Busted (Barnes Brothers #3)

by Shiloh Walker

  As he slid inside, Trey found himself standing in the hall, staring down at the gold band on his hand.

  Maybe Max hadn’t been as far off as Trey had assumed.

  No, he wasn’t still clinging to Aliesha’s memory. He’d accepted her death. Let her go. But the ring was still a barrier. It was his shield, and sometimes a reminder.

  And tonight, when he had actually thought about trying to reach out?

  It had been the barrier he’d planned for it to be—only this time, he hadn’t really wanted that.

  Chapter Eight

  Leaning against the door that opened out onto the balcony, Trey rubbed his thumb over the well-worn script of his notebook. Normally, the thing would be filled with notes by now and he might have even replaced it. And he actually had replaced it—in a way. But instead of just carrying one, he carried two. This one, with the to-do list he’d never finished and then another one that he used for more lists, more notes, the odd and random doodle. That one was on the table with his wallet, his change, his keycard, and phone.

  This one, though . . . He stood there, staring at the list he’d written weeks ago.

  Start living again.

  Shifting his gaze to the ring he wore, he thought about the whispered conversation—if it could be called that—he’d had with Aliesha in the few minutes before they’d wheeled her off to surgery.

  Aliesha had known.

  His mom had called Aliesha an old soul. She’d been grounded and solid and so serene. Gentle, even. He’d fallen in love with that gentleness and her kindness and her humor.

  And she’d lain on the table, gripping his hand and looked at him with knowledge in her eyes. She’d known. She’d been born with a genetic heart defect and maybe that had given her a somewhat fatalistic outlook on life.

  She’d been sick often as a child but she’d gotten stronger, healthier as she grew. Both her cardiologist and her OB/GYN hadn’t seen any reason why she couldn’t have a safe pregnancy, as long as she was careful.

  Too bad the fucking drunk driver hadn’t been careful.

  As they were wheeling her into surgery, she’d looked at him with pain-bright, but clear eyes, her hand clinging to his.

  Don’t stop living.

  Hadn’t he, though?

  That ring that he wore as a shield—he could psychoanalyze it to pieces. Those psychology courses he’d taken in college came up damn handy at times. If he flipped this all around and looked at it dispassionately, he knew it all made sense.

  There were times he couldn’t even stand to have a woman touch him. Not in any way that resembled intimacy. Aliesha’s death, her funeral—the very loss of her, and then those dark, lost hours the night of the funeral, they were tangled up in a miasma of guilt he couldn’t get free of.

  He still didn’t have those hours back. Whatever shit had been given him, it had been damn effective at turning his mind into a blank slate. He had the vaguest echoes of memory, but that was it.

  The only bits and pieces he could call up from that night were the memory of whiskey—as evidenced by the fact that the smell of it still turned his stomach—and the echo of a woman laughing, and then shouts, followed by fury and pain. The fury and pain made sense, in a way. He’d ended up battered and bruised, so he’d sure as hell ended up in a fight with somebody.

  And that was probably the last time he’d really let himself feel anything that didn’t involve his son or his family. He’d shut himself down, locked himself up.

  He’d done exactly what Aliesha had asked him not to do.

  He’d stopped living.

  Slowly, he tugged the ring off. It would come off for good this time, too. Something that might have been panic swam up, trying to grab him and pull him back down. He’d fought it before, fought the edges of panic even as he fought the depression that had eventually driven him into a shrink’s office.

  If it hadn’t been for Clayton, he wouldn’t have gone.

  If he hadn’t gone, he never would have realized just how utterly fucked up he was.

  And because he knew how utterly fucked up he was, he made himself close his fist around that ring, made himself put it down.

  The phone’s harsh ringtone shattered the silence.

  Trey jerked, sweat beading on the back of his neck, his upper lip, slicking the palms of his hands. His phone sat on the bureau, and the picture of his twin, his nose pressed to Clayton’s, both of them mock snarling, lit up the screen.

  He grabbed the phone like a drowning man. “Yeah.”

  There was a faint pause.

  “You’re a fucking mess, Trey,” Travis said, his voice rough, heavy with sleep.

  “Suck my dick,” he said, all but collapsing on the edge of the bed.

  Somehow Travis had picked up on the chaos Trey was feeling, and it had been enough to wake his twin up. Trey didn’t bother feeling guilty. They’d been like this all their lives and more than once, he’d been the one to call his brother—or at least try—knowing something was up.

  “Shit, man. If you’re this worked up that I can’t sleep, you might as well talk,” Travis said, his voice a little clearer. “’Sup?”

  “Nothing. Everything.” He stared at his ring, because this was the one thing he couldn’t, wouldn’t share. “Look, my head, it’s just . . .”

  “I already told you that you’re a mess. I got that part. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  Abruptly, like everything had morphed into a boulder teetering on the edge of a cliff, Trey could feel himself on the verge of giving in. Letting it all out, like a poison.

