“To top it all off, I was supposed to give a speech at graduation.” Paul snickered as he thought back on it. “I didn’t show. I didn’t tell anyone I wasn’t planning to attend my own graduation. The guys and I just took off and had our first Testosterfest that year.
“Imagining the look on my mom’s face, all dressed up. Puffing her chest that her son was Salutatorian, only second best, but hey, he was giving a speech at graduation. How many parents can say that?” He snorted another laugh but then turned thoughtful. He glanced at Rhees as if to see what she thought about that stunt.
“I guess I not only graduated from high school with honors, but I’d also earned a master’s degree from the School of Assholery.” Paul stopped smiling and stared up at the ceiling. “I have a lot of, not-so-fine, moments, but that one is at the top of the list—top ten. I know it was a jerk move, but I’d grown so tired of their bullshit.”
“Paul, they’re just people,” Rhees whispered. “No one is perfect.”
“No, no, no, no, no,” he spat out like a rapid-fire machine gun. “Don’t. Rhees—Baby, do not even—”
“I really think it’d do you good if you could find it in your heart to forgive—”
“I said, don’t!” He scowled, appearing apologetic, but torn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but I just can’t go there.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away.
“Aw, see? This is you, Baby, so sweet and compassionate. You always care more about everyone else.” He snuggled up to her again, sincerely remorseful. “And this is me, I’m not like you, I don’t think I’m like anyone. Give me a logical, statistical, textbook challenge, even a physical challenge, any day of the week, but feelings, emotions, relationships.” He forced out a breath of air and then his mouth ran through a few familiar moves.
“Truthfully, if it weren’t for Claire, I’m afraid I’d still be twiddling my thumbs, wondering, what the hell am I supposed to do with you? I don’t know if I would’ve ever figured it out on my own.” He turned to face her, his expression pained but adoring. He tenderly stroked the line of her jaw with his knuckles.
“What does that mean for us?” Rhees asked. “What if someday I do something you can’t find it in your heart to forgive?”
His expression went blank, which didn’t help her feel encouraged. He leaned in close to her face, fixated on her eyes with a serious, brow-creased, rigid-mouthed, stare.
“Not going to happen. You’re perfect.” A warm grin touched the corners of his mouth. “Over the last few years, I’ve learned I’m not nearly as smart as I once thought I was, and I’ve struggled more than I should have to make sense of all this with you, but there’s one thing I know now with absolute certainty. I. Love. You.”
“But—”
“Danarya Williams Weaver, I love you, I love you, I love you.” He leaned in and gave her a long, soft kiss on the lips while holding his hand in her hair. “I’ve loved you from the beginning, but I will be forever grateful to Claire for helping me connect those dots before I screwed it all up and lost you.”
Rhees gave him a tight, relieved hug. “You know this means I’m going to have to give Claire our first-born child.” Rhees thought for a minute. “Wait. She’d see that as a curse, not a gesture of gratitude.” They both laughed, and Paul kissed her forehead.
“Considering my issues, I needed you to take your time, we both needed it. I think God knew we were perfect for each other and brought us together,” Rhees said.
“Huh.” Paul lay thoughtful for a minute and gave her forehead another kiss. He didn’t dare allow himself to believe that. If anything, he figured God had just messed up, letting Rhees anywhere near him, but then, before God could take her back, Paul had grabbed a hold and hung onto her for dear life. No one else had ever made him want to be a better person. He wished he could be the kind of man she deserved, but he’d never believe he would be, or that he could ever be worthy of her.
“So, what happened, next?”
“What?” Paul thought she meant what happened after he’d played a game of tug-of-war with God over her.
“What happened after you skipped out on your Salutatorian speech at graduation?”
“Ah. I went back to normal—the Weaver normal. When I got back and endured the first twenty minutes of mom and dad’s lecture, I told them to go to hell, but despite my one-time stand, I fell right back into their hamster wheel. I didn’t know any different. I didn’t know I had choices. So, I had degrees in Business and Marine Biology by the time I was twenty, Business for the parents’ circus, Marine Biology for me. Of course, Dad let me know he thought I’d been on track to do more.” Paul smirked about that.
“Do more, as if what I did had anything to do with him. I’d grown tired. I’d been numb for so long, disillusioned. I was just going through the motions—with a lot of resentment—anger, but besides rebelling with the guys, I didn’t know what else I wanted to do. I started law school, and of course, I still worked for good ole Laird. By the time I held my Juris Doctorate and passed the bar in three states—”
“You’re a lawyer?” Her voice raised in surprise. Her gaze darted to him.
“I never practiced. It was more a status symbol for the parents, but it did prove useful as I focused more and more on work. I was still the information man. My memory—my skills made me good at research, getting the information we needed, but I hated sitting at a computer all day. I needed to get out, be more hands on.
“I no longer did the work just for dad anymore. I was good at it, and I made money.” He frowned, thinking about the things he’d done, all in the name of business.
“I got my hands dirty—all that pent up anger had found an outlet. I grew vicious, unwilling to let anyone stand in my way.”
“I don’t believe that,” Rhees said.
