Chapter 17 #2
“Maybe you should chat with my house,” Steven said conversationally. “It seems to be pouting. Or angry? Or sad? I’m not sure. I actually don’t know what to do.” He turned the taps off and wrung out the cloth. “But I’m open to some ideas.”
Nothing.
“Right.” He patted the countertop. “Guess that’s asking a bit much.”
When he got back to the bedroom, Myles was still sitting in front of the empty chair, gazing at his banged-up knuckles. Steven took a seat in the chair and then took one of Myles’s hands in his.
“Going to tell me what happened?” he asked as he started dabbing at one of the knuckles.
Myles pulled back. “I thought the sight of blood made you pass out.”
“Mine, sure.” Steven took his hand back. “Other people’s, just mildly queasy, so let’s not drag this out.”
Tension left Myles’s hand and he sighed. “Thanks.”
“Just returning a favour.”
That got a nod, and while Steven cleaned that hand, spread medicated gel over the worst abrasions, then wrapped them in gauze and tape, the silence of the room hummed around them.
“Other one too?” he asked when he was done.
Myles lifted it for inspection, but apparently the fight hadn’t gotten to the point he had to throw punches with his off hand.
“My elbow, though?” Myles asked as he shrugged out of his overshirt.
Steven ignored the way the T-shirt beneath hugged his toned chest, and rearranged them so he had a good look at the abraded elbow. “Might hurt some,” he warned. “You got some gravel embedded in there.”
“Yeah, I figured. Nearly got a truck grill to the back of my skull, so it could have been worse.”
That made Steven’s gut churn way more than the blood, and his heart skip way more than a summer fling should.
He silently cursed his stupid heart, his stupid head, his stupid, stupid self for not flinging the way he’d meant to.
Then he breathed as evenly as he could and set those thoughts aside for later.
“Tell me what happened.” He didn’t ask this time, and stopped just short of demanding it, but he did feel Myles pull in a sharp breath. “Start simple,” he suggested, as he might have with Jake when he was little. “What was it about?”
“No idea.”
“You don’t know why you punched someone?”
“I know why I did. He was beating up a kid. I stopped him.”
“But you don’t know what that fight was about.”
“Did it matter?”
Steven shrugged. “I have no idea. Did you know the kid?”
“He was kind to me. I bought him lunch. Told him about the Cabin.”
“And when did the guys start beating him up?”
“Ow!” Myles jerked his arm away when Steven had to use tweezers from the kit to dig out a particularly stubborn bit of rock.
“Maybe tell me the story from the beginning.”
Myles did, starting from breakfast that morning
and ending, well after Steven had finished wrapping his arm with more gauze and tape, with Steven’s arrival in the kitchen.
“What was I supposed to do?” Myles demanded. “I couldn’t do nothing.”
“Agreed.”
“But Jet was right. I should have answered my phone the first time.”
“There were times, when Jake was in high school, that he didn’t show up right after school.
A lot of those times were because he’d been harassed, and he’d taken shelter from his bullies in the B and B.
That was when it was still an empty building.
And she would let him in, but not his bullies.
There were days like that he would be over an hour late, and I was so spaced-out sorting and dusting books I didn’t notice.
Stephanie was working across town at the time, and it would take her calling to ask about supper for me to notice he wasn’t there.
And sometimes, even when she was here too, he would be late, and we’d lost track of time and didn’t realize right away. ”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that people aren’t perfect. You’re the one who keeps pointing that out, right? So don’t let Jet bully you into feeling you should be.”
“But he was right! And he was scared. He had no idea where I was, what I was doing.”
“But he still handled it. And you fixed the issue. You apologized. You’ll pay more attention from now on. Stop beating yourself up because you tried to do a good thing.”
“They have to be my priority.”
“Trust me, no one, not even me—especially not me—thinks differently.”
“But this weekend. It was… hard, Steven.” He bit into his lip, grimaced, but only pushed his teeth down harder.
Steven touched his cheek. He frowned when Myles didn’t stop and had to run his thumb over Myles’s mouth to draw his attention to it.
He finally let the already damaged lip go and sagged as he dabbed at it with one finger.
“I thought being here would make things better,” Myles confessed.
“But hanging out with them for two days, on my own.” He glanced at Steven, and the “without you” was heavily implied. “It was so much. It shouldn’t be.”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“Because they’re my family.”
