24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Grady
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and then flipped the pencil around, using the eraser to rub out the final six notes. Placing my fingers on the keyboard, I played the last third of the song another time, trying to figure out exactly how I wanted it to close.
Hopeful.
I wanted the song to sound hopeful, but I kept ending on notes which were desperate. With a snap of my wrist, I threw the pencil across the room, and I squeezed the sides of my head in frustration. What was wrong?
I couldn’t concentrate. Every time I tried to get the ending notes right, my mind veered to Trent and Maggie. What had they talked about after I’d left? Would Trent ever speak to me again? I hadn’t been able to keep my promise to him. My feelings for Maggie were too big, too hard to control. I should never have agreed to stay away from her.
Hite and Zeus whined and stirred off their beds in the front hallway. My phone rested beside me, and I checked the time. Just before midnight. Wasn’t too late for a walk, but I wasn’t sure getting out would clear my head. Talking to either Maggie or Trent might help, but it also might tip the scales in a direction I didn’t like. I wanted to make things right with Trent. I wanted to be with Maggie. Could I do both? Was either of them possible?
A sharp knock sounded on the door, and the dogs circled in excitement. They rarely barked when I was home, but I’d heard from the neighbors that wasn’t the case when I was away. Pushing back the ergonomic chair I used when I was digging into a song, I crossed to the front door with a frown. With one eye pressed to the peephole and the dogs on either side, I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or surprised.
I opened the door. “Trent. It’s late.”
“I had to have a few drinks before I showed up. Then I had to fucking walk from the restaurant downtown. I don’t want to be here, but I promised her I’d come.”
“Come in.” I ushered him into the living room with the assortment of mismatched chairs.
Trent stood in the entryway of the room and looked around, his gaze finally landing on me. “What a fucking dump. Has Maggie been here? She hasn’t dropped off some paint and scrub brushes? A matching couch and chair?”
A smile threatened at how accurately he knew her. “That sounds about right. But no, she hasn’t done any of that yet.”
We stood across from each other with our hands in our pockets. The awkwardness was overwhelming. How had we grown this far apart? There’d been a time when Trent would have shown up with a six-pack and a heap of stories about women he knew, things he’d done, notches he’d made on his bedpost. We would have laughed and joked around. Equal in our debauchery.
Before Maggie.
Part of the reason we had drifted apart was because of how I had felt about her. At first my desire for her had been bearable, but by the time we kissed, by the time Trent was arrested, I’d been bordering on an obsession. Having Trent talk about her, hearing about her as a conquest, had been something I couldn’t handle. How could I have admitted my fixation with Maggie to Trent? As far as I’d known, she was Trent’s girlfriend.
“Are we doing this or what?” Trent gestured to the chairs.
“I’ll start.” I didn’t bother to sit while Trent sank into the recliner in the corner. “I know I got things wrong about you and Maggie even if I don’t know exactly how wrong.” I scratched the back of my head. “But I think I owe you an explanation for my distance, for being a shitty fucking brother the last six years.”
“Ten years.”
I took a deep breath. “Ten years.”
“All right, I’m listening.” He eased back into the recliner, skepticism burning bright.
Summoning my courage, I said, “I’m the one who let Dan into the house. I’m the reason he got so much evidence on you.”
“No, you’re not.” Trent didn’t miss a beat.
“I am. I put the sequence of events together. Too late, sure. But the timeline matches when he came to the house and I was there. I was in the middle of writing a song in the garage, and I didn’t pay attention to what he was doing.”
“Dickhead Dan had been in and out of our house all week. I’d told him where the spare key was one time when we were drunk. Maybe you let him in, and maybe he got some of the notebooks and other shit that night that he hadn’t gotten before. But he would have gotten it either way. I was too confident. Left too much in my room not locked up.”
I sank into the beanbag chair and stared at Trent. “I ran into Dan the other day at the gas station and he—he made it seem like I was at fault.”
