His Invitation (X Enterprises Book 3)

by Tanya Gallagher

  Deacon swung open the door to let his parents in. They were leaving today, and there was only so much more damage they could do.

  His father frowned as he caught a whiff of the alcohol rolling off of his breath. “Son.”

  His mother’s nose wrinkled. She held up her hands to stop him from saying anything. “I know you don’t want to see us, Deacon. But there’s something you should know.”

  “What can you possibly have to say to me?”

  His mother’s face collapsed. “That we love you.”

  He turned away so they couldn’t see the way he gulped for air. He walked into the living room and gestured for them to follow.

  Behind him, his father shut the front door, and Deacon collapsed onto the couch.

  He barely felt the cushions give when mom perched on the couch beside him. She was thinner now—her body and her face—and she wore the vulnerable expression of someone who’d become practiced in the art of losing. She scanned the room. “Is Emma here?”

  Deacon’s shoulders shook as he coughed out a dry laugh. “No.”

  “I thought she was your roommate.”

  His voice was laced with acid, and his words burned a hole through his stomach lining. “Not anymore. I don’t have a great track record.”

  His mom’s face crumpled, and she patted his leg to comfort him. “I’m sorry. I liked her, Deacon.”

  “Me too.” He flinched and edged away from his mom. “Is that what you came here to talk about? The fact that I can’t take care of the people I love?”

  He stilled as he realized the word he’d just used.

  Love.

  He loved Emma. Fully, completely. Too bad it didn’t make a damn bit of difference.

  His father’s voice broke the silence. “Deacon, there’s something you need to know about Simon.” His mother’s shoulders caved in, and his dad took her hands between his.

  Deacon’s rigid jaw ached. “What? That his life was cut short? That he never got to live out his dreams?”

  “Enough!” His father’s shout shocked him into silence. “If you’d bother to listen instead of talk you might be able to stop carrying this weight around forever.”

  His mother slipped one hand away from his dad’s and used it to reach for him. He let her hold his fingers, her skin papery and dry against his—the three of them linked together. She licked her lips, and her voice trembled. “Honey, Simon was sick.”

  Deacon’s heart thudded, a dull, wet beat. “What do you mean?” he whispered.

  “He had an autoimmune disease—Multiple Sclerosis. He found out about it just after Christmas.”

  Deacon had only been home for the holiday before heading back to his apartment in the city, but he remembered the way his brother had brightened his voice when talking about how his fingers were tingling. “It’s because there’s lightning in my hands,” Simon had joked. Only now Deacon realized, with his stomach twisting, that the false tone must have been a way for Simon to cover the fear. Deacon had heard enough about MS to know just how bad it could be.

  “He wrote Carry On after that New Year’s,” Deacon said. His parents nodded, and he squeezed his eyes shut. His voice was thick. “Why didn’t you guys tell me?”

  His father sighed. “Simon didn’t want anyone to know. It’s a debilitating disease, Deacon. He’d had tremors and dizziness.”

  The puzzle pieces snapped together. “The death sentence for a drummer’s career.” His father’s face tightened as he nodded, and Deacon winced. “Sorry. Wrong choice of words.”

  His dad continued. “He knew he’d be at risk for seizures and paralysis down the line. He wasn’t going to be able to keep playing in the band. But he wanted a short time to really live. To be a teenager who didn’t have a diagnosis. Before he couldn’t hide from it anymore.”

  Tears choked his mother’s voice. “We agreed to let him go to California with the band for a year, because who were we to keep him from the short time he’d be able to live his life on his own? It was on the condition, of course, that he came home the minute he needed to.”

  Deacon’s stomach clenched. “Why are you telling me this? So now I get the pleasure of remembering him as the sick kid?”

  His mother shook her head adamantly. “No, Deacon. The opposite.” Her hand squeezed tight around his fingers. “What happened to you and Simon was a tragedy, but it was also a blessing.”

  Deacon recoiled, and he made his voice steel and ice and a thousand Arctic winters. “I killed my brother, and that’s a goddamn blessing?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. “For him, it was. Simon died before any of the horrors of his future became a reality. Before he lost his talent, before he lost his independence. He’d just come from a graduation party—probably a pretty great night, surrounded by his friends, where he could forget about everything and just celebrate his life.”

