beg?—”
“ Please, Theo, ” he mocks in a voice pitched far too high to have ever been mine. “ I need you to find a boy I like, but please don’t be mean about it. ”
I hear the laughter long before I realize it’s my own. It’s rumbling through my chest, breaking loose all the walls I’ve built around my insides. “Yes, Theodore, this is about Elliot Bennett.”
“Good, because I’ve been looking into him?—”
“What? Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’? I can’t have my brother loving some psychopath.”
“Elliot isn’t a psychopath.”
“No, he isn’t,” Theo agrees, but it’s far too fucking smug, and I know there’s another statement coming behind it. Sure enough, he makes a satisfied sound before saying, “And I knew you loved him.”
My eyes roll toward the ceiling, but there’s a smile on my face that won’t seem to go away. “What have you found?”
“He’s smart,” Theo grunts, and I picture him sitting on the floor of whatever room he’s hiding away in. “Too fucking smart for you.”
“Yeah, he is,” I agree, not even pretending to deny it.
“He avoids social media?—”
“Because he’s smart,” we say in unison. Theo’s deep chuckle widens the smile that’s still sitting on my face. “What else?”
“Do you want the list or my opinion?”
If I ask for the list, I risk Theo telling me things about Elliot that I shouldn’t know. My brother’s background checks aren’t run-of-the-mill employment and criminal history reports. He’ll know things about Elliot that Elliot himself might have forgotten, and I don’t want to know anything that might make him uncomfortable. “Your opinion.”
“He’s good for you.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“You called me.” Theo’s voice is rough around the edges as if he wants to whisper the words but forces himself to say them out loud. “You could have it, you know.”
My voice isn’t much better off than his when I ask, “Have what?”
“Love. Marriage. Giant, blond babies. It’s an option for you.”
“And it isn’t for you?”
“I’m enjoying what I have for now,” Theo’s soft laughter makes me smile. He really does sound unbearably happy. “I have love, and that’s more than I thought I would ever deserve. The way we grew up...”
Theo trails off, and I catch myself pressing the phone closer to my ear as if I could will the words to come out of his mouth by listening hard enough. “We’re a product of bad luck, you and me. We were born to two people who never should have met, let alone procreated, and we’ve been in survival mode ever since.”
He takes a deep breath, evidently gathering the strength to say the next part. “The thing about bad luck is that it breeds more bad luck. It makes you think that’s all you can have, all you deserve, and it ruins any chance you have to experience something good.
“It lets you justify walking away because it wasn’t your fault things didn’t work out—they wanted too much, they wanted too little, they wouldn’t understand, they deserve more. Except that isn’t true. They wanted a normal amount, and you weren’t willing to give it. They would have understood, but you refused to explain it to them. They could have been more, they could have been everything, but you weren’t ready for that.
“Stop convincing yourself you can’t live. Stop turning away the good luck the Universe is sending your way. Stop fucking sabotaging every chance at happiness. It’s time, little brother. Let go and recognize that you deserve to be happy.”
I sit silently, allowing his words to wash over me in waves. It feels unfamiliar. It feels insurmountable. “What if I put him at risk?”
“The MacAlister Brothers wouldn’t come after you. As long as Elliot knows?—”
“You know that it’s still a risk. It’s always a risk,” I defend, cutting him off before he can give me the same bullshit speech I tried to give Mary—as long as she didn’t tell anyone, as long as she kept quiet, as long as she didn’t ask questions. I can’t do that to Elliot.
Theo hums, a quiet, thoughtful sound that soothes the frantic pace of my thoughts. “What if he thinks you’re worth that risk?”