“It’s happened before?”
I shrug, muscles tensed. “Whenever I see them, they like to play rough, so whatever…”
“Which brother?” Fury flames his voice.
I lift my head. Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry. My chin quakes. “All of them.”
My voice splinters.
Lo blinks something back, his eyes reddened, and so softly, so quietly, he tells me, “I’m not going to let them hurt you anymore.”
Fuck.
Those words just collide into me. I try to cover my shattering face. Palms to my eyes. I slide off the counter, attempting to stand, but my legs buckle underneath me.
Fuck.
My back slips down the cabinets until my ass hits the floor, and I bury my forehead into my bent knees.
I’m not going to let them hurt you anymore.
His first instinct is to protect me. No hesitation, no second thought that maybe I don’t deserve protection.
Maybe I am the sensitive little brother. Having Loren Hale know about my issues at home is this giant, scary thing. It’s why I’m trembling, and I can’t fucking stop. My ears ring.
Lo is seven years older than me. One year older than Davis, my eldest brother. And there are days…weeks, months that I wished I had Willow’s family instead of my own. But I can’t trade them in—that’s not how blood works, right?
And I’m just stuck here, wanting out. God, I want out. I sniff hard and wipe my nose with the sleeve of my hoodie.
Without lifting my head, I sense Lo kneeling beside me. “Does Willow know?” he asks.
I nod, still looking down. Strands of hair stick to my wet eyelashes. I’m afraid they’ll blame her for withholding information. They shouldn’t.
It’s all on me. I’ve been evading the whole truth. Omitted shit. And she’s been here for me so much already.
I choke out, “It’s not her fault…for not telling anyone. She thought it stopped. It did…for a while, but when I went back for Christmas break, they were all there…” I blink back the most recent encounter, spilt soil and a collision into wooden shelves. I shudder and exhale a sharp breath. “Forget it. Forget I said anything.”
Lo’s voice grows even quieter. “Will you stay at my place, at least until Willow comes back?”
My body solidifies. He’s not serious. Does he even know what he’s offering? I’m…me. And Willow isn’t coming back to Philly anytime soon. She just completed her first semester at Wakefield.
“That’s years.”
“So?”
I glance up from my knees. Unblinking. My eyes sting, and Lo stares at me with assured intensity, like he means every word he’s saying.
I don’t think he understands the enormity of his offer. I’m the kid that vandalized his house three years ago. I shouldn’t be living in his home. But here he is, passing out second and third and fourth chances like they grow endlessly on trees.
But I know Loren Hale better now than I did three years ago. In reality, second chances don’t exist with him. You hurt him and he cuts you off at the knees. Why I’m the exception to that, I don’t know.
Maybe I never will.
I have to think about this logically. Where I go will affect the one person I love most in this world. I think about my girl.
“Willow could break up with me by then,” I remind Lo. After the shit I pulled in London, I’m sure that day is coming.
“You’d still be a part of this family.” He gestures in a circle. “I wouldn’t kick you out because of it.”
I’m bowled over again. It’s harder to breathe, but for a different reason. My eyes burn, and I impulsively shove against his offer. “I have an apartment in Philly.”
“You live alone.” He pauses and then gives me a once-over. “I’m going to be blunt like my brother. You look like shit. You’re a little gaunt, and man, you smell like you’ve been spraying cologne instead of showering.”
“I’ve been busy,” I snap, not wanting that pity. “I have a job, and it’s the only thing that keeps me from…”
“From what?”
I shrug, and then it just pours out of me. “From feeling like a stupid loser. Like I have no purpose, alright?” I hold back tears. “I have something outside of waiting for a girl. I have something…and I need to put time in it. I shouldn’t even be here. I should be working—”
“Hear me out,” Lo cuts me off just as my voice cracks. “I have this little kid who’s a big pain in my ass because he keeps begging for a sibling. Every day I have to hear, ‘but Jane has two brothers’ and if he just saw you in the house, he’d be happy. But most importantly, you’d save my goddamn eardrums.”
