Chapter 22 Braxton
Braxton
Ipress the bag of soggy peas to my face, my head resting against the back of Nick’s couch. “You should take up boxing.”
Across the room, he hums thoughtfully. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“My face begs to differ.”
I pull the vegetables away long enough to catch his grimace, but he’s already apologized more than once for decking me.
Nick got turned around on his way to the bathroom, which meant he caught sight of Paisley landing one on me.
He read the situation all wrong, reacting before he realized what was actually going on.
He also explained that he hadn’t hit me for Paisley, but for Gracie, hating that I was once again hurting her. I don’t blame him for that either.
“So, Gracie asks you not to spend time alone with Paisley, and you did it anyway,” Nick’s recounting now. “Why?”
I sigh. “She’s your sister. Our families are close. I convinced myself that Gracie would move on from Thanksgiving.” I pause. “Paisley turned up at the station, upset, claiming she just wanted to be friends, and I believed her.”
Nick’s scoff tells me exactly what he thinks about that. “Paisley has always been single-minded. She can be kind—generous even—but she has tunnel-vision when it comes to herself. She starts seeing people as obstacles to her goals, their feelings irrelevant if they interfere with what she wants.”
“I see that now,” I murmur, thinking of the way she turned up at my place after Christmas, her expression full of disbelief when I told her to kick rocks.
I drop the peas onto the floor beside me with a wet splat, picking my coffee up from the side table and swallowing the hot liquid. Across from me in an armchair, Nick is nursing his own cup, his expression contemplative.
“There’s some stuff I never told you about Paisley,” he says after a long moment. “I told you she didn’t want to come home from college because she was too busy partying, and that was probably part of it. For her first year, it definitely was. But—”
“Spit it out,” I grunt.
“She ended up in a relationship,” he blurts. “I didn’t think you’d want to hear about it, especially with the way she iced you out—”
I roll my eyes, ignoring the way it makes my eyeballs throb in the sockets. “I don’t even fucking like Paisley right now, and I definitely don’t have any kind of feelings for her except being pissed off. I haven’t had feelings for her in years.”
“You didn’t date,” he points out. “Not seriously.”
“I was focused on my job and living off caffeine. There wasn’t time to date.” I pause before admitting, “And no one even tempted me like that. Not until—”
“Gracie,” he supplies. “Right.”
“Look, I’m not saying there wasn’t a part of me that was gutted about what happened with Paisley.
It was the first time my feelings felt real, you know?
I thought I loved her, Nick. And she…” I blow out a breath, and my lip stings.
I test it with my tongue, finding a split in my lip where my teeth must’ve caught it.
“Paisley cut me out of her life”—I slice a hand through the air to demonstrate—“and it fucking hurt, but not because of her turning me down.” At Nick’s dubious look, my lips tip up.
“Okay, there was a small element of a bruised ego. But we were friends, Nick. She was family to me, man, and she ghosted me like I was nothing. Ran across the country and never fucking spoke to me again.”
“She’s an asshole,” Nick mutters. “Okay, fine. No feelings for her. But I was caught in the middle, and I didn’t know how to protect both of you at the same time. Because as much as Paisley is an asshole, she’s my sister, you know?”
I throw my arms out wide. “If anyone needs goddamn protecting, it’s me.”
He groans. “I know, okay? Theo read me the riot act after you hit the deck, along with several other people coming to your defense.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Paisley’s relationship crashed and burned around the time she graduated.”
I’m staring down at the peas on the floor, a watery puddle surrounding the packet. “Most people binge crap TV and eat junk food when they split up with someone,” I say.
“They were together for about three years, but the relationship was apparently pretty toxic.” I hear his swallow from here. “She was dating one of her professors.”
I look up at that, eyes wide with shock. “Seriously?”
The muscles in Nick’s jaw bunch. “Paisley told me last year, but that’s not all.” He scrapes a hand through his hair, and I swear I can hear him grinding his teeth. “The guy is about twenty years older than her, and…Fuck. Braxton, he’s married.”
I gape at him. “So, what? He dumped her for his wife, so she went after the next safest bet?” I shake my head, ignoring the pain that shoots through it. “That’s crazy.”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “She won’t talk much about it, but I’ve never seen her so lost before.”
Anger surges so hard and fast that it steals my breath. “You’re not gonna make me feel sorry for her, man.”
