Bros Before Betrayal #2
It came at a shit time. As much as I loved the ranch, I might need to take some time off and dedicate some time to help Shepard Farm and Buddy.
At the very least, I was going to need to split my time.
I wasn’t going to bring it up now, not in front of everyone.
I’d speak to my mom and brothers later, in private.
I knew they’d give me a little shit, at least my brothers would, but they’d understand.
I was so lost in my own head that I barely registered when the meeting adjourned. Damon gave his usual closing speech—full of “action items” and “takeaways” and “synergy” bullshit—and then everyone stood, stretched, and began the typical post-meeting shuffle toward the doors.
As I stepped out and headed for the stables, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from Gio. Actually, it was around the sixth text from Gio I’d received over the past few days. The first had shown up shortly after he’d taken Sadie to the Cupid’s Arrow. I hadn’t answered any of them.
I thumbed the phone and read the latest.
Gio
Call me as soon as you can. It’s important.
I considered ignoring it, but I knew I’d needed to deal with it.
Whatever else he was, Gio had been my best friend for over twenty years, and if he wanted to talk, he probably had a good reason.
Probably. The memory of Sadie laughing at something Gio said played in my mind’s eye.
Irritation bubbled up inside of me as I shook my head and did my best to erase the image like an Etch A Sketch.
The day was gray and overcast, the kind of weather that made you want to go back to bed, but I was wide awake, heart pounding in my ribcage like something trying to bust free. I inhaled the cool, cedar-scented air. I made it halfway to the stables before I heard my name.
“Lockhart!” It was Gio, but his voice sounded more stressed than usual, less like the cocky smartass who’d once gotten us banned from the Bluewater Inn for setting off fireworks from the roof and more like the dumbass who almost missed taking his MCATs because he partied the night before and overslept.
The look on his face, the anxiety I saw there, made me wonder if I’d misjudged his reason for reaching out to me altogether. What if he wasn’t messaging me about him taking Sadie out for a drink? What if it was something more serious?
I stopped in my tracks. “Is Buddy okay?”
Gio nodded as he strode towards me. “What? Yeah he’s—”
“Giovani Russo! Are you making house calls now?” My mom appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, Minnie curled up in her arms. She looked at Gio with a mother’s x-ray vision.
Gio smiled and to anyone who didn’t know him well, it would look like a relaxed, casual grin. I could see the effort it took. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of this one and he wasn’t answering my messages.”
My mom’s eyebrows lifted as her eyes volleyed between us. “How’s Buddy?” she asked, her stare landing on Gio and pinning him like a searchlight.
“About as good as he can be, all things considered. They’re keeping him for observation, but he’s not cooperating. He keeps trying to escape.”
I nodded. That sounded like Buddy. I could almost hear him, demanding to be discharged so he could check on the irrigation pumps.
“Who’s this?”
“Minnie,” my mom and I chorused.
“Dawson rescued her,” my mom explained. “But she’s spending time with Grandma while she gets better.”
“Grandma?” Gio grinned as he glanced over at me.
I shrugged.
“Speaking of, how’s Nonna?” my mom asked.
“She’s feisty as ever.” Gio softened at the mention of his grandma who raised him.
“You give her my love.” She patted Gio on the arm.
“Will do,” Gio promised.
Mom gave me a knowing look, then headed back, talking baby talk to Minnie.
I watched her go, thinking again how she managed to keep four, now five adult sons, a husband, four dogs, two cats, over a hundred rescue animals, and seventy-eight employees in line with nothing more than guilt trips and a deeply honed sense of expectation.
Once she disappeared into the admin offices, Gio looked at me with the kind of earnest, desperate intensity that made me want to look away. I didn’t. I braced for whatever was coming.
“Is this about Sadie?” I asked, sharper than I intended.
His eyes dropped to the ground. “You remember graduation night?”
I flinched. Of course I remembered. “Only every day of my life,” I answered. “What about it?”
“There’s something I never told you.” He took a deep breath and raked a hand through his hair. “Something I heard a couple weeks later from Jeremy Miller.”
Jeremy Miller? The little shit with the rat face and the rich dad who owned half the strip malls in three counties and whose uncle was the Sheriff, so he thought he could get away with murder. I’d hated that guy since kindergarten.
