Ruined

by Shiloh Walker

  “Sure.” He slid his mom a sidelong look.

  Denise Barnes smiled at him and nodded.

  Of course, she knew he was lying. He loved her all that much more for letting him have his dignity.

  A low laugh came from down the table and he turned his head, stared at Keelie and Zane. “I . . . uh . . . I think I’ll go offer them my . . . well . . .” He got up and moved down toward Zane. Zane, at least, didn’t make him feel like he was failing. Zane might know it. Hell, Sebastien knew it. But he didn’t need to see it in the faces of everybody staring back at him and Zane kept all that bottled up inside.

  When he sat down in front of his oldest brother, Zane lifted his head from Keelie’s ear and looked at him with a grin. It was a softer, easier smile than Sebastien normally associated with his brother, and something he thought he’d forgotten how to feel settled inside him.

  “Am I so out of touch that I missed everything about this wedding?” he asked, shooting for a smile. It worked, mostly.

  “No.” Zane looked amused, glancing up at his new wife. “It was a bet.”

  “A bet?” Sebastien looked from his brother to Keelie. “You two were already engaged, right? I’m not that out of touch.”

  “She’s talking about a bet with me.” Ressa leaned in, giving Sebastien an appraising look.

  He tried another smile, ready to get shot down.

  To his surprise, she smiled back. It wasn’t particularly warm, but she wasn’t shutting him out, either. “See, I told Blondie here that a wedding was a lot more work than she realized and if I wanted . . . What was the phrase you used, Keelie?”

  “I believe I said you were running around like a chicken with your head cut off—and you needed to have a glass of wine and chill out.” Keelie studied her manicure, a faint smile on her face.

  Ressa snorted. “Yeah, well, not all of us are Mrs. Moneybags.”

  “It’s Miss Moneybags,” Zane said, looking around her. “She’s the one with the money—I’m just marrying her for it. I’m spending the rest of my life as her sex slave.”

  Keelie and Ressa both laughed, while Zane’s mouth canted in his faint, familiar smile.

  “Better not let Mom hear you talking about being a sex slave,” Sebastien said.

  “If it gets me more grandkids, I don’t care if Keelie did make him promise to be her sex slave,” Denise said from behind Sebastien.

  He froze, his face flaming red and hot.

  Zane grinned at him while Keelie blushed.

  Ressa hooted, clearly amused.

  “I think you two were telling Sebastien about the bet?” Denise said, slipping into the vacant seat next to him.

  Sebastien darted a look at her from the corner of his eye.

  She was looking at Keelie as though everything was normal.

  Normal—he didn’t even know what normal was now.

  “Yeah.” Keelie shrugged and glanced over at Ressa. “Well, after I told Ressa how she looked with the chicken thing and all, she got a little snippy.”

  “I did not get snippy.” Ressa sniffed, looking put out. “I got bitchy, thank you.”

  “Oh, well. My mistake.” Keelie tipped her glass of champagne in acknowledgement. “And she told me if I thought it was so easy, maybe I should just get to planning my wedding. After all, I’d had an entire year. What was I waiting for? I told her I was being polite—waiting for her. I could get it done in a week if I wanted. And she dared me.”

  “Remind me to never do that again.” Ressa rolled her eyes. “I ended up having my bachelorette party here in Vegas.”

  “Hey.” Keelie pointed at her. “I flew your guests out here. Don’t tell me y’all didn’t have fun last night.”

  “Weeeellllllll . . .” Ressa winked at her.

  They both laughed.

  “So I’m here because of a bet,” Sebastien said.

  “You’re here because it’s family.”

  At his mother’s words, he looked over at her. He couldn’t avoid it any longer.

  She wasn’t smiling. There were tears in her eyes and the sight of them hit him like a punch. “Mom . . .”

  “Please, don’t.” She held up a hand and rose. “Weddings always make me emotional. Two of my boys now. Almost three.”