“That’s not—” Nick slumps back in his seat with a sigh. “I know.”
A quick glance at the clock shows that half the morning is gone, and urgency starts creeping down my spine. “I need to go talk to Gracie,” I say, standing. “I should have tried harder to find her last night. There was no way she was going to come to Benson’s. It was too public, too many people.”
Nick watches me cautiously. “Your phone is in the kitchen on charge. I turned it on earlier, and you had a few missed calls.” At the look on my face, he shakes his head. “Not Gracie. Mostly your mom.”
I pause. “Shit. That’s not good.” He grimaces in agreement. “I’ll call her after I see Gracie. I need to talk to her before anyone else does.”
“You look like shit,” he observes, and I glower at him.
“Can I borrow your truck?”
He heaves himself upright with a sigh, stomping into the kitchen.
He’s back seconds later, dropping the keys and my phone into my hands.
I watch him for a beat. “I’m sorry you’re in the middle.
Paisley is your sister, and I know if this kind of shit was going down with Analise…
” I trail off before adding, “If you feel like you need to take a step back, I understand.”
His expression darkens, but he doesn’t look away.
“I love my sister, but that doesn’t mean I have to like her or what she’s doing.
Just like I don’t really like how you’ve handled this situation, either.
” He crosses his arms over his chest. “But we’re square, man.
I can’t even be mad at you when you look this pathetic.
” I tip my head back with a groan, making him chuckle, but then he tells me seriously, “I don’t need to take a step back, but I might punch you again if you don’t wise up and start treating Gracie better.
She’s the real victim in all this.” He looks away, mouth working.
“I hate that my sister added onto the shit that Gracie’s already dealing with. ”
“You aren’t responsible for Paisley,” I rasp, regret clogging up my throat, because I added more onto Gracie’s shoulders than anyone else could. “And nothing Paisley did would have hurt Gracie if it wasn't for me.”
Nick nods, eyes coming back to mine. “We’re responsible for ourselves and the choices we make,” he says meaningfully. “We all saw you struggling, but you chose to lock us out.”
“I know,” I murmur. “I’m going back to Ashland in three days for another appointment with the counselor. And I was thinking of sitting down with Dad and Monroe—get some suggestions from them on how to handle this all better.”
Nick nods. “Good. You should talk to your mom, too.”
I send him a bemused frown. “Why’s that?”
He huffs out a laugh. “You’re a moron. You think she knew what she was getting into when she married your dad?
” He lifts a brow. “The reason your mom was able to understand everything that weighed your dad down is that she lived the life for years. Once upon a time, she was just like Gracie, doing her best to understand and having no real idea of how to help. But she learned, same as your dad.”
“I didn’t even give Gracie a chance.” The truth spills from my lips without any forethought—more honest than I’ve been in a while.
“No, you didn’t. And now, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle.” Nick reaches out to slap my shoulder—hard. “And it’s gonna be fun to watch you stumble.”
As I pull up outside Gracie’s duplex, my head is still throbbing like a bitch despite the Tylenol that Nick pressed into my hands before I left, and my mouth feels like I’ve been sucking on cotton.
I rap my fist against her apartment door because it doesn’t feel right to use my key right now, but the house is silent.
I knock again, just in case, but after several minutes, I accept that she’s not home. There are only so many places she could be, and the florist is closed today, so I head over to Bridget’s place—a small bungalow on the other side of town.
The front door opens before I’ve even reached the bottom step, and Bridget steps out, glaring daggers down at me. “What the hell are you doing here?” she snaps, and I can practically see the smoke steaming from her flared nostrils.
“I’m looking for Gracie.”
“And if she wanted you to know where she was, she would have told you.”
The temptation to pull my phone out and check rises, even though I know there’s not a single call or message waiting for me.
“I need to talk to her,” I say, keeping my tone calm and nonconfrontational. “I’ve been by her place and—”
“She’s not here,” Bridget barks. “And even if she was, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.” She whirls around and stomps back inside, slamming her front door so hard that the windows beside it rattle.
I suck on a tooth as I backtrack to the truck, each minute that passes sending more and more dread surging through my bloodstream. I’ve got a bad fucking feeling.
I pull up outside my parents’ house and jog up the path to the front steps. The street is quiet, everyone probably relaxing after ringing in the New Year.