“Seriously?” Paul laughed, a little too hard. “Do you think Mr. Meanie-head made his first appearance just for you? No, Baby. Unfortunately, he’d had plenty of practice, and Mr. Meanie-head makes him sound like a children’s cartoon show compared to what he really was—” Paul went quiet, “—is.”
“Don’t. He’s not so bad.”
“Bullshit. He made you miserable.” Sometimes Rhees made it hard not to get annoyed with her—when she refused to see him for what he really was, and then sometimes he loved her all the more for that very reason.
“Maybe at first,” she reasoned. “But I saw through him, eventually. You were hurt. He’s your defense mechanism. I had very conflicting feelings for both of you.”
“Um, I don’t think so,” Paul said incredulously.
“I fell in love with him. Maybe I didn’t quite realize it right away, but now I can look back and see how much I cared about you, even when you were acting like a stinker.”
“Stinker?” He laughed. She’d already calmed him down, which was a good thing. He didn’t want to ruin her good mood, the good mood she hadn’t been in for too long. “You’re always justifying or defending my worst personality traits.” He rubbed his eyes. “I thought I was your one true love. That bastard, Mr. Meanie-head better leave my wife alone or I’ll beat the crap out of him.”
“No, you won’t. I can handle him myself,” she scolded, but then grew sheepish. “I happen to think he’s cute . . . and kind of exciting. I love him, so you’ll have to share.”
Paul rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. He stared down at her, no more playful banter. “We’ll see if you’ll still say that when I’m finished telling my story.”
“I don’t want you to finish then. It won’t change my mind—my heart, but because you think it might, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Rhees, if we’re going to survive, we can’t leave all this shit hanging over our heads.” He held her gaze. “No more ticking time bombs betwe
en us, waiting to blow us up. Understand?”
She nodded, reluctantly. He fell back down on his back but turned his head to look at her. It took him a minute to get started again. He recounted more things his parents had done, mostly his father, but also things he’d done. It didn’t sound good. Paul had been an angry young man.
“It was all about power, money, booze, and women.” He snorted ironically. “I’d become a younger version of Laird Weaver. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it’s true.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t know him, but I don’t believe—” Paul didn’t seem to hear her, or he wouldn’t listen.
“I missed what Pete had been up to. I—If I hadn’t been so self-absorbed, I would’ve noticed.” Paul closed his eyes and had to take a minute. His mouth ran through several tics. Rhees couldn’t tell if they were sad or angry twitches.
“I’d been so involved in my selfish, I’ve got to rule the fucking world, world.” He paused again. “Pete had started doing okay in the business, a little better than okay. Dad had been breaking his own arm patting himself on the back, bragging about how he’d finally whipped Peter into shape, but—” Paul scrunched his face up in pain. “Pete came to me. He was so agitated and . . . scared. He told me he was a dead man if I didn’t help him. When he told me what he’d done, I could have killed him myself.”
“But you didn’t!” Her words burst out like a plea. It couldn’t be Pete, Paul’s own brother. He couldn’t be the man Paul told Mitch he’d killed.
“Damned, stupid idiot had gotten himself all wrapped up in some drug ring,” he said through clenched teeth, but not necessarily out of anger. There were too many emotions leaching from him for Rhees to keep up.
“He’d been laundering drug money through dad’s business, making himself look like he was keeping up. Damned fool actually thought he could make dad proud of him, the way he thought dad was proud of me.” Paul choked out a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and an anguished sob.
“He’d put us all at risk, everything. Of course, I got angry, and threw a tantrum, asking him, over and over again, how he could be so stupid. At first he broke down and cried, begging me to fix it before they found out, but I was so enraged, I couldn’t offer him anything.” Paul’s breathing grew shallow and harsh.
“And then, suddenly, he went off on me, ranting about how he wasn’t like me. I was the favorite son. Smarter, better—” Paul covered his face with his hands while he struggled to regain a little composure. “—he couldn’t make the kind of money dad and I were bringing in, and of course, dad was always there to let him know how he needed to buckle down, try harder—be more like me—Pete was envious of a life I despised.” Paul sucked in a few unstable breaths.
“I would have helped him, but he’d rather turn to the organization than me. I think he knew where my head was at, he didn’t believe I’d help, but I would have. He was my brother! I would have done anything for him.” Another sob made his whole body jerk. Rhees listened, trying not to cry herself as he sputtered the words, barely controlling his emotion enough to get them out. “It wasn’t enough he’d put everything at risk—we all could have ended up in prison—or dead. Pete had been so starved for love, once dad, and mom too, started singing him a little praise, he wanted more. He started keeping more of the money than he was entitled to, and he’d dug himself so deep, he was sure they were only days away from figuring it out.” Paul threw both hands over his eyes again. Rhees could see his jaw quivering, and she wrapped her arms around him.
“He begged me to fix it. He said it was my fault, and I had to fix it.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Pete made his own choices.”
“No. I’d checked out on him. I’d stopped paying attention to everyone but myself. If I hadn’t been so—he was my brother—I should have protected him.” Paul looked at Rhees, his red-rimmed eyes shined with tears, and it broke her heart to see him so grieved.