  As she hurried off, Sebastien forced himself to stand up. “I . . . uh . . . I’ll be back. I should go talk to her.”

  Chapter Four

  Sebastien found his mom standing out on the wide, extravagant balcony that faced most of the glittering sparkle of Las Vegas.

  She dabbed at her eyes.

  “Go back inside, baby. I’m fine.”

  “I’m not.” He shoved his hands inside his pockets and waited for her to turn and look at him.

  She did, but it was slow and Sebastien had the gut-wrenching feeling that his mother almost didn’t want to look at him.

  Her eyes were kind, though.

  “Sebastien, as soon as you decide you’re ready to be okay, you’ll get on that road soon enough.”

  He laughed and the sound was hollow enough to his own ears. “Is it really that simple? I just have to decide?”

  “As stubborn as you are?” Denise pursed her lips and pretended to mull it over. Then she nodded. “Yes.”

  She came to him then and reached up, cupping his cheek.

  He flinched as her thumb brushed against the scar but he didn’t pull away.

  “You haven’t had a drink since you got here.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “When was the last time you had one?”

  He flushed crimson. He didn’t even have to have a mirror on hand to know just how red his face was. He could feel the burn of it.

  “Well?”

  If he didn’t answer, she’d just continue to wait and it wasn’t like he’d turn his back on her. Not right now. If he was drunk, that was one thing. Sober, though . . .

  Easing away from her, he made his way over the balcony and stared down. “Marin came to my place two days ago. I was sobering up when she knocked. Haven’t had anything since.”

  “Two days. Wow. When was the last time you went two days without a drink?”

  This time, he didn’t answer, but she didn’t push.

  “You did it because you weren’t going to come to your brother’s wedding drunk and all you had to do was make that decision,” Denise said quietly. “You’re so stubborn, Sebastien. At times, that’s been a curse. Especially over this past year. You’ve got it in your mind that you’re to blame for what happened to Monica and you’re not. But it can also be a blessing.”

  He held still as she moved closer and kissed him on the cheek. “Decide you’re ready to be okay, baby. You deserve better than this.”

  She was walking away, was almost to the door when he said, “Mom?”

  “Yes, Sebastien?”

  “I’m sorry for . . .” He blew out a breath and lifted his eyes up to stare at the sky. The stars were impossible to see here so he just stared at the dark canopy overhead. “I’m sorry for everything. The past year, how I’ve acted. How I’ve hurt you—all of you.”

  “Don’t be. You’ve hurt yourself more than any of us. Just . . . find yourself. We miss you.”

  ***

  “I’m happy for you two.”

  He’d stayed outside for more than thirty minutes before he went back inside, thinking about what his mother had said, trying to find the wrong in her words, but failing. He hadn’t expected otherwise, though.

  Not really.

  This was his mother, after all.

  He realized that on some level she was mortal and had messed up before, but he sure as hell hadn’t ever seen proof of it.

  He just wished he could figure out how to be okay again. How to find himself. He couldn’t.

  The one thing he could do was fake it. It was just acti
ng, after all. Playing a part. He could do that with the best of them and nobody would ever know. He’d pretend to be who he had been—or a close version. If he went in there all happy-go-lucky, they’d see through it and that wasn’t any good.

  But he could come close.

  Smile, shake hands. Be happy for them. And he was.

  Still, as he sat in front of Keelie and Zane, smiling and offering the trite phrase, he knew they could see right through him.

  Keelie rested her head on Zane’s shoulder. “I’m glad you came out of your cave, Sebastien.”

  He winced a little, although the bluntness of her words was no surprise. Keelie wasn’t exactly known for sugarcoating things. “Yeah, well . . . I hope I don’t ruin things while I’m here.”

  “Don’t worry about Zach.” Zane glanced down the table and shrugged. “Mom’s already got him in line.”

  “I’m past the age when I need my mom to handle things,” Sebastien muttered. Yet part of him was glad to see his second-oldest brother standing at the end of the table, talking to his mother, shoulders hunched. Abby looked like she wanted to laugh but was hiding it.

