Chapter 34
ALEX
The Archer | Taylor Swift
Alex was seconds away from ripping the batteries out of the small clock on his desk. Or crushing it under the heel of his shoe. Whatever would stop the incessant ticking, taunting him with the truth of his sad, lonely existence. Because while his brother was probably at home after a fulfilling day saving the world one batch of eco-friendly cement at a time, cooking dinner with the love of his life, Alex was alone in his office, working on something he didn’t care about for people who didn’t give a shit about him, with no idea what the only person he wanted to be spending time with was doing.
It wasn’t outrageously late, as far as his nights in the office had gone recently, but it was quieter than most. His colleagues had exited en masse at five o’clock, everyone heading to a bar for someone in accounting’s leaving drinks. No one had even noticed he wasn’t there, if the lack of texts on his phone were any indication. But after years of pulling focus by faking smiles and cracking jokes, he didn’t have it in him to pretend. He was so fucking tired .
A few weeks of letting someone in beneath all the bullshit, and he’d lost his ability to pile it on.
In truth, it was not time productively spent. The past hour had been a mindless blur of emails and staring at spreadsheets while taking nothing in. And with no one else around to watch him go, leaving at a reasonable hour would be a guilt-free endeavour for once. But going home to a sickeningly in love couple was unlikely to make him feel less alone.
He contemplated cracking the seal on the whiskey in his bottom drawer. It was a nice bottle, ordered with the intention of having a drink with Erik the night before the wedding and delivered to his office, yet to make it home. Alcohol seemed like it would only exacerbate his current state though—jittery, like his skin couldn’t contain his body. In the past few weeks, that feeling had sent him careening towards Sarah, but tonight, the gym would have to do.
A few swear words slipped out when he popped his boot to stow his work stuff and found the space bare and empty. An image flashed through his mind of his gym bag—fresh clothes inside—left on his bed that morning.
No avoiding going home then.
Alex’s plan was simple. Slip in the front door, creep quietly up the stairs, grab his bag, and reverse his steps. Stay far away from the kitchen, where he could hear music and laughter. After near silently pushing his ajar bedroom door open enough to fit through, he realised his mistake. Celine lay on his bed, adorable face resting on her large paws, and began snuffling excitedly when she saw him. Erik must have opened up for her.
Alex scratched behind her ears, hoping that a smattering of attention would keep her happy, then stepped slowly back towards the door. Unsurprisingly, he was wrong. Celine leapt off the bed, bounding energetically down the stairs alongside him. When she saw him heading for the front door, passing the hook that held her leash without taking it down, her snuffling turned to whines.
‘Shh, girl,’ he whispered. ‘I know I haven’t been around a lot, but if we get up early tomorrow morning, we can go out for a bit. Just us two. And we can take a quick walk when I get home later, yeah?’
Because in addition to coming up short as a potential partner, apparently he’d also become a shit pet parent. Celine got plenty of exercise, with a walk every day, either by Maggie or the walker who came three times a week, but her nightly walks with Alex, Erik sometimes joining them, were her favourite. And between Sarah and work, he hadn’t been giving her nearly enough attention, often keeping her on short routes squeezed between the two.
Her whines turned louder.
‘Celine?’ Erik’s voice filtered through from the kitchen. ‘Come here, girl.’
At the sound of her second favourite person’s voice, Alex hoped she would run. Instead, her whines turned louder.
He should have just left, but Celine’s wide brown eyes had him pinned to the entrance mat with guilt.
‘Alex?’
Brilliant.
Lifting his head, Alex found Erik in the living room doorway, Abby half a step behind him. The sight of her body curving into his—like they were two halves of a magnet drawn together—sent a pang through his chest. He’d been so fucking close .
‘Gym tonight?’ Grey eyes clocked the bag in his hand. Alex nodded, trying to ignore the loaded look that passed in a split second between the couple in front of him. ‘Can I come?’
Subtlety was not always Erik’s strong point. He famously hated the gym at any reasonable time of day, preferring solo home workouts, hikes, and the long runs he joined Alex on most Saturdays for keeping fit. When he occasionally used Alex’s guest pass to the gym, it was late at night, with a view to exhaust himself before bed after a particularly stimulating day. It wasn’t at seven o’clock on a Wednesday, when the flashing lights of spin classes were still going full throttle, people milled about everywhere, and a million faint streams of music escaped the ear buds around them. So his request reeked of ulterior motives.
To Alex, the chaotic stimulation was fuel, spurring him on to faster times, heavier weights, longer sets. To Erik, it could cause sensory overload in minutes if he didn’t take precautions.
And maybe it made him a dick to think it, but Alex didn’t want to worry about his brother when he really just needed to wreck his body enough to stop feeling anything. Although considering Erik had gate-crashed his session, maybe it wasn’t too dickish to leave him to fend for himself. Alex had spent enough of his adolescence twisting himself around Erik’s needs.
But…a lifetime of protective instincts wasn’t about to go away because Alex was annoyed at having his catharsis interrupted. Even if Erik had never seemed to need or want it, looking after him had always been front of mind.
‘You’re going to be okay with all this?’ Alex asked, as they stepped onto neighbouring treadmills to warm up.
Erik nodded. ‘Took some anxiety meds. I’ll be fine.’ He didn’t need them all the time. Unlike Alex, years of understanding the condition he was managing meant Erik could largely self-regulate. But when he was heading into a situation likely to overwhelm him, he took preventative measures.
