by Sarah Hegger
“What about you?” Eric stopped in front of her apartment and faced her. “Will isn’t the only one who changed their path. You got out, you took Kim with you.”
She laughed and laughed, because if she started crying now, she wouldn’t stop. “I didn’t get out, Eric. I’m still trapped in that fucking house. Trapped by my rage and my fears and my despair. I’m still there. I’ll never get out.”
* * * *
Eric made it through getting Blythe back into her apartment and settled for the night. She didn’t speak much after the last outburst, and he didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t entirely get it, but he understood she needed some time to process tonight. As much as he wanted to stay, he sensed she needed the solitude more.
“You not staying?” Matt stopped him before he got in his car.
Eric shook his head. Blythe didn’t want him there, and it made him so angry he could barely speak. Angry at himself mostly, because he’d created this dynamic between them. Also angry at her for her compulsive knee jerk to keep the rest of the world out. He needed to take his anger where she couldn’t see it. Right now she didn’t need another damn thing on her plate.
“You okay?” Matt watched him.
“Nope.” Eric needed to punch something and punch it hard. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”
Matt nodded.
A sleeping Jasmine in her arms, Pippa joined them outside Blythe’s apartment.
Standing on the sidewalk, Eric watched Matt’s taillights shrink. The light in Blythe’s kitchen still shone. She must be up there, maybe making herself a cup of that herbal tea she liked. Maybe Kim was awake, and Blythe was settling her for the night. Or maybe Blythe was sitting in her kitchen staring at nothing with that hollow look in her eyes. He didn’t know because she’d shut him out.
He wanted to climb those stairs and pound on her door, demand that she open up.
Insist that she let him in.
And wasn’t that a fucking metaphor.
Dad had killed himself trying to make a woman happy who could never be satisfied. Slowly Dad had been ground under the hell of the knowledge that whatever he did, it would never be enough.
All his life Eric had fought that fate, and now here he stood looking up at the darkened apartment of a woman who needed more than he was able to give her.
Large and scary, Brett loomed out of night. “They alright?”
“Sleeping. I think.”
Brett nodded. “So what has you standing out here like a creep?”
“You’re also standing here.” The complete lack of sympathy was exactly what he needed.
Brett shrugged. “I come by most nights.” He thrust his hands in his pockets. “I don’t trust Barron further than I can throw him, and when I found out Blake had talked his way inside, I wanted to make sure she was okay.”
Christ, she had them baying at the moon.
“Feel like a drink?” He threw at Brett over his shoulder as he opened his car door.
Brett strode to the passenger side. “Only if you’re buying.”
“If I’m buying then I’m not going to one of your dive bars.”
Brett laughed. “Fair enough.”
They drove in silence for a while until Eric snapped on the radio before his own head made him want to scream.
“You know.” Brett tapped the dash. “The last time I was in one of these was when I lifted it.”
Eric snort laughed. “If you get the urge to do that again, just ask, and I’ll give you the key.”
“Where’s the challenge in that?” Brett threw him a flat look.
Eric took Brett to one of the bars on the hilltop.
Stepping out the car, Brett rubbed the back of his head. “This should be interesting.”
“They make good wings, and I want some.” Eric walked ahead.
Brett dropped into place beside him, his big boots crunching the gravel in the parking lot. “Is that a Suit Boy equivalent of ice cream and a chick flick?”
“Fuck you.”
“No thank you, Suit Boy.” Brett clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re really not my type.”
The bouncer gave Brett a hard look.
Brett gave it right back.
Dropping his head, the bouncer took off to the other side of the bar.
At the bar, Eric ordered wings and a beer with a whisky chaser for both of them.
His elbows propped on the bar, Brett looked around him with interest. The guy reeked bad assery, and Eric had a momentary twinge of envy. Then again, you had to live Brett’s life to earn that degree of hard, and Eric would rather give that a pass.
A group of women had locked eyes on Brett.
Brett glanced their way and turned his back. He shook his head. “Rich girls.”
“What do you have against them?” Eric glanced at the group.
A brunette had noticed him and gave him the nonverbal green light. It had been a long time since he’d picked someone up, had a meaningless hookup.
Brett glanced back at the women. “They don’t know I’m an ex-con, but they know I’m not like the other men in here.” He jerked his head. “They like to play with rough every now and again, but in the end, they go back to their own kind.”
There was a whole wealth of information to mine in that one statement. “What—”
Brett growled. “Drop it.”
All right then. Eric went back to his beer.
Blythe had dumped him over a month ago, and he hadn’t even thought about another woman. In fact, he’d ended things with Miranda before they could get started. Maybe he was one of those guys who only wanted what they couldn’t have. It was a humbling realization that he and his issues might not be all that unique.
“I can feel you thinking.” Brett shot his whiskey. “Drink instead.”
The whisky burned all the way down, hit Eric’s stomach and radiated warmth. “She speak to you tonight?”
“Nope.” Brett didn’t need him to explain what he meant. “She sat in the truck and glared at me.”
