Chapter 7 Tyler
CHAPTER SEVEN
TYLER
Clink. My Zippo lighter flicks open and shut as I watch our woman.
I draw back the living room curtains to get a clearer view of Harper. She’s down by the pool, laughing with Ally while giving her dance lessons for the engagement party. She must have found my roses. One of the red buds is pinned behind her ear, matching the color of her hair.
So beautiful. So… freshly fucked by my brother.
Clink. A spark of adrenaline runs through my fingers as I flick the lid.
Something feels different within me today. Something I haven’t felt in eight years. A missing piece of me has returned—this sick, depraved, freakish side that is deeply satisfied over how Felix and Harper had sex last night.
I wish I’d been in the room, watching him fuck her. She would have looked so pretty taking his dick.
I wish I’d been in the bed, the two of us fucking her together.
Harper is ours, even if Felix pretends he doesn’t want her. She’ll always be ours.
Clink. I often wonder if Felix still has his red poker chip with the engraved quote that matches my Zippo. The house always wins. Except when we play.
I don’t know how to make it happen, but the two of us will win again one day, as brothers.
“Tyler. Good to see you, son.” Dad’s voice steals me from my thoughts. What a mood killer. He holds out a hand.
“You too,” I lie, not at all pleased to see him but shake his hand and smile.
“How’s work?”
“Great, as always.” Another fake answer.
Work is killing me. My days are rinse and repeat. Wake up. Spend the day in an office. Sleep. My career has been the only thing I’ve felt in control of throughout my adult life. I’ve poured so much energy into work, using it as an escape outlet. But now, even my job controls me.
My work addiction is a large part of why I’ve lost my girlfriend and why I don’t have friends. Since my breakup with Harper, I’ve cut back on hours, knowing I need to make changes to my lifestyle. But all it’s seemed to do is make more work for me.
As teenagers, Felix and I made a pact we’d go into business together, opening our own speakeasy. The pact was important. It meant more to me than following in Dad’s footsteps ever has. The speakeasy was not only a passion but a brotherhood bond.
But there’s no speakeasy between me and Felix. No brotherhood. Instead, I’m without my brother and closest friend.
I could tell all of this to my father. I’m sure he’d listen.
Since marrying Amabella, he’s tried to become a family man and take an interest in my life, but I have so much resentment toward him regarding my upbringing and the way he handled the cover-up of Paul Ferguson’s death.
A surface level relationship with him is all I can manage.
“How have you been handling time apart from Harper?”
Jesus Christ.
He’s really pushing for a father-son bonding moment. Should I dive into all the details about how I couldn’t get my girlfriend pregnant? Ask him for advice on how I could have fucked her better?
I often wonder if Harper can’t get pregnant because her body is holding onto too much stress and unhappiness. I always hear stories about couples trying for years with no luck, then as soon as they stop trying, they get pregnant because the pressure is removed.
If that’s the case, Harper will never truly be happy until she has me and Felix back.
Dad is running a charity for families in need. Maybe I should ask if Forever Families will fund therapy for his two sons so we can relearn how to fuck our girlfriend together and get her pregnant.
“The breakup has been challenging but I’m fine. Excuse me. I need to say hi to Dan.” I escape to the back porch before Dad can ask more questions about my life.
Dan is sitting on the porch steps, shuffling a deck of neon playing cards while watching Ally attempt to dance with Harper. He’s smiling, infatuated with his girl.
“Man, you look happy. It’s good to see.”
He laughs, patting me on the back with a quick hug when I take a seat beside him. “Can you believe I’m the first one out of us four to get married?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
Dan used to be a complete fuck boy, reckless in all aspects of life.
For as long as I can remember, he’s had a terrible relationship with Dad.
He played underground poker for a living.
I guess his love for Ally changed him. From what I hear, he’s working on his relationship with Dad and now plays professional league—all to be a better man for Ally.
This is the first time I’ve seen Dan in months, since he announced the engagement.
In all honesty, I’m surprised he asked me to be a groomsman.
A hard truth I’ve come to realize is I’m a terrible brother to him and Killian.
Ally too. Ever since the murder, I’ve slowly lost myself and everyone important to me.
I should be able to move on with my life. Harper, Felix, and Dad certainly don’t seem to give Paul’s death a second thought. I heard his parents died last year. Dad tells me this is even more reason to stop worrying. He’s convinced no one is questioning the cause of Paul’s death.
