Chapter 15
Gannix
This isn’t what I want to be doing right now. In fact, I’ve thought about canceling on Gary more times than I care to admit. It’s not that I don’t want to see him and do everything he has planned for us, but I still haven’t found Emerson. She’s still out there somewhere and I know Ren is looking still. That doesn’t ease my mind or the ache in my chest at all.
I know if Ren figures out anything, he’ll let me know, and I’ll be on the first flight back to New York.
As for now, there’s nothing more I can do but wait and hope that he or my guys find something.
I enter the airport and my brother greets me. He smiles as he walks over and pulls me into a hug.
“Fuck, Gannix. It’s good to see you.”
“You too, man. It’s been too long.”
“Yeah, it has. I’m glad you’re here,” he agrees as he pulls away from me, and I smile back at him. Gary is thirty-one with me being a year older than he is. I don’t know why mom had us so close together, and I suppose we never will know at this point. All I know is Gary and I have been through hell together, and we’ve clawed our way to the surface. I’m not saying we escaped, but we don’t reside in the ashes any longer.
“Me too. I need to relax and unwind,” I tell him. He nods his head, and I grab my bags, following him out to the car. We toss my things into the trunk and climb in before he takes off.
“You hungry?” he asks, glancing over at me.
“Fucking starving.”
“Good. I got us a good table at the Italian place. You’ll love it.”
“Sounds good to me. So, how’s Charlotte?” I ask him. His smile fades as he looks at the road and not me, telling me all I need to know. She’s not in the picture anymore.
“We’re not together anymore.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, Nix. One day, we were good, and the next, she was leaving me.”
“She didn’t say anything?”
“Just that we’d grown apart. What kind of shit is that? We’ve grown apart. We’d only been together for a few years.” He sounds pissed.
“Yeah, fuck that shit. There’s no growing apart in the matter of a few years.”
“That’s what I said. Said we did, and that was it.”
“Didn’t have anything to do with the other shit?” I nod toward his legs. He shakes his head.
“No. She was about the only one who didn’t make a big deal out of it. You find anyone new?”
“No. I just do the same old thing. Drug them, and walk away,” I tell him truthfully.
“I get it. It’s hard to find someone that’s accepting of us.”
“I just don’t understand why more women aren’t. We’re fucking adults, not kids. Shit happened we couldn’t avoid.”
“Exactly. They act like we brought that shit on ourselves.”
“Right. But who the fuck cares, right? I mean, eventually, we’ll find the right one.”
“You think so?” he asks. I nod my head, thinking about Emerson and what she’d think if she saw the real me. Would she hate me, too? Would she think I’m sick like the others?
“I’m positive.”
“But what about everything else that comes with us? We have so much fucking baggage it isn’t even funny,” he chuckles.
“That’s true, but we could always stop, Gary. There’s always that option.” He glances over at me, and I can see the shocked look in his eyes. He never thought I’d suggest stopping what we do. It was never an option when we were kids, but it could be now. We’re adults. We’re allowed to make our own decisions.
“Would you stop?”
“I don’t know. If I found the right girl, maybe. Don’t you want a family?” I ask, glancing over at him as he drives.
“I’ve thought about it. Not sure I would make a very good dad.”
“Why?”
“Look what we had to start with. He wasn’t the award-winning father,” he laughs. I smile and nod my agreement.
“That’s true, but we can be better than he was. We don’t have to introduce this shit into their lives, Gary.”
“I don’t know, Nix. Maybe one day.” We pull into the parking lot, and he parks the car before we climb out and head inside.
The place is nice. Deep reds decorate the walls and windows.
We’re led to our seats when I notice women staring at us. We’re not ugly men. We’re good-looking, and they can see that much, but that’s not what I’m here for.
“You ever get tired of it?” he asks.
“What?”
“The way they watch us like they’re ready to fall at our damn feet?”
“Not really. They can look all they want,” I chuckle before we order.
“I have many things planned for us while you’re here,” he smiles.
“Good. I need to keep my mind busy.”
“Speaking of, you want to talk about why you were so uptight?” he asks. I shake my head and grab my drink, taking a small sip.
“No. Just some shit going on at the office I haven’t solved yet, but I have my best guys on it,” I inform him.
“I’m sure they’ll figure it all out for you.”
“I have no doubts.”
Our dinner is served, and we spend most of our time talking and laughing about stupid shit that has happened to us in the past. We catch up on what we’ve missed in each other’s lives, but I leave out the part about Emerson. He doesn’t need to know about her. She’s none of his concern.
“So, the hunt? You ready for that?”
“I suppose.”
“You don’t sound so thrilled.”
“Some days, I just don’t feel the need to hunt. It gets old,” I admit to him.
“This year is going to be fun. I promise.”
“We still using bows and arrows?” I ask as I finish off my drink.
“Of course. That’s the best way to hunt, isn’t it?”
“It’s the only way I know how to hunt,” I add.
“That’s true. Dad never taught us any other way.”
“I don’t think he knew any other way either.”
“You ever miss him?” he asks me. I shake my head.
“I miss him doing all the fucking work at the company, but as far as missing the man himself? No.” Our dad wasn’t the nicest of men. He was strict and ruled our house with an iron fist. If you got out of line, you paid the price for it.
And we got out of line quite often. Gary was a little worse than I was. He seemed to enjoy getting in trouble, or maybe he just liked seeing how far he could push him before he reached his limit. Nevertheless, we were treated like animals in our home.
“Me either. Some days, I wish he was around for a little payback.”
“Would you do it?” I ask curiously.
“Fuck yeah, I would. He made us who we are, Nix. He made us the way we are. This isn’t normal for people. We’re not normal.”
He’s not wrong about that.