I let out a short laugh. “The important things.”
“Damn right.”
I pinch my eyes. “Stop crying,” I mutter under my breath. Why can’t I stop?
“I get it.”
“Do you?” I snap.
“Your brothers call you a pussy for crying? They tell you you’re not a real man—suck it up, Garrison. What are you, a little pussy, a little girl? What kind of goddamn man are you?”
My mouth falls open, shock stinging me. I almost look around for Ryke. There’s no way Ryke could have said that shit to Lo. But I can’t locate Lo’s older brother because the cabinets block my view from the living room.
Lo follows my gaze, and he must register who I’m trying to find. “It wasn’t my brother who told me to just stop fucking crying.” His jaw tightens.
I frown. “Who?”
“My father.”
I ice over. Jonathan Hale is Willow’s dad, too. And she didn’t grow up with the man, but he’s a part of her life now.
Regardless of that, I hear what Lo is saying. All this time, I’ve been the exception to Lo’s cut-throat attitude.
Neither of us knew each other’s histories, but I think deep down, we both always sensed that parts of us were the same.
The broken parts.
Maybe he’s just healed before I’ve gotten the chance to. Maybe I won’t be able to. Maybe this is it for me, you know? I’m going to live forever with this thing inside of me, bearing down on all that I am. And it fucking hurts. It just hurts.
I keep rubbing at my face, the tears not ceasing. Please, just stop. My body is warring with what I want. Stop crying. Stop crying. Goddammit, stop fucking crying.
My sleeves are soaked, and Lo scoots nearer. “You’ll be okay,” he breathes. “You won’t see it today, maybe not even tomorrow, but one day, you’ll wake up and you’ll want to live.”
I choke back a sob. What he’s saying seems more like a dream not made for me. I shut my eyes and open them. “Are you sure?”
“I’m goddamn sure. Look at me…”
It takes me a second to raise my head, hair still falling over my eyes, shielding me like armor.
Lo says deeply, “One day at a time. Can you do that with me?”
My throat swells. Lights in the kitchen are harsh on my sensitive, swollen eyes. One day at time. I’d reject that fantasy under different stipulations. I’m not made to be by myself. Not wired that way.
And that’s okay, I think.
Because he’s not just saying one day at a time. It’s one day at a time with him.
With someone.
Not alone.
Okay.
Okay.
Quiet stretches around us, Loren just sitting by and waiting for me to collect my thoughts. I can do this. I can accept something good for my life. Nodding repeatedly, I finally make my decision. But I still have one last thing left that connects me to my family. One thing left to claim and then I can cut ties completely.
I glance to Lo. “…will you do something for me, if I move in with you?” My stomach twists, not wanting to ask too much, but needing this.
“Yeah.”
My face scrunches at his lack of hesitation. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I want you to kill someone,” I deadpan. It’s a bad at
tempt at humor. But he’s the one who’s blindly trusting me. No questions asked.
Lo glares. “You joke, but have you met me?”
I narrow my eyes. Look, I don’t know what he’s capable of. Just like I don’t try to think about what I could do. I take a breath before speaking, not wanting my explanation to come out dry and sarcastic. “Two days ago, I told my brothers that I’d never see them again. I don’t know whether they believed me. They rarely take anything I say seriously, but I told them. I just don’t want to talk or see them ever.” I swallow hard, my throat raw. “So two days ago…I also left my parent’s house in a hurry and accidentally forgot one of my hard drives there.”
“You want me to get it for you?”
“Yeah…but just don’t…” I take a deep breath.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t hurt them. Alright. I know it sounds stupid as fuck, but they’re still my brothers. Even if I never see them again, I just don’t…just don’t do it.” There’ve been plenty of times where I’ve wished Hunter dead.
Where I envisioned my fist pounding his face.
But at the end of it all, I don’t want a single living soul to feel the pain that I’ve felt.