But every day, in the back of my mind, there’s a constant fear eating away at me, panicked someone will discover what we covered up.
“Ouch! You stood on my foot.”
Harper’s laughter draws me out of my dark thoughts.
Dan calls out, teasing Ally. “I thought musicians were supposed to have good rhythm? Careful, baby. We’ll go into debt if we damage Harper’s feet.”
Harper sees me and smiles, stroking the rose behind her ear. “I love the flowers.”
Ally flips her middle finger at Dan for teasing her dance skills, then waves at me. “Hi, Tyler.”
“Hey.” I don’t have a whole lot to say to Ally.
No inside joke. The truth is, though we’re family, and though I care about her, I don’t know Ally well.
She’s a musical genius and has just begun her first year at Juilliard, studying the piano.
But I don’t have a relationship with her like my brothers do.
Killian is her friend. They used to work together as teachers at a private school here in the Hamptons called Sacred Heart. Felix leaned into the role of a big brother with her.
Every relationship in my life is a fucking mess.
“You and I haven’t had a chance to talk lately,” Dan says to me as the ladies continue the dance lesson. “Ally told me our engagement is what caused you and Harper to break up.”
“You get all your news on me through Ally?” I laugh his comment off, but I feel like a piece of shit.
Ally takes an interest in me. She makes an effort to learn about me through Harper. Yet here I am, too wrapped up in my own shit to learn about her.
It’s not only that. My brother is in love with Ally and I haven’t taken the time to learn about them as a couple.
“Ally cares about you a lot,” Dan continues. “You know she’s always been big on family since her childhood was rough.”
Big on family. I raise an eyebrow, trying to hold back a laugh.
Dan punches my shoulder, grinning. “Fuck off.”
“Your happiness isn’t to blame for my breakup.” I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection these last three months. I have issues I can’t explain to you. But I’m sorry I haven’t been present in your life.”
He continues shuffling his deck of cards. “I get it. Work is demanding. You and Felix have your issues.”
“None of that excuses me from being a shit brother to you and Killian. Ally too. I should have been around more. I will be, from here on out. It means a lot to me that you asked me to be a groomsman. I want to get to know Ally better, and I want to hear all about the two of you.”
“I’d like that. I know Ally will love it.
But you’re not the only one to blame. When Felix returned from boarding school and the rift started between you two, you became withdrawn.
I didn’t do a whole lot of probing into why.
You were always off with Harper. Killian and I became closer to Felix.
I just accepted that as the new dynamic. I should have been more aware.”
Boarding school. Right…
“You were a kid.” I let the boarding school lie slip, knowing I can’t give him the truth about Felix attending reform school at Westbridge. “You had your own shit going on. You were consumed with our stepsister.”
Dan laughs. “If you’re going to keep giving me shit for Ally, then I have to give it back. You and Felix sharing Harper? I’ve heard snippets from the girls about it.”
“Yeah, I assumed.”
“Harper seems so… tame. I could never imagine sharing Ally. I’d be too jealous and possessive.”
“Let me explain it like this. In an alternate reality, if you did share Ally, what would it take?”
He contemplates my question while we watch the ladies dance.
“I suppose I’d have to be extremely close with the other guy since he’s getting access to the most important person in the world to me.
Though the love would be a different kind, I’d have to love him as much as I love Ally.
I’d have to trust him more than I trust anyone. ”
“Yep,” I mutter, staring at the scar on my right palm. “What you’ve described is the relationship Felix and I had.”
“What the fuck happened to ruin the three of you? I can’t piece together how you all couldn’t work through the issues.”
I sigh. “There’s shit I can’t tell you, for your own good. Take my word when I say things got messy. I’m talking illegal messy. It’s complicated.”
“But this happened so long ago. All three of you want to get back together. I don’t see why you can’t let the past be the past—”
“Wait.” My eyes whip to Dan and I sit up tall, fixating on his statement. “You said all three of us want to get back together? Who told you that? Has Felix said something to you?”
“I… Shit. Not in so many words. But I can read him well. Have you tried talking to him?”
“Countless times,” I groan, losing the fleeting spark of hope. “Look, I don’t want to drag you down. This weekend is supposed to be a happy time for you.”