Chapter 63
Kit
“Have you thought about what you might want to do?” my mom asks, looking at me with so much hope and happiness.
We've been shopping for hours, and no matter how many times I said I didn't need anything, she wouldn't take no for an answer.
Dad dropped us off at the coffee shop a few blocks away, and he headed back home with all our bags to start grilling for dinner.
I'm exhausted. Between the emotional day yesterday, the wild dinner with the Bennets, my night of broken sleep because of Bowen, and everything today… I'm beat. I'd like nothing more than to face plant on the bed and sleep for a dozen hours.
Maybe a bath first to ease my sore muscles, then bed.
I should text him my grievances. Tell him he's a nutsack for sucking a massive hickey on my throat and then setting me loose with my parents. My mom absolutely clocked the mark immediately but is kind enough not to mention it.
She gently nudges me with her elbow before stopping to look in the window of the bookstore. I clear my throat and pull up the last few minutes.
Ah, what do I want to do with my life? Good question.
“I don't know. Not really. All I was focused on was the next day for so long, you know? Thinking any further was stressful. I'll start looking for something, though, while I figure it out.” I sip my own coffee, willing the caffeine to work miracles.
“Have I told you I'm proud of you yet?” she teases.
“Only about fifty times,” I reply, a small genuine smile pulling at my lips.
We walk down the strip of storefronts, looking in windows and talking about nothing important. It feels good to just be with someone who doesn’t make me dissect every word. Every breath and look.
I'd still rather pull apart every syllable if it meant having a conversation with Bowen.
I've checked my phone two hundred times. Mom has pretended not to notice that, either.
By the time we get home there is a big SUV parked behind Dad's, and we can hear two voices on the back deck through the open kitchen window.
I haven't seen Tucker in two years, but unlike my parents, I haven't spoken to him either. There may have been a handful of texts. Birthdays. Christmas. But nothing more than a well wish, maybe an emoji.
I'm nervous when I'm led out onto the deck by my mom's hand on my arm. The smell of grilled hotdogs and burgers hits me first, then the look on Tucker's face.
Surprise! It's not a welcoming smile or teary hug. It's an up-nod and going back to the grill.
It shouldn't hurt as badly as it does. It's my own damn fault.
“Hey, Tuck,” I try anyway, offering a tired smile as I slide onto the patio sectional. Mom places a water bottle in front of me on the glass table.
Then she stands back, looking between her two sons like she wants to demand we play nice like she used to. But we're grown ass men now, and I didn't just hide his comic or steal his phone charger this time. I abandoned the family and didn't reach out. I pushed him away for years before that.
Tucker may not have been as close to Brett as I was, but they grew up close friends all the same. He lost Brett, too. He lost Bowen when he ran for the lake. He lost me. He's the last one here of the four of us, and my heart pangs in my chest for him.
“How are you?” I try harder, bunching the hoodie sleeves in my palms and squeezing the fabric. Tucker flips all the burgers before looking over at me.
“Good. You?”
Oh, you know, my ass is sore from being fucked by your old best friend yesterday. Three times. Remember him? Oh, you still talk? Hey, did he happen to text you today? Confess his undying love for me? Tell you to tell me that he wants me back at the lake right now? No? Bummer.
“Okay. I'm okay,” I say, wanting it to be true, but it feels like a lie. At least, not a total truth.
How could I be okay when the love of my life spat me out used and covered in what I thought were love bites.
Maybe it was punishment. Punishment for breaking his heart.
I rub my aching chest and clear my throat.
Calm the fuck down, and stop being a baby. Bowen is not a villain.
Tucker pulls his phone out of his pocket, checks the screen, and looks to shoot off a text before he looks back at me. He lets out a long, weary sigh before nodding once. Like he's gearing up for something he doesn't want to do.
Likely just talk to me.
That's when I realize that somehow, both of our parents have snuck inside. They're in the kitchen, pulling out condiments and setting out buns and chips. I narrow my eyes at them through the door before looking back at my big brother.
“I feel like this was a trap.”
“It was,” he agrees before choosing to sit on the furthest side of the seat from me.
He clears his throat and looks around, before his eyes make their way back to me.
His eyebrows hike up his forehead slowly, and he takes a snail's pace sip of water.
Hazel eyes just like mine look between my neck and face.
“I'm not a kid anymore, bro. You don't get to be weird about my sex life.”
He scrunches his nose. “Fuckin gross, man. I said nothing about sex.”
