Chapter 22
“Hello?” a voice calls out from the living room, and the door slams shut. “I’m here.”
Tate’s head jerks back and his body tenses beneath my fingers. “Luna—”
“Did I forget to tell you?”
“Luna.”
“I thought I told you.” I try to play it cool even though I’m feeling so uncool, like flames are licking at my feet. “It’s not a big deal. I just figured you might need help moving the bathtub upstairs.”
You know how they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Well, ladies, gentlemen, theys, and thems, welcome to hell.
“Hey, you know you have chicks in your living room? Most people do that in the laundry room.” Silas walks into the kitchen and the smile falls off his face the second his eyes land on his brother. “Tate.”
Tate nods his chin. “Silas.”
“Hi! Thank you so much for coming!” My voice is about five octaves too high, but it does nothing to detract from the irritation vibrating off the brothers. “I’m no help when it comes to physical labor, so I really appreciate it and so does Tate. Right, Tate?”
Is this overstepping of the most egregious form?
Who’s to say? But what else was I supposed to do?
It felt like a crime to sit idly by while these literal twin brothers let their relationship continue to erode over what I really think is just a big miscommunication.
The codependent fixer in me had to try something.
“I have it covered.” Tate doesn’t even attempt to play along. If there was a way to discreetly kick him, I would. “You can go back to the ranch. I’m sure Dad has something for you to do.”
“Here we go.” Silas’s kind eyes go hard and his mouth is set in a firm line instead of the easy smile always gracing his handsome face. “Couldn’t even say hi before you started, huh?”
Tate shrugs his broad shoulders. “I don’t see the point in pretending, but then again, I’ve never been as good at the bullshit as you are.”
Silas takes a step toward Tate. “You’re such an—”
“Whoa there, big fellas.” I slide in between them. My kitchen seems much too small and fragile for the three of us all of a sudden. I can practically feel the anger radiating off Tate behind me, and Silas doesn’t seem much happier. “How about everyone take a deep breath and calm down for a second?”
I was really hopeful we could solve this problem with words, not fists, but maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t the brightest idea in the world to invite these giant, feuding men into my house without anyone else to help break them up if—and more likely, when—they came to blows.
You live and you learn, I guess.
“I’m sorry, Luna.” Embarrassment crosses Silas’s face, and he deflates in front of me. “I shouldn’t have come. I knew this was going to happen.”
“Then why did you come?” Tate asks. “What was the point of this? Why do you insist on always doing shit you know you don’t want to fucking do?”
Silas’s jaw goes hard, and for a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer.
“Someone has to do the shit nobody else wants to do,” he finally says. “Not everyone can run off and forget about everyone else. Not everyone can ignore their responsibilities to chase every single selfish fucking whim that crosses their mind.”
Thanks to Ciara filling me in on some of the history, I know they’re not talking about my house anymore. Tate pulls me until my back is flush against his front and his fingertips dig into my hips, like touching me is the only thing keeping him from losing the final grip on his temper.
“You don’t think it’s selfish to blame all your problems on someone else?” Tate’s voice cracks and my heart breaks. “That it isn’t fucked up that you’re happy to throw away all your other relationships instead of owning that you might’ve made the wrong decision, but it was still yours to make?”
“You act like I had a choice,” Silas shoots back, his voice pure steel. “I made the only decision you left me with.”
It’s clear that both of these men are so deeply hurt by each other. Pain leaps off them with such ferocity that it almost knocks me to my knees. The love they have for each other is so loud. I can hear it fighting to break free, but it’s been buried beneath too much anger for much too long.
When crafting this plan, it probably would’ve been a good idea to mind my own business and not do it at all.
Then, after making the well-meaning but misguided decision to go through with it, I should’ve spent some time researching mediation techniques.
I’m not at all qualified for this, but it’s too late to turn back now.
“My mom died!” I yell out with no preamble or plan, and the energy in the room comes to a screeching halt.
“That’s why I moved here. She died and it was bad.
It was bad before she died. She was…” I’ve avoided talking about this for so long that even when I need them, the words won’t come.
“Our relationship wasn’t what I wanted it to be. It was toxic.”
Tate and Silas both turn to face me. I can feel their eyes on me, but I can’t bring myself to meet their gazes. I can’t stomach seeing the looks of pity, or worse, disgust, staring back at me.
“You only have one mom, and she only had me. She sacrificed everything. It was my duty as her daughter to stand by her or else she’d be all alone.
” The well-meaning words I’ve heard so many times over the years come tumbling out, and my face burns with the shame I thought I’d learned to live with.
“It didn’t matter that the last three years were like living in hell.
Nobody cared that I had to sit by, watching as her pale skin turned yellow and she disappeared with every passing day.
Nobody cared that she had become such a stranger to me that when she died, the first thing I felt wasn’t sadness, it was relief. ”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. It’s been months since she’s been gone, but the guilt at vocalizing the secret I was prepared to keep forever is so strong, I nearly choke.
“Luna.” Tate’s whispered voice in my ear is like a comfort I don’t deserve. “I’m so sorry.”
I turn away from him, accidentally looking up and catching a glimpse of Silas’s soft, concerned eyes watching me as if I’m about to break.
“No.” I shake my head and try to infuse my voice with strength I don’t quite feel. “I’m not telling you this because I want you to feel sorry for me.”
“We don’t—” Silas starts, but I cut him off.
If I don’t get this out now, I never will.
“The only reason I’m telling you this is so that you know I’m not one of those people who thinks you have to forgive someone because they’re family.