  When Denise walked away, Zach rubbed the back of his head and Abby leaned forward to kiss him, the laugh bubbling out.

  “Was that about me?” Sebastien asked, although he knew the answer.

  “Dollars to donuts.” Zane smirked. “Sometimes Zach’s mouth is bigger than his brain.”

  “Sometimes?” Keelie arched her brows.

  “You’re one to talk,” Sebastien said without thinking. Immediately, he wished he hadn’t said anything.

  To his surprise, both Zane and Keelie laughed.

  “Hey, at least I try to be mature,” Keelie said, shrugging. She and Zach weren’t all that dissimilar in some aspects, a fact both she and Zach knew all too well.

  From a few feet away, Ressa laughed and Sebastien looked over at her and Trey as she leaned in, pressing her brow to Trey’s.

  “You are going to his wedding, right?” Zane asked, his voice neutral.

  “Yeah. Make me something of an asshole if I came to yours and not his.”

  “Well, everybody knows I’m the coolest brother, but . . . yeah. You need to go to both.” Zane’s gaze slid to Travis, his mouth tightening slightly.

  Sebastien knew why. Only a few seconds before the wedding had started, Travis had slid in, and if anybody had been more quiet than Sebastien, it was Travis. He spoke with the others and joked with his twin, but it was obvious things weren’t normal with him.

  But then again, things hadn’t been normal with Travis for a long time.

  Of course, who was he to make an issue of things being normal?

  He’d lost touch with the idea of that a long time ago.

  One of the bouncers who Zane had stayed friends with came up, congratulating the newlyweds, and Sebastien took advantage of it, getting up to head off to a quieter—and darker—corner.

  On his way, he snagged a bottle of champagne from a server.

  In the back of his mind, he heard his mother’s voice.

  How long has it been . . .

  He almost put the bottle down, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  He wasn’t sure he was ready to try to be okay.

  So he smiled at the server from whom he’d taken the champagne and winked.

  She blushed and smiled back.

  ***

  I won’t get drunk, he told himself.

  The bottle was less than half full, not enough to get drunk on but enough to get his raging headache back under control, he figured.

  And he might just have to share.

  Travis was in the same dark corner, his eyes grim, mouth flat.

  “You sure you need to be drinking?” Travis asked.

  Sebastien eyed him up and down, taking in gaunt cheeks and hard eyes. “Do you?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Same to you, brother.”

  They leaned against the window and studied the merriment taking place in front of them.

  Ten minutes might have passed. Or it could have been fifteen.

  “You going to Trey’s wedding?” Travis asked.

  They traded the bottle of champagne back and forth and Sebastien doubted he was the only one wishing it were something stronger. “Yes. I won’t bother asking if you are.”

  Travis made a low noise under his breath and took a swig from the bottle.

  Then abruptly he shoved himself off the floor-to-ceiling window and rounded on Sebastien. Finger pointed at Sebastien’s nose, Travis spoke, his voice hard and cold. “My life is fucked up. I set myself on this road and there’s not much I can do except finish walking it. You . . . Shit, Seb. You were the golden boy. You were going to make it. All of you . . .”

  Travis looked away, blinked hard. “I know you’re pissed off. I know you’re mad. I know you’re hurting over Monica. But your life isn’t over. Stop acting like it is.”

  The intensity beat in every word Travis said and for a moment, as the brothers stared at each other, Sebastien couldn’t even blink. He couldn’t look away, could barely breathe.

  Then Travis spun away, still holding on to the bottle of champagne. Somebody called his name.

  But it wasn’t Trey. Trey could still reach his twin . . . sometimes. It didn’t seem like anybody else could. Travis just kept walking.

  Sebastien sagged back against the wall and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Five

  “Son of a bitch, boy. I think you’re sober.”

  Sebastien squinted one eye. The other was closed. He wasn’t sure why he’d answered the call but he was stuck now.