  “Shit. I am a mess. You remember that . . .” He stopped in mid-sentence, uncertain where to even go from here. I saw her again. Ressa. I want her. Except I can’t. And I mean I really, really can’t—

  Travis’s sigh carried across the line and then his twin said, “Are you dreaming about Aliesha again? About the wreck? Trey, you know there was nothing you could have done.”

  Squeezing his eyes shut, he sat there for a moment. “No,” he said, forcing the word out through gritted teeth. Then he opened his eyes, stood, and started to pace. “It wasn’t the wreck. It wasn’t her. It’s . . .”

  “Is it that night? Call the shrink.” Travis paused, the words reluctant. He knew how much Trey hated to talk about this. “I know I’m not the—”

  “I still wear my ring,” Trey said, cutting in. He stared down at the bit of gold on his hand. “Not all the time, but when I’m out at a thing like this, or if I go to church with Aliesha’s parents . . . if I head back to San Francisco. I wear it. Last night, I saw . . .”

  * * *

  Recognizing the ache that echoed inside him, Travis closed his eyes. Not all twins had that weird connection. Life might be easier if he and Trey didn’t have it, but he wouldn’t cut this out of him even if he had the choice. But he didn’t want his brother feeling the rush of relief that punched through him.

  “A woman.”

  Trey’s laugh was dry, strained. “You could say that.”

  Something about that pricked at Travis—especially combined with a weird edge of panic. It was familiar, something he’d felt too often.

  “It was Ressa. The librarian. Remember her?”

  For a minute, Travis’s mind went blank. And then, as a smile came over his face, he had to fight the urge to pump the air, or something else equally goofy.

  Still, there was a reluctance, a heavy feeling of guilty.

  Softly, Travis said, “Yeah. I remember her. Trey, this isn’t a bad thing, right?”

  “Fuck.” A world of frustration came out in that harsh, decisive grunt. “The hell if I know. I just . . . I could . . .”

  “You could what?”

  A taut silence hung between and Travis held his breath, thinking maybe, maybe, whatever poison Trey was hiding would finally spill out of him.

  But then Trey just said, “Nothing, man. I can’t do this now.”

  Those words, softly spoken, made him close his eyes.

&
nbsp; ‘Trey, look—”

  “I can’t. Look, I gotta go. There’s a panel, and I . . . I think she thinks I’m still married. The ring.”

  “Then take it off, damn it.” Travis paused then, as he felt something twist, almost savagely inside him. And it didn’t come from him. “Trey?”

  “It’s not that easy.” Then the phone went dead.

  * * *

  Trey disconnected and put the phone on vibrate before he tucked it into his pocket. He already knew what Travis was going to ask anyway and it wasn’t anything he could answer just then.

  Why isn’t it that easy? What’s stopping you?

  It should be that easy. Nothing stopped him.

  Yet something vital did.

  He hadn’t had sex in so long, he might well have forgotten what it was. There had been exactly three chances in the past six years—three dates, each with a different woman and each time had resulted in spectacular failures.

  The first one had just been a series of stops and starts and when Cassie had looked at him expectantly at the end, obviously waiting for a kiss, he’d just nodded at her so she had tried to kiss him and he’d backed away so fast, he’d ended up tripping over the planter she had on her porch.

  Lizette, the cute single mom from Clayton’s play group, had ended up finding another group after their disastrous date and he couldn’t blame her. He’d gone to kiss her and she’d closed the distance and he’d just . . . locked down. Completely.

  Then there was the debacle with his neighbor Nadine. Their pathetic date still made him cringe.

  It wasn’t just guilt—the psychologist had told him it was normal to feel guilty—normal although there was nothing to be guilty about. But it was more than guilt. Trey didn’t even want women touching him now.

  Even theoretically, it wasn’t appealing.

  Or it hadn’t been, until he’d met Ressa.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the ring he’d all but ripped off his hand. It gleamed at him from the table. Sweat built at the base of his neck.

  Swearing, he shoved up and paced the three steps across the floor and grabbed it, hurling it across the room. The platinum and gold band hit the wall and then fell.

  It lay there, on the far side of the room, glinting at him, the gold and platinum shining in the dim light of the room. Mocking him.

  That didn’t change anything.

  * * *

  It took twenty minutes and a lot of sheer determination to get to the room set up for his panel. He kept his head down, his sunglasses on, and his hands jammed into his pockets so he wouldn’t see his naked left hand.

  He kept his mind focused on a plot kink in one of his side projects. The heroine was difficult, fighting him. Too much in her past was just not coming together and he couldn’t figure out why.

  That was enough to keep him distracted until he found the right room, trying not to notice the long line that had already formed. A few people saw him and when he heard the speculative whispers, and more than a few whispers of his name, he hunched his shoulders and just moved faster, letting the door all but kick him in the ass as he ducked inside.

  Once there, he just stood, took a deep breath. The scent of coffee—

  “Mr. Barnes.”

  Blood drained, slowly, from his head all the down to pool in his groin at the sound of her low voice—smooth as honey, potent as whiskey. He hadn’t craved that in years, but now, he had a need to taste it. On her.

