Chapter 25
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
HARLOW
Readying what I will need for my last client of the day, I double check my space to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. A throat clears and I already know who it is, which draws my brows down. Swiveling my head I look at my brother.
“I’m working.”
He nods. “Yeah, I’m your next client.”
Shaking my head. “No, you aren’t.”
“Well, I gave her my next slot with you and paid her a hundred bucks, so yeah, I am.” He offers me a sheepish look. “You have been avoiding me for two weeks.”
“You really want to talk about this here?” I motion around us.
“No. I was hoping that after we could grab something to eat or you could just take me out back and claw the shit out of me. Whatever you prefer.” We both fight the ticking of our lips to keep the smiles at bay. I roll my eyes.
“Fine. Are you taking her tattoo or are we back to work on the forearm?” I question mentally organizing what I need to change up.
“I’d prefer to do more work on my forearm, but if you feel the need to give me whatever she was working on with you, my guess is floral… then well… I’ll take what I get.” He shrugs.
“I’m not that mad at you. Well, I was, but not anymore. Now I just feel… hurt.” My eyes move over my inks, avoiding looking at my brother after that admission.
He takes the chair and neither of us speaks while I prep him and the station.
When I am about to get started his words reach me, but just barely, he speaks so quietly, “I love you, Hare. I want you to be able to tell me things. I feel real shit about the fact that you did exactly what I want you to do and then flew off the handle about it. I… I have no excuse. I am real fucking sorry.”
Our eyes meet and all of that fuzzy around the edges anger that was still working on dissipating just washes away.
The hurt lessens. I nod, trying to suck back the rush of feelings…
those pesky things that make my heart squeeze.
The ones that make me feel loved and included.
Feelings I am still learning how to deal with.
I decide to say it out loud because that is how Ricky and I figure out how to be our version of healthy siblings.
“Thank you.” I clear my throat, trying to clear the discomfort of my next words with it.
“I am not used to feeling like this. Anger and stuff, yeah. I mean the… reliant on others stuff. Like… ugh, this is really hard.” I press the needle down to give myself something else to focus on as I rip myself open and bleed.
“I promise I will be calm. I promise to listen,” he says just loud enough to be heard over the buzz of my needle.
My eyes flick up to his then back to his arm.
“Meeting Dad and you… coming here.” I let out a slow breath.
“It’s been a jolt to the system. I went from just having Roxy to having everything we have now.
It feels surreal sometimes. I know it’s steady, but everything in my life has felt unsteady for so long…
it’s like being on a boat all day and then you get off it and you are on solid ground, but you still feel like you’re rocking.
It’s just your head… trying to recalibrate, but it takes time. ”
He gives a light chuckle.
“Frankie has done a lot to get my head to recalibrate. I know we have only been doing this a short time, but…” I struggle to explain.
“But Frankie is Frankie and he has a way of bullying you into what’s good for you…
well… if he cares about you, then he’ll do it.
Everyone else he just lays the law down and if you don’t do it…
he will make you. I can see how effective he has been at making you accept it.
I’m a little jealous. How have I been unable to show you how much you mean to me?
You know? But Frankie can show you what you mean to him without breaking a damn sweat. ”
“Oh, trust me, you have the term bullying right. There may have been some shouting and shoving and telling me to shut up and”—I swallow hard— “and seeing his fear over how… how flippantly I have behaved regarding myself.”
“Tell me what exactly went down?” he asks carefully.
I nod slowly as I take a deep breath. He promises to not get too mad at me.
I walk him through the night, and I have to stop working on his arm at one point because his muscles have bunched so tight.
Our eyes meet and I can see that he is biting down anger, but what is really under it is exactly what was under Frankie’s, fear.
Ricky’s hands come up, cupping around my face. “Promise me?—”
I cut him off. “I will never pull anything like that ever again. Frankie was right, I have so many people on my team now. I swear Ricky. I swear. I will never do that again. I promise I will come to Frankie, to you, to Dad. I swear it.”
He works down a rough swallow, his head nodding as he blinks hard. “Okay. Thank you.” He clears his throat a little. “Tell me about high school? Your parents?”
My eyes flick off to the side not sure if I have it in me to tell my brother the things I let Frankie hear.