“You’re going to hate me,” he whispered.
“Never. Nothing you say will change how I feel about you.”
“I promised I’d help him.” He paused to let it sink in, watching her face, but she didn’t flinch. “I set my mind to learning the business—Pete’s business. I’m talented that way, remember? I can look at all the parts of a business and understand how to either make it work more efficiently, or tear it to pieces. I couldn’t protect him unless I knew what I was up against, who I was up against.” He never took his eyes off of her, as if expecting her to run screaming from him any second. She didn’t move.
“They wanted to make an example of Pete. They don’t tolerate what he did. I knew Pete wasn’t smart enough to get himself out of his mess, but I was. I was the smartest fucking man I knew.” Paul had the empty look in his eyes she’d learned to detest. The one he wore when he hated himself more than normal.
“Please. I don’t like it when you get like this.”
“Like what? Like me?” He shot her an angry glance before taking a deep, apologetic breath and letting it out. He grabbed for her and pulled her to him, desperately. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry, again. I really am. This is why I never talk about it.” His chest shook and she braced herself for more.
“I haven’t even wanted to think about it for years. It makes me so—helpless—I hate feeling helpless.”
“Then don’t. It’s all right.”
“No. You should know about this. I should have told you before now.” The tears in his eyes spilled down his face. “I have to finish. I have to get it out.”
“I know. I actually know, now, finally.” She closed her eyes and didn’t let go of him. “Get it out. We’ll work on our secrets together.”
“I offered them a deal they couldn’t refuse. I offered them me, my skills, in exchange for Pete’s life, and getting my dad’s business untangled from their web. It took a few months to prove myself, but they couldn’t deny how valuable I would be to the organization, and they agreed.
“I worked with them for—too long—I didn’t want to do it. I was only doing what I needed to do to keep my brother alive, and keep them out of my dad’s business. As soon as I could, I began collecting evidence, incriminating information that I could use against them, for insurance, because I had no intention of staying in.
“That was the plan, and I was almost ready to make my move when dad said we had an emergency with our newest plant in Japan. I told him I couldn’t go right then, but dad doesn’t take no for an answer, so I had to postpone. It would still work; it would just take a little longer.”
As Paul continued, the words came out in increasingly heavier sobs. Rhees had never seen him cry. She’d seen him upset to teary eyes, to a single sob here and there, but now he really cried, and she cried with him, hating how much he hurt, wishing he would stop, that she could make it all better.
“I told Pete to lay low until I got back—I don’t know what happened,” he cried. “My plane had landed in Miami. I’d just put my bag in the car when Pete called. ‘We have a problem.’ he said. ‘I’m at the warehouse, you know which one. Angelo’s freaking out because you left. I panicked.’ ‘What the fuck did you do?’ I screamed, but the line went dead.” Paul swiped at his tears with the back of his hand. “I raced out of the airport parking lot, drove like a maniac. I had to get there.” He tried to take a breath but it sounded like he couldn’t get enough air.
“That was the last time I heard his voice,” Paul sobbed. It took a second for him to continue. “I was too late. Pete’s body, several others—oh, God.” Paul threw his hands over his face and cried inconsolably. “I didn’t understand what happened. I didn’t understand, but Pete—I killed my own brother!”
“I know it hurts. He was your brother, but Paul, it wasn’t your fault. You had no control over his choices—” Rhees tried to pry his hands from his face but he r
esisted.
Paul couldn’t form any more words. His whole body shook as he wailed. When he found his voice again, it sounded unsteady. “I held his body. I begged God to bring him back. I needed to do it over—do it better.”
“But you couldn’t. I understand. There’re some things we can’t do over.” She used her own understanding of regret, trying to reach him. “But it was Pete’s mistake, not yours.”
“No. It should never have come to that. Pete died because of me.” Paul stopped crying and held perfectly still. “I held Pete in my arms. I picked up the pistol by his hand, his Glock. I put it to my temple—”
“No!” Rhees cried, throwing her hand over her mouth.
“The gun jammed,” he said, stoically, his breath quavered as he drew it in and let it out. “I sat there, staring at that damned pistol, wondering how I’d fucked up yet one more thing. How do you bring yourself to pull the trigger like that and fuck it up?”
“Paul, no!” Tears flowed down her face. She raised herself up and shook him by the shoulders. “No! Don’t ever—”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “My trigger-happy days are over.”
“Promise?” she asked in a whisper because she couldn’t find her voice.
“Yeah, I promise.”
Rhees rested her head on his chest. She didn’t believe for a second Pete’s death had been Paul’s fault. His refusal to listen to her and see the incident in a different light went onto a growing list of him misinterpreting incidents. The man had major perception problems when it came to seeing himself.
She felt his chest vibrate again with a shaky intake of breath—he wasn’t finished. She rolled, pulling his head to her chest in a comforting gesture and waited for him to tell her more. He wrapped his arms around her, grasping her tightly, burrowing his head against her, over her shirt, just above her breasts.
Wet Part 3 Page 16