  He had another need, too. The one that seemed to flood him whenever he was near her. Muscles tensed and tightened and it was, yet again, just sheer will that allowed him to blank his face as he looked over at her. He could stand this close to her and still feel it, that need to touch, to taste, to take . . .

  Yeah, theoretically, he wanted her.

  And fuck the theory—he just plain wanted. Wanted her with a need that bordered on obsession, and it all but blinded him as she stood there, giving him a polite, professional smile.

  He cleared his throat and managed to return her smile.

  “Ms. Bliss. Ah . . . how are you?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  Trey found himself trying not to stare at the way the high-waisted skirt she wore clung to curves so lush, they were all but imprinted on his brain already.

  Remember item number four on your list . . . try not to drool.

  He could all but feel his smile wobbling on his face now and he looked around, half-desperate. Spying the coffee urns lined up on a table at the far wall, he nodded at her. “Ah . . . I need coffee.”

  Coffee. Coffee would work—if it didn’t focus his brain, he could dump it on himself and use it as an excuse to run back upstairs and change. Getting through the panel with a hard-on was not going to—

  “Morning there, Barnes. You look nervous. Guess those movie star genes from your brothers weren’t passed onto you, huh?”

  The sound of Baron’s voice scraped against his already ragged temper and raw nerves. But it served to cool the flare of heat that had been burning through him. Heat faded, replaced by irritation. And the irritation wasn’t just because Baron stood between him and caffeine.

  Teeth bared in a mockery of a smile, he met Baron’s gaze. “What makes you think I’m nervous?”

  “A little red in the face, looking kind of desperate.” Baron shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. Not like you do public appearances. These sessions are being recorded, you know. Streamed live, and then shared later for those who couldn’t attend. Has to be nerve-wracking—”

  Trey started to laugh. As he edged around Baron, he said, “Thanks to one of those movie star brothers—and actually, Zach didn’t do movies, he did TV—but thanks to Zach, I was used to growing up around cameras and having people ask me crazy questions. I probably had more screen time by the time I was fifteen than you’ve had in your entire career.”

  There was a soft laugh from the back of the room. He ground his teeth together and focused on the coffee setup over at the side of the room.

  * * *

  The forty-five minute panel passed in a blur.

  There were laughs from the audience, there were questions and grins from the panelists—Ressa remembered that. She did her best not to think about the cameras—there wouldn’t be a day when the thought of those wouldn’t turn her stomach, but she kept her body angled to the side and went with the flow.

  When another assistant signaled it was time and she had to tell everybody they had to wrap up, there was a groan that echoed through the crowd.

  She took that to mean she’d made it through another one.

  Half the time she felt like she was faking it and more often than not, she didn’t even remember exactly what had happened until she listened to the podcasts or watched the videos that streamed out in the days that followed these sort of events.

  As much as she hated the videos, she always watched.

  But she didn’t have to look at a video or listen to a podcast to know how this one had gone.

  One look at Max’s face and she knew.

  He caught her hand as she stepped back from the podium. “You knocked it out of the park, sweetheart. Good job.”

  Rolling her eyes, she blew out a theatrical breath, although she really did need the oxygen. “Thank you.”

  As readers started to approach, she moved away. She’d done her job, now she was going to stand by and watch as the people at the table continued on with theirs.

  * * *

  “How long has it been since you did this?”

  Trey studied his numb hand closely. Yep. Still shaking. That had been . . . kind of a rush, he decided. Nerve-wracking in a crazy way, thus the shakes. But fun. Tucking his numb, shaking hands into his pockets, he flashed Max a grin as they moved out into the hall. “About six and a half years. I had that three week tour when Odd Girl came out.”

  Neither of them mentioned the conference he’d been at when Aliesha was in the wreck—he’d barely even had time to meet a few people, talk
to some of his fellow panelists, before he received the call.

  Eyes squinted in thought, Max stared at nothing in particular for a long moment. “That was your first one, wasn’t it? First tour?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed as the adrenaline started to drain away, as if those words had just pulled some unseen cork right out of him. “First and last.”

  “It’s only been your last because you have too much going on in your life,” Max said softly. “Hard to handle that sort of thing when you got your son to take care of. Can’t really spend two or three weeks flying around the country when you got a young son, now can you?”

  “Some people think I can.” He jerked a shoulder in a restless shrug, thinking of the publicist he’d fired only six months after Aliesha’s death. The son of a bitch had insisted it was time that Trey start focusing on his career again—enough time had passed, right?

  Max clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You put your son first. You still do. Not a thing wrong with that, Trey. You’re all he’s got and he needs you.”

  I need him, Trey thought. Out loud he just said, “I know.” They’d been so busy in the room that the next session of panels was about to start so they managed to slip through most of the crowd.

  He wanted to go up to his room for a little while, sit down. Call Clayton—

  “Hi!”

  A punch of heat that was becoming almost brutally familiar slammed into him, catching him in the throat, the gut—lower.

  Ressa cut in front of them, so close now that he could smell whatever she’d smoothed on her skin. She was glowing, the grin on her face was a cross between ecstatic and nervous—sort of how he felt.