When my eyes move back, I see that this will do a lot to help Ricky know me, but more importantly it will help me let go.
I nod and the rest of our session is me quietly explaining what life was like.
When I explain that Bobby was the first person to tell me he loved me and I tried to chalk up my feelings to being childish and desperate, Ricky’s hand comes back up, holding my wrist until I pause the tattoo and look at him.
The pain I see in his face and his words that tell me that it was not childish, it was honest and gutting.
It puts something back together within me.
By the time we are done with the tattoo session and even go have dinner, I feel like I know my brother better. He isn’t just family—he is someone I can count on. I knew it before, but now I feel it.
Frankie slides into the booth we were in at the end of our meal, looking between us, he could see. He could see the shift that happened. When we get home, we have a quiet night, where he gives me space to process everything.
I fucking love that he seems to always know what I need.
The next morning, I hear the garbage truck and realize Frankie and I forgot to put the can out. “Shit. The trash!”
Frankie swings around from where he stands in the kitchen. “Fuck.”
He rushes off to do it and I follow after him. Both of us stand there staring down at our can sitting at the curb. Frankie looks back at me confused. A greeting is called out from the neighbor’s yard.
“Hey! Saw you forgot your cans, so I put them out when I got here!” We both stare blinking at Virus, standing beside his loaded-up truck in the neighbor’s driveway.
Frankie, barefoot, starts to walk back up the walkway toward me. “Bro, you parked in the wrong driveway. If that asshole catches you, he is going to bitch us both out.”
“Nah. I didn’t. Wouldn’t mind a hand unloading… I was thinking of calling your mom and asking her to help me pick out furniture. I like what she did with your place.”
Both of us stare over at Virus. I tilt my head as I remember the moving truck coming down the street a couple weeks ago. “Virus, did you buy the neighbor’s house?”
He grins real big. “Yup.”
“It wasn’t for sale,” Frankie puzzles.
“I knocked, made an offer, he sat on it for a week, then accepted. We closed a couple days ago. I had people in yesterday cleaning… didn’t notice?
I was thinking we could put a gate in our fence since I am guessing you don’t want it to come down…
privacy with your wife and all.” He beams as he moves across the lawn toward us.
“And now you can do what you wanted with the front yard! We can rip out the lawn fully and do all native plants.”
Frankie just stands there staring at Virus, surprise and confusion written all over his face while Virus looks so eager and happy. I can’t help it and burst into laughter. Hysterical laughter. Virus just beams at me.
“You really bought the house?”
“Sure did. I love this neighborhood. I love the backyard. I won’t be a dickhead like your prior neighbor either and I can save on gas not having to drive all the way from the clubhouse to get here.” He grins.
Frankie starts to chuckle. “Let me change and get some shoes, I’ll help you unload. We can call mom. She’ll take you shopping for a bed and mattress this afternoon. If you can’t get it here today—eh, Mom will make sure they get it here by end of day.”
Virus nods with a big smile. “Cool-cool. I am pretty pumped to be out of the clubhouse. I mean, I like it, the wifi is great there, but you know…”
“It gets loud,” Frankie fills in.
“Yeah.”
My eyes flick between them and for the first time I realize just how these two connect so well.
Frankie doesn’t like being alone, he just likes being around personalities that offer him peace.
Virus doesn’t like being surrounded by chaos, he likes being surrounded by people that enjoy his brand of sunshine.
They thrive in the same situations for different reasons.
We change and head over to Virus’s new place, stepping inside I look around. It is so much like Frankie’s place, tons of windows along the back, bright and open. I look over at Frankie when he comes in hauling a big box. “I like your place better…”
He frowns. “Our place. I assume you mean because it isn’t so bright.”
My lips twitch. It is our place, but I am still getting used to saying that. I love how he just feels this way so easily. “Yeah.”
Virus nods. “Yeah, I am going to put new cabinet doors on, I was thinking walnut and then black counters. I think that will help a lot. The dark wood floors are good, so at least there is that. Lots of paint and shit needs to happen.”
“I think most women prefer light and bright,” Jolt calls out from the front entry. “Congrats on the new place!”
“You knew?” Frankie grunts at Jolt.
Jolt shrugs around the box he carries.