  As he lowered the heavy barbell to his chest, he blew out a breath, pondering what his manager was up to. Pushing it back up, he focused on his breathing before answering. “I’m sober.”

  “Good, good . . . then we can talk this over in depth.” His agent JD Rutherford’s voice came through loud and clear over the Bluetooth.

  “Talk what over in depth? If this is that stupid TV bio thing, I’m not interested. I might be a washed-up has-been but I’m not desperate for cash or attention.” He shoved the bar up with a little more force and wondered just who in the hell had passed his personal contact information onto the catty producer who’d contacted him.

  “No,” JD said, his voice flat. “And you’re not a washed-up has-been. I don’t work with has-beens. I’ve been trying to get you out of that cave of yours for months, but you’ve been dodging me or so drunk off your ass, it’s hard to talk to you.”

  Sebastien grunted. “Well, it’s early yet. Call back in a few and I’ll probably be on my ass again.”

  He was lying. He’d almost dumped out all the alcohol the day he got back from Trey’s wedding in Virginia, but he hadn’t. Still, he hadn’t had a drink since the few sips of champagne he’d shared with Travis in Vegas. He hadn’t talked to anybody, including Marin, and he wasn’t sure exactly what had set him off, but when he’d gotten into his hotel room, he’d walked into the bathroom and stared at his reflection.

  It wasn’t the scar or his messed-up eye that he saw, though.

  For some reason, he saw himself the way he might have been at a family thing like this a year ago. He thought of how things had gone after Zach and Abby’s wedding. He’d hooked up with one of Abby’s bridesmaids and they’d tumbled into a hotel room and torn up the sheets for a few hours and he’d left with a smile on his face.

  He hadn’t been smiling in Vegas, though.

  He hadn’t had that easy, carefree feeling inside him in a long, long time. A year. It didn’t seem like a long time, but the months stretching out between the man he was now and the man he had been seemed like an endless, timeless desert. Only alcohol had dulled the pain, just like the brutal workouts had filled the empty hours between sleeping and drinking.


  “I’ve got you on the phone now. Why would I call back?” JD said easily. “So . . . listen. Have you been paying attention to the news? Heard anything interesting lately?”

  After racking the bar, Sebastien sat up and focused his eyes on the endless blue of the Pacific outside his windows. He tried to remember the last time he’d turned on his TV or even the radio, the last time he had looked at a blog or anything but his e-mail.

  Weeks, at least. More likely, it was going on a couple of months.

  “You know, Australia could have been swallowed up by a sea monster and unless somebody came by to tell me? I wouldn’t know,” Sebastien finally said. “I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in the world. I like it that way.”

  There was a faint pause, and then JD asked, “You have completely disconnected from life, haven’t you?”

  “No reason not to.” Sebastien stood and went to grab his water, draining half of it.

  “Maybe that’s how you see it. I can understand, to some extent. But it’s time you come back to life—back into the world, kid. I’ve got a part for you.”

  Sebastien was glad he was no longer bench-pressing.

  He just might have dropped the bar straight on his chest in shock.

  His hand tightened convulsively on the bottle and he stared at the mirrored wall in front of him, his gaze locked on the scarred side of his face. His vision in the left eye was far from perfect, although he could see to some extent. There were dark spots on the outer corners and the only reason he’d even seen a doctor for that was so he could make sure he was still okay to drive. He had to get his eyes checked far more frequently now, but none of that was what bothered him. His eye was just as fucked up as his face—the blue-green color foggier, duller, and his iris irregular. It was a grotesque shadow of what it had been.

  Yeah. He could just see his ugly mug in a movie. What did they want him for? Were they doing another Scarface remake or what?

  The very idea appalled him. The water in his bottle was no longer so appealing now. Usually, nights were the worst, when he had to fight the urge to go for the booze in his kitchen, but just then, it took everything he had not to go straight in there and grab a bottle and just empty it.