When his brother followed him to the weights section—cardio wasn’t going to cut it for depleting his energy stores—and started loading up a barbell next to him, Alex shook his head. ‘No. you’re not doing anything more intense than a resistance circuit while you’re here with me. I’m not dealing with your fiancée if you get injured two days before your wedding.’
Although Erik tamped down on his grin after only a microsecond, it was visible long enough for Alex to realise he’d been duped. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Maybe I should just spot you tonight.’
‘I’m not going to talk about her,’ Alex said a few minutes later, completing a set on the bench press while Erik’s face loomed over him.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Erik reached out to steady the bar as Alex lifted it back into place.
‘You mean the whole reason you’re enduring this place tonight? Sure.’
Erik sighed. ‘I just want you to be happy, man.’
‘I was happy before her. I’ll be happy without her.’ Alex gripped the bar to start another set, but Erik clamped down on it.
‘Were you? Happy? Because I recall a conversation with my brother in January when we decided it was going to be fun to live together. That we were going to make up for lost time and play video games and watch sport and go out drinking together, and then I moved back, and I was lucky if I got to have dinner with you once a week. And when I did, you’d check your phone every ten minutes, in case a fire had sparked at work and you needed to put it out.’
‘Let’s not pretend you moved back for me, Erik.’ Alex gritted his teeth, pushing at the bar. But between the weights and the downward force his brother was exerting, it was a lost cause.
‘That’s not the fucking point, and you know it,’ Erik said. ‘You looked miserable then, even if you were trying to hide it, and you look worse now, although at least you’re being honest about it.’
That was true. Alex, who had been carefully controlling his emotions since adolescence, had dropped the veil hiding his feelings from the rest of the world.
‘But somewhere in between, there was a glimmer of joy. You were lighter , Alex. And the best part was, you let me see it. I’ve barely spent any time with you in the last month, and I didn’t care, because when I did see you—when I passed you in the passage in the morning, or when I came downstairs for water at a stupid time of the night to find you eating dinner—you always had this dumb little smile on your face. I know that smile. I live with that smile too. For the first time in fifteen years, you weren’t trying to micromanage the way the world saw you twenty-four hours a day. You just…were. I want that Alex back.’
‘Are you two going to be done with this tea party any time soon?’ One of the many—too many—fitness influencers who frequented Alex’s gym hovered half a metre away, a steroid-infused scowl on his face.
Alex stood. ‘All yours, asshole,’ he said cheerfully, before heading back to the weights rack to load up another bar. It gave him a sick sense of satisfaction to see the overgrown dickhead remove two plates from the bar before he set up his phone to film.
Trying not to fixate on Erik’s words— you weren’t trying to micromanage the way the world saw you —Alex loaded up another bar and found a clear space for squats. His brother, who had moved back into position behind him, was too fucking perceptive for his own good.
‘I don’t know what she said or did to hurt you like this,’ Erik began again, gentler this time, ‘but I hope you try to work it out. Because you deserve to be happy, man. And if’—Erik cleared his throat—‘if there are other things making you less happy than you should be…I hope you find a way to stop them having so much control over you.’
It was obvious what he was talking about. The job that was day by day, hour by hour, turning Alex’s soul into a husk of its former self.
The job that had turned him into someone who couldn’t maintain a relationship, because who wanted to wait up to eat dinner with their boyfriend in the middle of the night? Who wanted to be with someone who gave all the best of themself to a corporate monolith?
Sarah deserved someone who could give her the world. And Alex could give her some of it. But what was the point if he had to send her off to enjoy it without him?
Finally, Erik gave up his pretence at being helpful and moved to stand in front of him, his voice dropping even lower. ‘I’m not saying go back to being the fun party guy all the time. I’m saying maybe there’s a happy medium where you don’t have to be that or the miserable sack of shit in front of me. You could just…be. And let the people who care about you enjoy you , not the bullshit image you’re still trying to feed them. Us. I’m your brother, and you’ve never really let me know you.’
‘You’ve never wanted to,’ Alex snapped, and Erik’s face crumpled.
‘I said I was sorry about that,’ he said quietly. ‘But I’m here now, and I’m trying .’
When he finished his set, Alex silently returned his discs and bar to the racks before stalking back to his brother. ‘No one gave a shit about me,’ he said, voice deathly quiet, ‘until I became that guy. Until I learned to amplify all the most appealing parts of myself. I made myself the fun, easy-going charmer who dressed well and could speak to anyone. I made the right friends and got a good job and a beautiful house and picked up girls easily. Then I found someone who saw through all that, and I thought… I thought I could give her more of me. So I did, and she left anyway. But don’t worry. We’re both adults. We’ll keep it civil at the wedding.’
Erik stepped back, hurt evident in every line on his face. ‘I actually don’t give a shit about the wedding right now, Alex. I’m concerned about my brother .’ The last word was spat, and maybe Alex deserved it, but he couldn’t feel enough to care. ‘I’m going to wait in the car. Come find me when you’re done torturing yourself.’
Later that night , after Alex spent another half hour punishing his body before driving them home in silence, he took stock of what Erik had said. It was easy for him to tell Alex to work it out, when his own relationship came as naturally as breathing. When he’d been in love practically since the day his now-fiancée was born.
But there were other things Erik had said too. Other wounds where his words had cut a little too close to home. One that was still rattling in his head hours later. And before he crawled into bed, he dragged his laptop from his bag—ignoring the small crack on the corner of its lid from when he’d dropped it in favour of kissing Sarah a few days before—opened his emails, and pulled up the draft he’d been hoarding for months.