I should have gone noncontact with my mom years ago, and I regret that I didn’t every single day.
If I had stepped away, maybe she would’ve stepped up and learned to take care of herself, or maybe she wouldn’t have and things would’ve ended the same.
Just like if my dad would’ve, he might still be alive.
But either way, I wouldn’t have had to watch.
I wouldn’t be sorting through so much anger and resentment that it keeps me up all night.
Nobody deserves a place in your life if they don’t respect you and your boundaries, and toxic is toxic whether you share genetics or not.
” My voice is shaking, and I don’t know how they’re going to receive this, but I’ve come too far to stop now.
I steel my spine with determination and meet their worried gazes head-on. “But that’s not what I see here.”
Tate’s fingers flex into my hips, and he hisses out a sharp breath at the exact same time as Silas.
“It might be hard to tell, considering how we ended up here, but I know it’s not my place to meddle.
I’m new. I wasn’t around to witness everything that happened between you two, but maybe that’s why I seem to be the only person who sees how much you care about each other,” I say, and when neither of them yell at me or run away, it’s all the encouragement I need to keep going.
“I’ll never know the full scope of what happened between the two of you, but Ciara did fill me in on some of it.
You can both tell me to go to hell, although, actually?
Please don’t. I don’t employ the dead mom card often, but I’m feeling very emotionally raw, and that might send me over the edge. You can yell at me later.”
“We aren’t going to yell at you, Luna,” Silas says, and Tate nods his head in agreement.
I think it might be the first time I’ve ever seen them agree on anything. My plan might be working!
“Thank you,” I say and get back on track.
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think you guys are mad at each other.
I think you’re mad at your dad, maybe even your mom, and as a person who’s been forced to deal with very uncomfortable feelings about a parent, I think it’s easier for you to take your anger out on each other instead of them. ”
My labored breathing cuts through the heavy silence hanging in the air as I wait for them to say something.
Silas’s eyes drift over my head, and I watch in adept fascination as a thousand thoughts cross his face and millions of unspoken words pass between him and Tate.
It’s like after years of being offline, their twin connection has finally found its signal.
“Fuck.” Tate’s hoarse voice is thick with emotion.
“Yeah.” Silas nods. “That pretty much sums up my feelings too.”
It’s not an undying pledge of their love or a solemn vow to never be angry with each other ever again, but it’s a start. I’ll take it.
“Ciara’s going to hold it over our heads for the next twenty years if we figure this out, isn’t she?” Tate poses it as a question, but everyone in the room knows it’s a fact.
The corners of Silas’s mouth tip upward, and the knots I didn’t even know were in my stomach start to loosen. “She’s going to be insufferable.”
If I hadn’t already pushed every limit known to mankind, I’d consider mentioning what Ciara told me about wanting to work Starlight Ridge, but I have, so I keep my mouth closed, and revel in my hard-earned victory instead.
“Listen,” Tate says, and there’s a weariness in his voice I haven’t heard before. “I know we have a lot to talk about, but I want you to know that I’m sorry about the ranch, and I appreciate you for doing it.”
That twin connection flickers again, and something passes between them that I’ll never know.
“Thank you,” Silas says. “When the time comes for us to talk to dad, you can pay me back by going first.”
“Bet.” Tate laughs and slaps Silas’s hand before pulling him in for that bro hug all men seem programmed with. “I can do that.”
“Well!” I clap my hands together, very pleased with not only the progress they’ve made, but myself. “Now that all that’s out of the way, what do you think about the two of you using your big, strong muscles to carry my bathtub up the stairs?”
Silas rolls his shoulders and stretches his arms. “I was kind of hoping you forgot about that part.”
“Why?” Tate asks. “Afraid your big brother is going to show you up?”
“You’re two minutes older than me,” Silas says, and the way he does it tells me this isn’t the first time they’ve had this argument. “That hardly means you’re bigger than me.”
“Maybe,” Tate says. “But these two inches I have on you do.”
“Luna!” Silas turns and looks at me with what I think is supposed to be a serious expression on his face. “Your boyfriend is being mean to me.”
If the dirty looks I’m getting from more than a few women here tell me anything, it’s that not everyone wants me to feel like a real Celestialian. I appreciate the gesture, though.
“Am not.” There’s a sparkle in Tate’s onyx eyes when he looks at me. “Don’t listen to him. I’m stating facts, and facts aren’t mean.”
“The brotherly ribbing is cute and all, but don’t you both have something to do that’s a little more important right now?
” I try to sound annoyed, but it’s a colossal failure.
I’m too busy trying to ignore the giddy feeling rising from my toes after hearing Silas call me Tate’s girlfriend and Tate not object.
“Sorry,” they say at the same time, and then, when they finally get to work, they do it laughing.
I’ve learned enough about pipes and bathtubs to know it’s best if I stay out of their way.
The only thing I’ll do is slow them down, and the faster they work, the faster I can get to soak in the bath salts I’ve been dying to use.
But every so often, when my curiosity gets the best of me, I peek around the corner and catch a glimpse of Tate’s smile as he works side by side with his brother. It’s perfect.
Later that night, long after they’re gone and my fingers have turned into prunes from soaking in the bathtub that is every bit as wonderful as I dreamt it would be, I can’t help but think that maybe, despite my historically horrendous luck, I finally hit the lottery.
A man who’s gorgeous and knows how to fix a pipe? The only thing that could make him any better is if he knows how to lay it. And if by some miracle my luck continues in this way, hopefully I’ll discover he delivers on that promise too.