“It was implied with the look.”
“Well, it was implied with the sucker mark on your neck. Did you tell him we stopped doing that shit in high school?”
I didn't even start in high school.
“Move on,” I sigh, and he does too.
His phone beeps again, and he pulls it out swiftly. Anything to get him out of more conversation with me. By the time he looks back up, my head feels heavy, so I lean deeper in the cushion to rest it back.
“I'm going to propose to Delaney.”
That doesn't just chase away the lingering exhaustion. It absolutely annihilates it. I sit back up so swiftly my neck cracks.
“What now?”
He nods, takes another sip of water. “Tomorrow. It's our one year anniversary tomorrow, and I'm gonna ask her to marry me.”
I laugh, scrubbing my hands over my face. “Sorry, it sounded like you said Delaney.”
“I did.”
I blink. “Delaney… Von? Your best friend’s on again off again girlfriend?”
Tucker actually chuckles at this, like my insides aren't in a blender right now. “They've been strictly off since high-school, man. They're just friends. He gave me his blessing way before I had the balls to ask her out.”
But Ian said he went through a breakup.
But…Bowen said he went to the lake after the hospital and never left…
“But Delaney was there this morning…”
Tucker looks sideways and scratches his scruffy jaw. “Ah, yeah. She knew Dad was going to get you.”
My stomach revolts around the coffee. It squeezes like a vise.
“She wanted to, what? Make sure I left without making a scene?”
“She cares about him, Kit. If I didn't need to be here tonight, I would have been there, too.”
Because Bowen ran, but he didn't abandon. He still let people love him. Still made friends. Still reached out for support. Except for me.
He didn't reach out.
Didn't call.
And still, he won't call. Won't text.
As quickly as it fled, the exhaustion breaks through the temporary dam to swamp me. I'm not sure I've ever been more tired in my life.
And angry.
He let me ask about Delaney. He let me think the worst.
He also looked at me confused every time I brought her up.
Because of course, I should know who my own brother is in love with. Who my brother has been dating for a whole year.
I barely taste my dinner. I nod when it's expected and force smiles for my parents. But I excuse myself as soon as I can with a hug and a happy birthday to my mom.
“Next year, I'm getting you double the gifts for being a terrible son this year. The last many years.”
She shakes her head, patting my cheek. “Nothing could beat you coming home. It's the best gift.”
I don't feel like a gift as I trudge up the stairs. I feel like a coward.
I isolated myself in a van for two years to gain some damn control over myself and my life. Yet I feel so out of control.
Out of touch.
And I'm pissed about it.
Part of me wants to fall into bed and let sleep take me for a while, just to get a break from my head.
The larger, louder part of my brain has me pacing my bedroom. Huffing like a mad cow, racking fingers through my hair and glaring at the photos of Bowen on my wall.
Why can’t he just tell me what he wants? Why can’t he reach out?
And why the fuck didn't I?
Tucker being with Delaney was the cherry on top of the emotional sundae life has been over the last two days. I'm about ready to screech “too many scoops!”
I don't know if it's annoyance with myself or Bowen that has me pulling my phone out of my pocket. Maybe it's the delirious exhaustion, but I swipe away from our empty text thread and hit call instead.
It rings three times before the line connects. Other than a sigh from the other end, it's quiet. There's something uniquely intimate about hearing him breathe in my ear over the phone. Which is bizarre, considering what we did yesterday. I'm fucking hopeless about him.
That pisses me off, too.
His silence is something I've been dealing with for years, and I can't take it right now.
“Say something,” I snap, pacing the same line back and forth.
“Tucker finally tell you?”
“Oh, you mean that he's been with Delaney for a year? Yeah, he did. I'm just wondering why the hell you didn't say something.” My voice turns to a hiss by the end. “You…you let me think…”
Bowen sighs again, and I can hear the soft rustle of fabric. I can't help but picture him in the sheets we shared last night.
“Kitten…”
“Don't call me that.” It's not about Tucker and Delaney. The vise wrapped and strangling my heart has absolutely nothing to do with them and everything to do with this morning. “Was the goal to hurt me?” My fingers throb from how hard I grip the phone.
“Jesus. What?”
“You heard me.”
“It pissed me off when you first brought her up. I couldn't believe you thought I would try something with your brother's girlfriend. Then I realized you didn't know, and that pissed me off too. But it wasn't my news to share, Kit. I told Tucker to tell—”