31. Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-One
Mac
“God fucking dammit,” I grumble and smack my lips to work away the shitty bitter taste left behind. “What is that?”
I push the plate back across to my laughing twin and my eyes bug out when the heat hits. My tongue burns, stomach churns, mouth on fire.
As much as I hate it, it’s also a reprieve from the shit that’s been rolling through my mind all damn day. A nice distraction. A different kind of pain.
I know I got up in my sleep, like I have been for months now. Peach tried to hide it, but the signs are there. Like the ache in my foggy head and the dryness to my eyes that won’t go away. Still in the same clothes I wore on stage last night, though I swore I took a shower. The rolling nausea threatening my stomach and the never-ending pounding in my temples.
Not to mention the feathers in my hair.
No clue how I got them, but when I woke up, Peach was chasing off the cleaning staff and throwing a pillow at my head.
It’s … embarrassing.
To know that there are moments where I have no control over what I do. What I say. Who I say it to.
It’s never been this bad.
I thought the sleeping pills would help tamp down the effects.
If anything, I just feel fucking hungover—severely—and still exhausted. Tense and fucking nauseous.
Half out of my mind and homesick.
Heartsick.
Is that a thing? Sure as shit feels like it.
And this bullshit my twin gave me is only making the waves rolling through my stomach worse.
“Someone can have these.”
Sliding the plate away, I pull out my sticks and tap them against the edge of the table in a solid rhythm.
“Bad night?” I nod to my twin, my sight not leaving the tips of the swinging drumsticks. “Wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
Rex scoffs. “Liar.”
Sighing, I still my hands and immediately regret looking over my shoulder at him.
He stares back at me with his brows pinched tight, his bluer eyes too bright.
What he doesn’t have, though, is bags under his eyes as deeply darkened as mine. He doesn’t have a few days’ worth of stubble on his chin. Or lack of color across his cheeks.
It’s no longer like looking in a mirror.
He looks worried in this moment, but otherwise … happy .
And I hate that it’s so potent I can feel it down to my bones almost as if it were my own.
Almost.
My stomach is like lead, my grip on the sticks flexing.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I say just low enough for him to hear.
“To be my brother again,” he shoots right back with a tightness taking over his features, and my stomach drops.
“That’s stupid,” I say, though I don’t mean it. Not even a little bit. “I’m always right behind you.” That part I do mean.
I’m always second to Rex. Constantly playing catch up. Getting the leftovers of life.
Literally playing behind him every night.
“But are you?”
I rock back in my seat, my heart aching for a whole other reason.
No. I’m not really. How can I be when my brother gets everything I’ve ever wanted without even trying?
When the universe just dumps shit in his lap, but still makes it good. Turns his shit situations into the love of his life and what do I get?
Nothing. I get nothing.
“You practically lived on my couch and now I never see you.”
That ache becomes a stabbing that just gets deeper with each of my brother’s words. Because while it’s true … it’s also partly his doing.
Rex hates my bodyguard for being my best friend, even though I’m in love with him.
It started with a deep fake that got Jordan fired, his nose broken by my dear brother, and a whole lotta proving he was with me at the time of not only the leak, but the recording’s timestamp.
After I admitted to Rex I’d found feelings.
“You don’t want me on your couch,” I mutter instead and drop my sight back to my ticking sticks.
“More like you don’t want to be on my couch when the twins go to bed.”
I can feel the smirk in his tone. Gag .
But also ache .
Goddamn it .
My grip tightens.
I want that. I want that life so fucking bad.
Someone to come home to. Someone to call. Someone to just fucking hug me when I need it.
I blink against the burn in my eyes and swallow back the reigning disappointment, hoping like hell he won’t pick up on the thickness of my words. “ Please stop talking about your sex life. I don’t wanna know.”
Rex chuckles and tosses a wadded-up napkin at my chest. “Bro, you were right outside the door most nights.”
Because I was waiting for him to hang out with me.
Pathetic, right?
I fake a gag and still my sticks with a tremble to my hands. “That’s different.”
He scoffs and rolls his eyes.
“What? I have to see Aria again. I never saw those ladies come back.”
Someone behind my brother sputters out a laugh and I bite the inside of my lip.
Rex levels me with a look, one that sears me so deep that I nearly break right down the middle. Just like that night on the bus all those years ago. “We’re playing cards later,” he says and tips his chin. “Be there.”
Sighing through clenched teeth, I nod.
“I’m serious, bro.”
“Fine. Fine .”