  Deacon’s shoulders shook with a sob he couldn’t contain. “Why did it have to be me?”

  His parents both reached for him, pulling him into a shaking group hug.

  His father’s voice was rough with tears. “It wasn’t fair. It’s never fair, Deacon. But he got to be with his best friend. He got to be with you, so he wasn’t scared.”

  Oh god.

  Deacon’s stomach roiled with nausea, and his mouth tasted like tequila and vomit. Every fresh revelation was sandpaper scraping away at his chest. Every new layer of truth ripped a fresh barrier of tissue from his heart.

  He was so raw.

  So fucking empty.

  All the blood welling up and pooling in his lungs.

  He couldn’t breathe, the blood choking him. He was going to drown in his own tears.

  Deacon’s mother broke the embrace to pull a pack of tissues and a stack of papers from her purse.

  She shoved a tissue at him, and he blotted his face. Then she unfolded the first paper. “The police report from that night,” she whispered as she passed it to him with shaking hands. “The other driver was drunk. And going sixty on a thirty road. You wouldn’t have time to react.”

  “We don’t blame you,” his father said. “And you shouldn’t blame yourself. This was not your fault.”

  Deacon balled the tissue in his hands as his parents stood.

  “We need to catch our flight home,” his father said, “but please stay in touch. Come visit anytime.”

  His mother dropped a piece of Renegade Hotel letterhead on his coffee table. On it, she’d written phone numbers and email addresses in her neat cursive. “You’ve put your life on hold for long enough, Deacon. This does not need to eat you.” She squeezed his shoulder, and her palm burned through his shirt. “The only thing worse than losing a son is losing two.”

  Deacon stared at his front door, his body numb and his heart racing in his chest. If he looked out of the peephole, he might still be able to see his parents’ retreating backs. But he was alone again, left in this huge apartment without anyone here to witness him falling apart.

  He longed to climb on his bike and ride out into the desert, but the ground had just become a thing that could swallow him whole. Instead, he stumbled to Emma’s room with his phone clutched in his hands.

  Her bed was still made—girly, pale purple sheets stretched across the mattress, and her comforter was balled into a pile at the foot of her bed. He climbed into her bed and drew the sheets and comforter to his chin. The fabric released Emma’s smell—cupcakes and lavender—and his heart stuttered in his chest.

  Deacon lifted his phone and turned on Simon’s song, then set the device on the middle of his chest, on top of his heart.

  He closed his eyes and let the lead singer wail out the song his brother had written.

  “My future is a loaded gun, so I might as well live while I’m young. And when I’m gone this will be your song to help you carry on and on and on.”

  After the accident, Deacon could never stomach Carry On, but as he listened from the cocoon he had built out of sheets and pill
ows, his fingers tapped the beat. If you let the music guide you, the song really did make you want to dance.

  “Do not be scared, for none are quite prepared, so it’s just one day at a time. Live your life to be true and find love in all you do, and know that I’m with you even when I cannot stay.”

  Oh, holy fuck.

  His skin tingled.

  Emma was right.

  Simon would have wanted him to be happy. Hell, he was telling them all, spelling it out for them like a clue you left in broad daylight.

  “Live your life to be true.”

  Maybe he’d just been existing all this time—aimless—because it was easier than letting himself feel each cutting edge.

  “Find love in all you do.”

  He’d had love. With his parents, with Simon, with Emma. And he’d pushed them all away because he wasn’t worthy.

  But Simon’s song curled into his ears and filled his chest with oxygen instead of sadness for the first time in years.

  The song came to an end, the notes filtering out, and Deacon reached for the phone with trembling fingers.

  Hit Play.

  Started the song again.

  Chapter 27

  Emma waited in the hallway outside of Apartment 11A, her stomach knotted and her mouth full of cotton.

  Gabe’s voice rang out from inside. “All clear.”

  “You sure no one’s home?” she called.

  “Unless Deacon’s hiding under the sink, I think you’re fine.”

  She sighed and walked into the apartment, trying not to let her eyes stray to the living room where she and Deacon had made love against the wall of windows. Trying not to see the couch where she’d writhed against him, face to face, heart to heart.

  But actually, they’d had sex in a lot of places.