“Fuck.” Eric motioned the barman for another round. He was glad Jo wasn’t working tonight. “Blythe is never going to let either of us near her.”
“Maybe not.” Brett leaned one elbow on the bar and stared at him. “So what.”
Eric choked on a mouthful of beer. “So what? Why do you keep trying if you don’t even give a shit if she gives you a chance or not?”
“Oh, we’re going to pretend that we’re talking about me, are we?”
“Screw you.”
Brett jerked his head at the women. “Them first. Wait your turn, Tiger.”
Shit, the laughter felt good.
“It’s like this.” Brett tapped his forefinger on the bar. “Just because I want her forgiveness and I want her to give me a second chance, doesn’t mean she has to.”
That made a certain sense. “But you and I are not asking for the same thing.”
“Really?” Gaze hard as granite, Brett raised his eyebrows. “You gonna tell me you have always done right by my sister?”
“I…no, I’m not going to tell you that.”
“Right.” Brett sipped his beer. “Which is why I don’t break your face for using my sister as your booty call for all these years.”
That cut too close to the bone, and Eric suddenly wanted to take a swing at Brett and see where that led.
“Don’t.” Brett gave his bunched fist a pointed stare. “I’m not going to fight you back, but if you want me to join your pity party, you’re delusional. You got what you set in motion, Evans, no more and no less.”
All the fight bled out of Eric, which was probably a good thing because Brett could mop the bar with him. “It was right there in front of me all this time, and I didn’t see it.”
“Which makes you a dum
b shit,” Brett said. “But I’m no different.” He pressed his palms into his eyes. “She was the sweetest kid you’ve ever seen. She used to follow me around, always asking what this was or what that was. She saw Pat for the asshole he was, but she never looked at me like that. She always saw a better version of me than there was. I was her hero big brother.”
Whelp! That sounded disturbingly familiar. Not the big brother part but the part about Blythe seeing him as better than he really was. She could look at him and make him feel ten foot tall.
“Decide if she’s worth it.” Brett shrugged. “Otherwise save both of you the aggravation and walk away now.”
That was easy enough. “She’s worth it.”
Brett looked at him. “I’ve made the decision that I’ll stick by her, whether she wants me to or not. She might never want anything to do with me, but she’s always going to be my baby sister, and I will break anyone who hurts her. That includes you.”
“What about you?”
Brett gave a bitter laugh. “That goes double for me.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The next morning, Blythe woke feeling bruised on the inside.
The news from the bank was bad but not dire. She would make rent this month, and if she cut their expenses, next month as well. By which time the bank promised to settle her claim. Plus she had the offer from Pippa to look forward to. She made a note to call Pippa’s agent that afternoon.
Over breakfast she talked to Kim about Blake not coming back and Will going away for a while.
It broke her heart that Kim took the news about her brothers’ fall from grace with a calm nod of acceptance. Even this young, people drifting in and out of her life had become the norm. People failing and falling didn’t surprise her.
“Will is coming back.” Blythe brushed Kim’s hair into a ponytail. They had the same thick, wavy hair that got tangled easily.
Kim nodded. “Blake did something bad, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Protecting Kim meant preventing things like this happening. It didn’t include lying to her when they did. “He stole and ran away with the money.”
Eating her cereal, Kim didn’t speak for a while. “Why?”
“I really don’t know.” Blythe didn’t have a better answer for Kim. Why did any of her family do what they did? At a certain point you couldn’t keep blaming it on a shitty set of genetics. You had to accept responsibility for yourself.
Her phone rang, and she recognized the number now. “Hi, Laura.”
“How are you holding up?” Laura said.
“Okay.” For now she and Kim still had the apartment, and they were still on the other side of town from the rest of the family.
“Can you make a meeting this morning?” Laura said. “We have some more information on Will and Blake, and I think you need to hear it.”
Blythe really didn’t like the sound of that. A headache whispered behind her eyes and threatened to bloom into something more substantial. “Sure.”
She got Kim ready and drove them to kindergarten.
Laura was waiting for her with Daniel and Michael when she left the kindergarten after dropping Kim.
They moved to Michael’s office.
Brett stood near the window, and with him stood Eric.
“What are you doing here?” Either of them was welcome to answer her question.
Eric looked at Brett.
Brett shrugged. “I asked Daniel to keep me up to date.”
“I called him.” Daniel walked into the office and shut the door. He motioned Laura and Blythe to take the two visitor’s chairs. “Laura’s people managed to get some more information out of Will last night.”
Blythe dragged her attention away from Eric and Brett. This was about Will and she needed to pay attention. “And?”
Laura glanced at Daniel before she continued. The sort of look that told Blythe she was really going to hate what they had to say.
“Blake didn’t just steal from you,” Laura said. “Apparently he cleared out Will’s college fund when he left.”
“What?” The blood drained from her head and the room swam around Blythe. She couldn’t find the right words.
Eric crouched beside her chair with a bottle of water. “Breathe.”