Trent shrugged. “Like I said, maybe he did get some of it that night. But he was there a lot after he got flipped by the cops trying to cover his ass and bury mine. I asked around. Lots of people talking once it had been six years and I was out of jail. Nothing for people to lose anymore. Dan was a snake, and I didn’t see it. How could you?”
“Christ, Trent. I’ve blamed myself for years.”
“You shoulda talked to me, shoulda asked me.” He sat forward and put his forearms on his knees. “But here’s the thing. Even if that is what happened, what happened to me still wouldn’t be your fault. Did you know I was cooking meth? That I’d built myself a little empire? Did you let him in knowing he was going to nail me in court?”
I shook my head and dragged a hand down my face. “Not a fucking clue. In hindsight, I should have known something was up.”
“You sound like Maggie.” Trent smirked and scanned my face. A few beats passed between us. “She the other reason we’re not tight anymore?”
Easing deeper into my chair, I drew one foot across my knee and gave a curt nod without looking at Trent. “I think so, yeah.”
“Were you fucking her when she was supposedly my girlfriend?”
Trent’s gaze was on me like hot coals. “The night you got arrested.” I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “I could give you all kinds of excuses—I was drunk; she told me you two weren’t really together; I’d been half in love with her for months. But none of them make what happened better, and I know that.”
“I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this one.” He made a whirling motion beside his temple with his index finger. “I knew you liked her. It was clear as fucking day to me from the way you looked at her and teased her. I’m not sure she saw it, not really. But I did. And I could have told you what was going on between her and me, let you two work out whatever was brewing.” Trent ran a hand along the top of his head and didn’t meet my gaze. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this the last few weeks ’cause I’ve been so angry with you. Just”—he made a filling-up gesture near his chest—“so mad.”
“I let you down.”
“Yeah, you did.” He hesitated. “Being with Maggie was the only time in my life where I had something you wanted. You know? Mom was all happy I’d finally brought home a good girl, and you were impressed too. I could see it. The first time you and Maggie went off about some book you’d read, I was proud she was my girlfriend, and you found her interesting.”
He swallowed, not sure what to say. He had found her interesting, fascinating, and that fixation had doomed them.
“I guess if I’m honest, me not telling you was as much of a problem as you not telling me. You get what I’m saying?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I didn’t know what I would have done with the information. Would it have made me bolder sooner? Or would I have stayed away at all costs? What I’d felt for her had consumed me, and at twenty-one, I probably wouldn’t have had the sense to keep my distance.
“You were the smart one. Even now, you make fun of me for being a high school senior for two years.”
A wave of shame washed over me. My teasing had bothered Trent? It had taken him two years. I figured it was because Trent didn’t apply himself. Who wouldn’t give their brother a hassle when the only thing holding them back was laziness and a lack of drive?
“The one thing Mom was always on me about was getting my diploma. And I couldn’t get it, not without help. I thought I wasn’t smart enough.”
“I don’t know why you’d think that,” I said. “I never thought that.”
Trent shrugged. Silence coated the room for a moment. “I couldn’t read.”
With a frown, I rocked forward in my chair. “Fuck off.” I reached back into my memories, trying to recall when I’d seen Trent read something, anything when we’d been younger. “Doesn’t make any sense.” He must have read something, right? People couldn’t get along in life without being able to read.
“Couldn’t read past a grade two level as a senior in high school. The guidance counselor caught on toward the start of my second attempt at graduating.”
He couldn’t read? The revelation was stunning. “How does Maggie fit in?” Had she done his schoolwork for him? Maggie as a cheater didn’t sit right. I knew her now, really knew her. She wouldn’t have done Trent’s work for him.
“I was pissed about the guidance counselor telling me I’d probably never get all my credits or pass my exams if I couldn’t read properly. I went to a party and got really fucking drunk. She was there, end of her junior year, getting bullied by this group of junior fuckwits. They’d been making her life miserable for a while, I guess. She hadn’t told anyone. Tried to handle the abuse on her own, and it was getting a lot worse. She’s one of the best people I know, but it took her a long time to stand up for herself.”