“Which might be the shittiest reason anyone ever had for expecting things to be easy. Of course they’re your family, and of course you love them. So what?”
“So why is this so hard? I was so glad to drop her off.” He gazed at Steven, expression tortured. “What if somewhere inside, I was also dreading picking her up again?”
Steven shuffled to the edge of his chair, pushing his knees around Myles’s to encase him and bring him as close as their seated positions would allow.
“Why wouldn’t it be hard? Look. What I know is that people wanting to have children have at least those nine months to get used to the idea they’ll be responsible for a whole other human being.
And they still find it hard. They still have those moments of wishing to hell for just one little break for themselves. ”
“Not like I didn’t know it was coming. When Nat’s diagnosis came down, we made plans. We discussed it. I knew it would happen sooner or later.”
“You made plans. And in the meantime, who looked after your sister? Who made sure she ate and slept and got to her appointments?”
“I did.”
“And who stayed in hospice with her at the end?”
Myles scowled at him. “She was at home…”
“Who arranged her funeral?” Steven asked, because semantics were so not the point right now. “Who did the mountain of paperwork that comes with death? Even an anticipated one.”
“What is your point?”
“You looked after her. You looked after her death. You looked after her house. You looked after her kids.”
“I’m her brother.”
“Who looked after you?”
Myles narrowed his eyes. “I did. I’m the grown-up here, remember?”
Steven snorted. “As Jake so eloquently reminded me earlier, even grown-ups need care now and then.”
“I’m not used to being that guy.”
“So I’m gathering.”
“I don’t want them to think I don’t want them around.”
“First of all, you can’t control what anyone thinks, and second, Shelly loves the shit out of you and trusts you.”
“Jet—”
“Is sixteen. Trust me, he’s very good at acting it, too.
But he loves the shit out of you and trusts you.
Which is why this one blip threw him so hard.
” He leaned forward and took Myles’s face in his hands.
“If he didn’t care about you, or if he really did think you just ghosted them because you’re a jerk, he wouldn’t be over at the Cabin right now helping you to help this kid.
Maybe it’s his way of saying he sees why you did what you did. He still hurts. He’s trying.”
Myles pressed his forehead to Steven’s. “How are you so good at this?”
“Practice. Don’t forget Steph and I were where you are when our parents died.
We were eighteen, and admittedly, I flaked out on her at first, but we got there in the end.
It took teamwork, though. And me pulling my head out of my ass.
And believe it or not, her collapsing into a helpless ball of utter misery about a year in when she finally let it sink in they were never coming back. ”
“Stephanie—your Stephanie—broke down?”
“I guess you could say we were lucky we didn’t disintegrate at the same time.
I was mostly getting my shit back together by then.
But she held the three of us together all the while I was allowed to mourn them.
” He kissed Myles’s cheek gently and sat back so he could see his face.
“Mourning, Myles. That was what caught up with her in the end. She didn’t take the time to do that right away, and it about killed her when she finally did.
I don’t mind telling you that was the scariest six or eight months of the whole thing, when I thought I couldn’t leave her alone.
When I didn’t know quite what she might do if I did. ”
“I can’t picture that. Not her.”
“And I didn’t expect it of her, which is maybe why it freaked me out so bad.”
“I’m glad it worked out for you guys.”
“It didn’t work out. We worked it out. We did that. And it was hard. But it wasn’t impossible, and we didn’t do it all alone. Lucy’s family was always there for us. It’s no accident she and Jake make such a good couple. We owe a lot of the getting-through to her mom, and to her.”
Myles nodded, pulled himself up like there was a series of pulleys and gears inside he had to concentrate on to make work, but in the end, his spine was straight again, and he could look Steven in the eye. “I didn’t come here at all looking for a—”
Steven touched his lips. “I know that. And it’s okay. We are what we are. Doesn’t need a name.”
“So we shouldn’t even look at it?”
“Not right now. Not tonight, anyway.”
Myles closed his eyes, kissed Steven’s finger, and leaned back ever so slightly. “I’m so tired.”
“So you should sleep.”
“The kids.”
Steven stood up, put his chair away, and then pulled Myles to his feet, turning him towards the bathroom. “Clean up. Take a shower. I’ll check on them, and then I’ll be back to check on you.”
“Is that it? Once out of the house, you’re fine?”