If she hadn’t needed the water so badly, she might have hit him with the bottle. Fuck breathing, she needed to hear this. “But how did he get access to it?”
“Apparently he discovered where Will kept his account number and password.” Laura shrugged. “Will wasn’t very coherent on the how. But the theft sent him into a spiral.”
“Fuck.” Brett thumped the window ledge beneath his hips. “That little shit was always a sneaky bastard.”
“Not always.” Blythe didn’t know why she argued with Brett, other than force of habit. Except some part of her needed to believe there had been some goodness in Blake. That she hadn’t been that wrong about him.
God, he’d taken Will’s college money. She looked at Laura. “All of it?”
“Blake cleaned out the account.”
“Oh, my God.” For some reason she spoke to Brett. “He’s been working since his freshman year in high school. Doing whatever he could and putting the money away.”
“I’ll get it back for him, Grub.” Brett approached her and crouched at her feet. He held out his hand. “I swear to you, Grub. I’ll get him every cent. He’ll go to college.”
“Grub?” Laura raised an eyebrow.
Blythe’s choked laugh sounded more like a sob. “He’s always called me that.”
“She liked to play with mud.” Brett’s gaze held hers, and she saw the big brother she used to adore looking back at her. “She would make mud pies around the side of the house and invite me to tea parties.”
“You remember that?” Blythe couldn’t seem to find her voice without the wobble.
Brett lifted his hand.
Blythe flinched.
An unbearable sadness filled his eyes, eyes so like Pat’s. Slowly he brought his hand to her face and brushed a tear away. “I remember it all, Grub. I remember all the good and all the bad. Even the things I’d tear out my brain to forget.” His voice grew rough. “I remember everything.”
“I… can’t.” It all felt like too much to get her head around. She’d spent too much time in fear for her life from this man.
Brett stood. “Let’s concentrate on Will for now.” He turned to Laura. “Did he say anything else?”
Laura spoke as if the words hurt her. “Just that he didn’t see any point in continuing to believe things could be different.”
* * * *
Those words stuck with Blythe as she left the office and walked to her car.
“Blythe?” Eric followed her out. “He’s going to be all right.”
“Will he?” She really didn’t need the lies about a happily ever after she hadn’t believed in since she was a small girl. “Nobody can know that for sure.”
Eric looked taken aback. “I’m saying that because I believe it. We’ll make sure he doesn’t go through this alone.” He took her hand. “That neither of you go through this alone.”
“Could you do something for me?”
“Anything,” Eric said, and she could see in his face that he meant it.
“Could you make sure Kim gets home from school?”
He frowned at her. “Where are you going?”
“Where I need to.”
After a hesitation, he nodded. “I’ll take care of Kim. You go and do what you need to.” He touched her cheek. “But remember while you’re doing it that you’re not alone.”
Blythe almost laughed at that, but he would only worry if she did, so she managed a nod. “It’s okay if Brett wants to spend time with Kim,” she said. “As long as you’re there.”
Eric nodded. “I wo
n’t let anything happen that you wouldn’t want to happen.”
Except it already had, and Blythe got into her car and drove.
The changes Brett had made to the house were still in place. In fact, the washer and dryer had been moved from the porch and new boards shone of new wood where they had been.
The inside of the house was as tidy as last time she’d been here.
Carly sat in the kitchen, a bottle of vodka in front of her. Another Barrows doing what they did best, screwing up.
Carly puffed on a cigarette and turned bloodshot eyes to Blythe. “Baby.” Her words were slurred and her face was flushed with alcohol. “My beautiful baby girl.”
“Hey, Mom.” Blythe took the seat opposite her mother. Sitting across from her was what Blythe would look like in thirty years, if she spent the next thirty years smoking and drinking herself into premature aging. “I thought you were trying not to drink.”
“What?” Carly’s expression turned belligerent. “Now you sound just like Brett.” She thumped her fist on the table. “I’m the mother. Don’t need to be talking about what’s wrong with me and what I need to do better.”
So, Brett hadn’t managed to pull that miracle off. “Did you know Blake has skipped town?”
Carly wheezed out a laugh and pointed at her. “Sure he did. Only person who is surprised is you. Always was a slimy little shit.” She threw herself back in her chair. “Only person who never knew that was you.” Carly opened her eyes and cackled at her. “Stung you good, did he?”
Blythe sat there and let the blame come home to roost where it belonged. She had invited Blake into their home. Despite all she knew and all she had learned growing up in that house, she’d let him into their lives and given him the gap he needed to do what he’d done.
“Serves you right.” Carly glared at her. “Uppity little bitch, thinking you’re so much better than the rest of us.” She lurched forward across the table. “Don’t you get it by now, you stupid slut. This is what you are.” She waved her hand at the kitchen. “This is all you’ll ever be, and it don’t matter what clothes you wear or who you fuck.” Carly cackled at her. “You’re trash, baby girl, just like your mama. Nothing can change that.”