“You stepped in and helped her?” I rubbed the center of my chest. People had been hurting Maggie? A few short months ago, I’d been so hell-bent on making her pay for all of my wrong perceptions. Ludicrous. Pay for what? Being a good person? It was a miracle she was still talking to me at all.
He laughed. “Not quite. She stormed out of the party, and I followed her out and gave her a cigarette.”
“She smoked it?”
With an unsteady chuckle, Trent nodded. “She did. And we talked. The drinking loosened my lips. Soon enough, I was handing her a crazy scheme. As her pretend boyfriend, she could win all those other shits around.” He grinned. “Or I’d do it for her.” He rammed his fist into his other hand. “I never thought she’d agree to be my real girlfriend. A girl like her? So fucking smart? Her and Emily—smartest girls in that school.” He raised his eyebrows at me.
I wasn’t sure what to say. Was I surprised when Trent brought Maggie home? Yeah. But eventually, she and Trent had seemed so comfortable together I’d never questioned their connection.
“In exchange for my social skills, all she had to do was teach me how to read.” He flung out his hands. “And the rest is history. The first time Maggie came over, we were going to tell you and Mom the truth, or at least how she was helping me with school stuff. But Mom was so excited Maggie was smart and pretty and funny. A girl like her was mine . I convinced Maggie to keep the secret from everyone.”
“She helped you learn how to read.” I didn’t know how I’d missed that Trent’s reading was so far behind. We’d been very different—still were—so I always figured Trent didn’t like reading, not that he couldn’t.
“I wouldn’t have graduated without her. She taught me how to read, and she helped me with any other subject when I got in trouble.” He sighed and ran a hand along the top of his head. “Including chemistry.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me. Your meth business?”
“She didn’t know she was helping me. I got the other guys working with me to write out the problems we were having like it was some kinda riddle or math problem the teacher gave me or something like that. Then I’d ask her about those things like the question was an assignment or I’d overheard someone else talking about the problem. She’s so fucking smart she’d come up with some answer off the top of her head. Every time I dug myself into a hole that year, she got me out.”
I digested Trent’s revelations in silence. She’d unknowingly helped Trent with his meth operation; she’d knowingly taught him how to read. “She couldn’t get you out of your biggest hole.”
“Her mom was my lawyer for a while. I don’t know if you remember. But then the cops were sniffing around Maggie, trying to drag her into the mess, and her mom backed out. Couldn’t blame her. God, I was so fucking worried I’d put her in danger.”
None of this sounded familiar. Our mother had gone into debt because of a lawyer change. But I’d never thought much about the reason. When I’d gotten famous, I’d given her enough money to pay off all her debts. Had I been so far gone, so far up my own ass I hadn’t realized any of the intricacies of Trent’s case?
“Maggie has been nothing but good to me,” Trent continued. “So, when she asked me to come tonight and tell you the truth, I came.” He gave me a hard stare. “But we’re not square yet, you and me. I don’t know how to feel about what went down between you and her. And I don’t know how we get back to a good place.”
“I would have helped you to read,” I said, my voice thick. “If you’d asked, I would have helped you.”
“Yeah, sure. But you would have teased me. That’s just how it was with us. And then Mom would have found out. I didn’t want her to know. After Dad died, she worked so hard to keep the house and us together. She would have thought she let me down. And I didn’t want her stressing I wouldn’t get that damn piece of paper.” Trent gave a frustrated sigh. “I knew I had a problem, and I never asked her for help. That’s on me.”
“How did you—I don’t understand how you even got to senior year?”
He grinned. “Every girl I was ever with except for Maggie did my homework for me, did my assignments for me, got me through school.”
“And Maggie?” Jealousy stirred again, even though I knew the emotion was irrational. Any mention of her with someone else made me uneasy, even when it was fake.
“Made me do all my own fucking work. Often while she was trying to read some book so she could make you look bad at Sunday dinner.” He laughed and then grinned.