Not even them.
I just want it to stop.
“I won’t,” he says, and after everything, I believe him. “Give me your phone. I’ll go get your hard drive now.”
I pass him my cell.
“What about your parents?” Lo asks. “Do they know?”
Goosebumps crawl along my arms, cold all of a sudden, but it’s easier to talk. “I’ve told my mom, but she just says it’s boys being boys…” I pause. “And my dad likes Davis the best. They don’t care about anything except making money, and ever since I got a job with Cobalt Inc., they stopped hounding me about ‘doing something with my life.’ If I never checked in, never returned their calls, they’d just think I was too busy for them, and they’d probably be proud.”
“Huh,” he says, frowning. “They sound like dicks.”
I choke out a laugh. “Yeah, they are.”
He scrolls through my contacts. I have shit emojis next to each of my brother’s names, which Lo can definitely see. His lips pull down, and I’m just glad that I didn’t have to paint vivid portraits of all the crap they’ve done over the years for Lo to believe me.
He just did.
With our backs to the cabinets, he presses the phone to his ear, so I can’t hear. It’s better that way.
Lo’s eyes flit to me. “Will they answer?”
I nod. “And miss an opportunity to pick on me?”
He glares off in the distance. My knees bounce a little, watching him. Waiting.
Someone must answer because Lo says, “This is Loren Hale, from down the street.” He pauses and then says, “Garrison left his hard drive at your parent’s place. He really needs it soon. Can you swing by and drop it in my mailbox?”
That’s a good idea—better. That way Lo doesn’t even have to confront them. Weight releases off my taut shoulders in an instant. Pressure evaporating from my chest, and I breathe easier and lean back with less tension.
Lo cups a hand over the cell and looks to me. “Where’s the thing?”
“Basement table.”
He puts the phone back to his ear. “Basement table.” There’s a long silence, and I don’t know if one of my brothers is talking or if it’s just dead quiet on the line.
Truth: I don’t care.
I’m just glad I’m not the one with the phone in my hand.
“Do you want to say something?” Lo asks my brother.
I pick at the ripped hole in my jeans. They want to talk to me? My stomach twists again. Stop.
“Yep,” Lo says on the phone, grinding his teeth. Like he tries not to lash out. He’d probably eviscerate my brothers with his words if I wasn’t sitting here. But I think he’s trying to be nonconfrontational…for me.
That means something.
Lo’s eyes redden, and his glare intensifies on the cupboards. “Sure.” He hangs up and lets out a heavy breath he’d been caging. He tosses me the phone.
“What’d he say?” I ask.
“He’ll drop it in my mailbox. He’s sorry, and he thinks you never speaking to all of them is a good idea.” Lo shakes his head, confusion cinching his brows. Maybe he’s wondering how easily my brother could let me go. But I get it.
I know.
“You called Mitchell, didn’t you?” It’s the only thing that makes sense. I remember the look Mitchell had in the greenhouse, right before I left. How he was staring faraway. Like something clicked in his head.
He’s sorry.
I rub my dripping nose.
Letting me go is Mitchell’s way of protecting me from our other two brothers.
“What is he—the nice one?” Lo asks.
“Mitchell could’ve stopped them,” I mutter. He’s closest in age to me. Two years older. “He never did. Does that make him nice?” I shake my head. “…I don’t know. I never stopped my friends from breaking into your house. I never stopped myself from pranking you. We’re all the same. We’re all shit.” He needs to remember who he’s inviting into his home. I’m not a good guy. Doesn’t he remember?
Lo leans forward, and with utter conviction, he says, “This guy in front of me isn’t shit, and I’ll still be here when you finally believe it too.”
I inhale like I haven’t taken a full breath in all my life.
I was wrong about my family—how I can’t trade them in.
They may be blood, but they’re not mine anymore.
I can choose my family. Lo gave me that option.
And I choose this one.