“What?”
Gio swallowed hard. “You remember how I worked construction the summer before I left for college, I was working with Miller and he talked a lot of shit. But one day at lunch he was bragging about how he drugged Donovan Valentine, or he tried to roofie him on grad night but someone else drank his beer.”
“Donovan?
He nodded. “Yeah, it was payback for Donovan breaking Jeremy’s jaw sophomore year. He dosed Donovan’s beer and was going to take compromising photos of him, but somehow the drinks got switched and you ended up drinking the dosed beer.”
The memories came at me in sharp bursts: drinking with Donovan and Gio, the way the lights swam in front of my eyes, the sense of being outside my own body, watching events unfold from underwater.
There were hours I still couldn’t account for.
Waking up in bed with Vicki feeling like I got ran over by a fucking truck.
“You’re saying I was drugged?”
He nodded. “That’s what I’m saying.”
I wanted to punch something, but all I could do was stare at the gravel at my feet, like if I just looked hard enough, I’d find the missing pieces of my life buried there. “And you’ve known all this time?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“At the time, I just, I don’t know, I told myself it wasn’t that big of a deal but looking back I think it was because I was always jealous of you, man.”
“Of me?” I had no clue what he was talking about. He got as many, if not more, girls than I did. We were always neck in neck in sports. He got better grades than me. He was accepted into medical school.
“Yeah, you had everything I ever wanted.”
“I did?” I had no clue what he was talking about.
“You had this.” He fanned out his arms. Gio’s voice fractured at the end, and he looked away, jaw clenched so hard a vein throbbed in his temple.
“You had the ranch, brothers, a mom and dad who loved you, a family. I love Nonna and Gen but…it’s not…
it wasn’t the same. Growing up, I was so jealous of you.
Your life seemed perfect to me. You had the girl, the family, the ranch, and I don’t know I guess I just, I was an asshole for not saying anything and I’m sorry.
I should’ve told you, D. I should’ve told you all those years ago, but, I thought telling you would somehow make you end up being the good guy again, and I was just sick of you getting everything you ever wanted. ”
The world stopped spinning. All the old rage and shame and heartbreak I’d buried for years—the bloodbath in my chest—came surging up like a tide, but beneath it was a sharp, stinging clarity.
There had always been holes in my memory from that night, a sense of having been played, but I’d written it off as blackout drinking and my own fucking stupidity.
I’d never once considered that I’d been set up.
That someone had targeted me, or not me, but the same result, and that one of my best friends had known about it and never said a word.
I wanted to punch him in his fucking face.
I wanted to hit at him for being a coward, for knowing the truth and letting me rot in it.
I wanted to walk away and never look back.
But most of all, I wanted to know why. Why now?
After all these years, after all the wreckage, why the confession? Why did he finally care?
I stared at him. “So why now? Why the fuck are you telling me now?”
“I saw you and Sadie at the bar that night, I realized something. You’re still carrying it.
All of it. And it’s not fucking fair.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I know you hate me right now, and I deserve it, but I needed you to know. I’m sorry.
I really am. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.
I’m sorry I envied you. And I’m sorry for every single thing I did to make it worse. ”
The air between us was thin enough to snap.
I looked at Gio and saw the kid I’d grown up with—the one who’d I’d had countless sleepovers with and who I’d learned to ride my bike with and had my first beer with—and I saw the man standing in front of me now, all his armor gone.
I had no idea what to say. Anger and grief and relief, all tangled together, caught in my throat.
I let the words settle. The pain was still there, hot as a dragon’s breath of flames, but it burned out the poison that had been eating me alive. Maybe this was just another trick, a way for Gio to clear his own conscience. But I wanted to believe him. More than anything, I wanted to let it go.
He held out his hand. “I’m sorry, man. Really.”
For a long time, I just stared at it. Then I took it. His grip was strong, anchoring, and when I let go, I realized I could breathe again.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. My voice was hoarse, but steady. “It means more than you think.”
Gio nodded, relief flooding his face. He started to say something else, but then just shrugged, like that was all there was left to say.
We stood there in the dirt, two broken idiots in the morning fog, and for the first time in a long time, the past felt like something I could finally put behind me, after I spoke to just one more person.