Chapter 7 The Plank
SEVEN
The Plank
West is released the next morning on a one-hundred thousand dollar bond, which I pay. That also means I get to take him home and endure his sullen silence, because I bought it, I guess.
It’s military level torture in my car this morning. It might have more to do with the fact that my new car is a Porsche, but I keep my billion dollar mouth shut and drive him home without asking questions.
It’s been about twenty-four hours since I ran into him at HEB. I slept in my car for maybe three of them, so I’m not exactly ready to see Connor at my kitchen table when I come in through the side door—and I certainly am not at all prepared to see Tristan sitting next to him.
The sight of them in my house causes me to lose my footing on the top step, creating a suave stumbling entrance that makes me look like I’m either drunk or hung over.
I’m neither, however, given my state of dress and the smells I’ve been exposed to over the last twelve hours, it would be fair to assume.
“Oh, look…he’s home.” Connor leans back in my kitchen chair and sweeps his gaze over me, a look of pure disappointment on his face.
Since the last time I saw him, he’s gotten even more emo.
His hair is still black, still shaggy and half covering his eyes.
His skin is pale, which makes his starkly pink lips and piercings stand out, and today, he has a smear of red liner beneath his eyes, making him look both beautiful, and ill.
I’m not sure how much has changed, or why Tristan thought this would be a good idea, but he knows my brother better than I do, so I have to trust for the moment that Connor wants to be here. Still. His assessing gaze and the disdain in it get to me.
Sometimes I have to remind myself he isn’t actually a reincarnation of my mother. This is one of those times.
“Rough night?” he asks.
There’s a needle to thread here, and I haven’t slept enough to be able to do it well. “Yeah. It was,” I drop my keys onto the counter and take a longer look at Tristan. He’s looking at Connor, an irritated frown on his face. My brother must not be sticking to the script.
Visually, they are such opposites. Connor a storm and Tristan a ray of sunlight.
This is my first time in a room with both of them awake and conscious at the same time, and I can admit to being intimidated. Their bond is thick. If I wanted to, I could probably reach out and grab hold of it.
“You’ve met Tristan, right?”
I can’t remember if it’s okay to say we met or not, but since he already seems to know, I look at Tristan and nod. I have to look away fast because his eyes are grabbing at me, and I don’t want him to see how uncomfortable I am. “Nice to see you again,” I say, with one last glance his way.
He responds quietly, one corner of his mouth tipped up in a grin. “You, too.”
“Great house,” Connor says coldly. “We won’t take up too much of your time, I just need to know where my stuff is.”
I’m surprised they didn’t go through the whole place while they were waiting for me to show up. “Everything’s in your room.”
“My what?” With that, the fragile peace is shattered.
Connor stands up from the table and storms past me, through the kitchen, and down the hall. His limp awkward and pronounced. My eyes fall on Tristan again in his pale blue linen shirt. His golden hair is down, skimming his shoulders. His gorgeous eyes blink back at me.
The desire I had to go home with Jayne Beck last night felt normal.
Typical of me. Sex is my favorite distraction, and I haven’t had it in a while.
But this thing that happens to me in Tristan’s presence is new.
I don’t know how to navigate it. It’s not an urge to fuck—although, there is that—but it’s more like a longing for connection.
“Thanks for the text,” I say.
“You’re welcome.”
“And the iHug, too.”
His grin grows, that beauty that glows so bright inside him cracking loose for a miraculous moment. He opens his mouth to reply, but my brother’s angry shout from the back of the house makes us both jump. “Tristan!”
“Excuse me,” he whispers as he gets up and hurries past me.
The spring coconut smell of him is as familiar as it is nostalgic.
His fleeting proximity has my lungs in a vice grip.
I lean back on the kitchen counter, cross my arms over my chest, hang my head, and wait.
His fresh scent lingers in the air around me.
I can hear them talking, but I can’t understand what’s being said. This goes on for so long, I nod off. Standing up. In my kitchen.
I jerk awake when Connor bumps a fist into my shoulder and fixes me with a glare so hard it could make diamonds tremble. “I don’t want to stay here. Not with you.”
“I know.”
“If you know, then why did you set up that room? Why wouldn’t you keep my stuff in storage so I could just come pick it up”
“I guess…” I sigh. Nothing I say will make any difference.