4 PRESENT DAY – January
London, England
WILLOW HALE
Age 20
“Lo told me I could pick any room in the house that I wanted with one exception,” Garrison explains as he folds clothes into a new dresser. I watch him on Skype. Boxes surround him, and computer monitors and cords litter the queen-sized bed.
Before he officially accepted Lo’s offer, he called to ask if the whole thing was a bad idea. He wanted to make sure that I was on board.
My boyfriend moving into my brother’s house.
In Garrison’s words: “If you become unhappy in our relationship and this makes it harder for you to break up with me—then I won’t do it.”
He’s always thinking about me, in most everything. Even in some strange reality where I’d break up with him, he thinks about me. By the way, that’s a reality that I refuse to believe will ever come true.
During the same phone call, Garrison spilled everything about his brothers. How they hurt him during the holidays and then again in the greenhouse. How his mom did nothing.
It gutted me, but I tried to stay strong over the line for him. Towards the end, we were both crying. I wish I could’ve been there.
With him.
His drunken anger in London made more sense, and guilt gnawed at me for not flying home with him that night. Garrison said he wouldn’t have wanted me to, but I’ll regret it forever.
“I regret a lot,” I told him on the phone, wiping at my tears. “I could’ve confronted your mom or told Lo sooner—”
“No,” Garrison forced out. “We were teenagers.”
“I’m not a teenager anymore.”
I could hear his tears and cracking voice. “What happened isn’t on you, Willow. You left everything you knew to come to Philly. And you came here to meet your brother. Saving me wasn’t your job. It’s mine. And you know how many times I wanted to confront your mom but never did?”
He’s been pissed about how easily she’s erased me from her life.
“She’s thousands of miles away in Maine,” I said in quiet protest. “Your mom lives down the street.”
“So what? I could’ve flown there. I have money.”
I felt terrible for making this about me. “I’m sorry.” I grimaced at the apology, hearing my
best friend Daisy telling me not to apologize for my feelings. Even though it’s hard. I sniffed back emotion and loosened my grip on the phone. “Sometimes I think that I’m a nonentity in so many people’s lives—shy, timid Willow Hale,” I whispered, “and I’m afraid of being a nonentity in yours.” He’s my guy, my only love, and it’s terrifying to think that I could be this invisible shadow to the person who’s been my everything.
“You’ve never been a nonentity to me, Willow,” Garrison breathed. “From the first time we touched, you became my world and safe place. I’m so in love with you that my heart feels like it’s being ripped to shreds just knowing you’re sad, and I’m stuck here, sitting on this crappy floor. Wishing I could hug you.”
I was sitting on the floor too. I told him that.
We laughed softly. Sadly.
I hugged my arm around my body, pretending that Garrison was with me. “Don’t push me too far away that I can’t ever reach you again, okay?”
“Okay.” We listened to our breath over the line for a while. It sounds creepier than cute, but it felt…calming. To hear him ease and our tears dry.
So that was the phone call.
A big one.
All I can do is think about now.
How he’s moving into my brother’s house, and we’re currently on a Skype call.
This move is a great thing for him. He’ll be surrounded by people who care about him and love him. Happy doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling.
I’ve been grinning so much these past couple days that my cheeks hurt.
“Which room did you pick?” I ask Garrison. Back on Skype, I squint at my computer screen, trying to decipher which room he chose in the big eight-bedroom Hale house.
At one time, over half of the rooms were occupied. Way back when Lily, Loren, Ryke, Daisy, Connor, Rose, and I all lived under the same roof. Hard to believe that happened at all—but it did.
Now that it’s just Lily and Loren and their three-year-old son, it must be a quieter house.
“I almost picked Ryke and Daisy’s old room,” Garrison tells me. “But then Lo said that I wasn’t allowed because it’s the smallest guest room in the house and I’m not permitted to do that to myself out of guilt.”
Wherever You Are (Bad Reputation Duet Book 2) Page 4