We stared at each other across the room for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure what to do with everything Trent was revealing. I’d gotten the situation so wrong, and my attitude had cost all of us so much. But our misunderstanding had also led me to take a chance on my music career, to find the courage to go after something else I loved. I didn’t regret that part, but I sure as hell regretted the rest.
“I should have told you,” Trent said. “Looking back, it’s clear who Maggie should have been with.”
“We were young, and I was stupid. So fucking stupid. But I definitely had some pretty strong feelings for her. And then, I don’t know, it seemed impossible you’d built the whole meth thing alone.”
“’Cause she was so smart.”
“And you’d never been particularly motivated to do anything before.”
Trent barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess. You were out hustling for odd jobs and trying to get Mom extra money, and most of the time I got fired from whatever job I was working.” He stared at me for a moment. “I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I liked running the business. Made me feel smart which made me work harder. Obviously, that didn’t turn out so good for me.”
“How are you doing now?” I eased out of my chair and crossed to the large windows.
“All right. They diagnosed me with severe dyslexia in prison. Bright side, I guess, so I get why I have trouble with reading. I have my apartment. I have the apprenticeship Maggie got me.” He grimaced. “And I wanna figure out how you and I get square with each other.” He rubbed his thighs. “Some text messages, random phone calls when you’ve had a few drinks, and like six letters while I was in prison doesn’t cut it.”
The fact he could count all those things, and I didn’t think it was far off, was proof we’d let things go too far. “I want that, too, but I—” I struggled to find the right words.
“Still got it bad for Maggie?” Trent gave him a wry smile.
I looked up at the ceiling and then met Trent’s gaze. “Basically, yeah.”
“Like she told me, she’s not a kid anymore. If she wants to take a chance on you, that’s up to her. I never had a right to say shit about what she wanted. I just hate the idea of her getting hurt. I think we’ve both done enough of that.”
I sighed and rubbed my hands down my face. “I’ve been such a fucking idiot. I don’t know how either of you could be around me when I came home. So sure of myself, and I didn’t know anything.”
“You’re my brother. I’ve been mad at you for years. But you’re still my brother. Having you home has been… good. I think it’ll be even better once we put all this shit behind us.” Trent eyed me. “Why has Maggie put up with you? ’Cause she’s got more goodness in her than you and me combined.” He let out a huff of annoyance. “Or else she’s got it just as bad for you. And if that’s the case, God help you both.”
The thought that Maggie might feel anything close to the vise wrapped around my heart was oddly comforting. “I’ve really been missing out.” I looked down at my feet. “You grew up smarter than me about people.”
Trent grinned. “I was people smart, and you were book smart.” His smile faded a little. “And the mandatory counseling in prison helped me sort out some of my other issues. It was helpful.”
“Prison?”
“Nah, you fuckwit. Counseling. Want me to spell it out for you?”
The reply was on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it.
“You gotta say it. I set you up.”
A hint of a grin threatened. “ Can you spell it?”
His phone beeped, and Trent tugged it out of his pocket. “I could spell it, but I won’t bore you. I gotta go.”
“You can’t drive.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. Lila and Emily are coming to pick me up.” His fingers flew across his phone in response to whoever had messaged him. He glanced up. “Lila says Maggie’s still up. They went to see her after we all had a late dinner while I came here. You know, if you care.” His lips twisted trying to hold back his smile.
“At two a.m. on a weeknight? Has she been drinking again?” I frowned at my phone. I wasn’t sure what I expected to find. Was Maggie waiting for me?
There was a knock on the door, and Trent waved me off when I moved to answer it. The dogs circled him. “It’s Lila. I got it. Listen. Don’t fuck things up with Maggie, okay?”
“I won’t,” I said, following Trent. I was going to try really hard not to.
When Trent opened the door, he grinned at Lila, and Emily waved from the driver’s seat of the car. As soon as she reversed out of the driveway, I let the dogs out in the backyard and grabbed my coat. I hoped I wouldn’t be returning to my own place tonight.