Nothing I do will, either. I did my best with his things.
I tried to be so respectful, leaving most of them untouched except for the bedding and a few things he had on his wall at the other house.
But he’s still so angry. His hatred pushes at me with so much force it might as well be his hands.
“You guessed—? What? That I would see the room and think you give a shit about me? I don’t. It’s not working, Archer.”
My throat gets tight, and I nod, trying once again to find my words, but I swear I’m seven and scared silent again. I’m wrong and sick and too stupid to get this right. I can only manage a nod. I agree with him. It’s not working. Nothing I’ve done since I’ve come back has worked.
He turns away, and his body shakes. Shivers. In an instant Tristan is beside him, his hand on Connor’s back. He speaks softly into my brother’s ear, and jealousy at the touch—the intimacy between them—lances through me.
“I can’t—I can’t.” My brother shakes his head. Tears cover his face, but he’s out of the room again before the sight of him like that rips me to shreds.
My jaw is so tight, I have to focus to open it. I rub my face again, my hands unable to press hard enough. It’s the numbness creeping in again, but when Tristan takes a step toward me, my spine stiffens. I would back away, but I have nowhere to go.
“He needs to move in here,” he says, his voice quiet, like he doesn’t want Connor to hear.
“I—uh—” can’t form any fucking words. He’s standing too close. I’m not cut out for this.
“You have to make this okay for him,” he says.
“How?”
“Ask him to move in. Tell him you want him here.”
“You heard what he said. I think he’d rather sleep under a bridge.”
“Then you have to try harder,” Tristan says to me, and the look on his face is impossible to refuse. For me to refuse anyway. It has me ready to beg. His hands are in fists at his sides, and I want them on me. I want that reassurance he gave my brother. I want his fucking hug.
But it’s not mine to have. It’s Connor’s, and Connor is mine now, too. Funny how this thing I used to wish for so badly—a brother—this brother—I finally get, and he’s as broken and poisonous as they said I was.
I nod and push myself away from the counter and, accidentally, toward Tristan. I indulge a questionable impulse to look into his eyes for a second. His breath catches at the same moment mine does.
Christ…
He glances away and takes a step back.
If my brother had shown up by himself today, I probably would have let him go. I like to think I would have tried as hard as I’m about to, but I don’t know. There’s only so much a guy can take before he gives up.
But I don’t want Tristan to see me give up. Me with my prodigy art skills and my master’s degree. I don’t want the guy in the Perfume Genius T-shirt to let him down either. So I clear my throat, avoid any physical contact with him, and follow my brother.
I find Connor on the back porch, smoking a cigarette. He’s looking out into the yard, no longer crying, but his face is still wet. I stand in the doorway, afraid to get too close—afraid he’ll leave, but my hands flex with the need to brush the tears from his cheeks.
It’s time for me to fix this. I might be the only one still alive who can.
“I get that you don’t want anything to do with me, Connor. I really do. But I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m sorry if I fucked up your room, and I’m sorry about the house. I know it’s not remotely the same, but this isn’t easy for me, either.”
He sniffs and wipes at his face.
“That being said, I want you to live here. We don’t have to eat dinner together or watch movies on the couch. You don’t have to like me or approve of me or even talk to me if you don’t want to. I know I’ve done everything wrong so far, but I want to try—”
“I was gonna live here with Dad.” His voice is low, nearly despondent as he stares out at the untended lawn.
“What?”
“When he moved in, I was gonna leave Mom’s house and live here with him. I think things would have been good. I would have been close enough to keep an eye on Bryan and finish school. Anyway, that was the plan.”
Well, Jesus. I wish someone would have told me that.
I swallow hard. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
A long silence passes where I wonder why he felt like he needed to keep an eye on Bryan. That one comment opens a vault of questions I’m still not ready to hear the answers to. But I take Connor’s lack of argument to mean he sort of accepts my apology.
Eventually, I speak again. “I know this isn’t how things were supposed to be, but I think we can be okay. Maybe he would have wanted that?”
He slowly turns to face me. The grief in his voice sends chills all up and down my arms. “It’s not like I have a choice.”
What am I feeling? Relief. A little. And dread.
More relief. But a shit ton of dread.
I imagine in other big brother-little brother moments like this, the deal gets sealed with a hug or some other similar show of gratitude and affection.