  Dammit.

  Emma bit her lip and hurried down the hall to her bedroom, her empty suitcase banging behind her.

  Gabe was already inside, stripping the sheets from the bed, and her heart sank as the lavender sheets revealed the bare white mattress underneath. It seemed so fucking final.

  She turned away from the sight and blinked back tears. Then she pulled her books off the shelf and piled them into the suitcase. She’d learned long ago that books were the heaviest things to move, and she couldn’t bear to leave them behind. In the suitcase, she’d at least be able to drag them along instead of having to lift them if they were in a box.

  No need to add a backache to her growing list of injuries.

  Injured wallet.

  Injured pride.

  Injured heart.

  Gabe stuffed Emma’s sheets into a trash bag for easy carrying and offered her a smile. “Bex sends her apologies for not being here, you know. She had to do some last-minute babysitting for Sam.”

  Emma waved at him. “Don’t even worry about it. You guys have done more than enough for me. Letting me stay with you while I track down a new apartment…” Her voice broke, and she forced herself to breathe. “It’s really sweet of you,” she finished lamely.

  “We owe you. If not for your meddling, we might not be together.”

  “Hey, I don’t meddle.” She gave him a watery smile. “I plot with purpose.” She opened her dresser and scooped the remaining clothes into another trash bag.

  Gabe looped his trash bag’s handles into a knot. “Anything else I can grab?”

  Emma scanned the room, but everything was bare, from the closet to the bed. Even the gorgeous bookshelf Deacon had built her gaped like a wound. “I think that’s it. If you want to get started loading the car, I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Gabe tipped an imaginary hat at her and grabbed the handle of the suitcase. He bumped it out of the room and down the hall, the wheels leaving tiny indentations in the carpet.

  Trails away from here.

  Emma slid a rent check out of the back pocket of her cutoff shorts and propped it on top of the bookshelf. She had only made it a month in this place, but it had been the most intense month of her life.

  Her chest collapsed on itself as she touched the bookshelf one last time, its mahogany sides and strong walls sleek under her palms.

  She’d started a new list of rules in her mind, unrelated to this place.

  Rule number one: with any decision, have a backup plan in place.

  Too bad she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Bex darted a glance at Emma and twisted her hands together.

  Emma blew out a deep breath, her eyes riveted on the red door in front of her. The glossy panel smelled like fresh paint, but the doorknob had the faded patina of something that had been used for years.

  How many people had walked through this door before her?

  Where were they today?

  Hopefully someone was doing a little better than she was.

  Bex’s voice reached through the fog and brought Emma back to reality. “You know you can stay with me as long as you need.” Her voice softened. “In case you change your mind about going back to the old apartment.”

  Emma shook her head, her chest heavy. “Thank you, but I’m not going to change my mind. Even if Deacon and I hadn’t broken up, I should have gotten my own place a long time ago.” She needed to start living her life, to stop being scared of being on her own.

  Bex nodded. “Okay.”

  Emma rang the doorbell, and the red door opened to reveal a balding man clutching a stack of papers. “I’m Sergio, which means you must be Emma,” he said.

  She licked her lips, her throat dry. “That’s me. I called about the apartment?”

  He smiled and waved her inside. “Please, have a look.” He shoved one of the papers at her and ran a finger over the surface of the flyer to point out the apartment’s features. “Free parking, updated kitchen and bathroom.”

  Bex nodded along with each point, and Emma couldn’t help but smile.

  Sergio played to the crowd. “There’s also an in-unit washer and dryer.”

  Bex elbowed her side. “No more trips to a sketchy laundry room!”

  Emma grinned. “Maybe I liked the sketchy laundry room. For, you know, picking up guys.”

  Her joke fell flat, and she rubbed her chest with her hand. Her heart beat underneath, still strong, even though it felt demolished.

  Bex pointed at the flyer. “There are also two bedrooms.”

  “One for each of you?” Sergio looked between her and Bex.

  Emma straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Actually, it’s all for me.”

  His eyes widened, but he recovered with a smile. “Excellent. Well, Emma, please have a look around.”

  “Thank you.”

  She walked through the apartment, trying to picture herself here, and Bex trailed behind her. The apartment was older than the last one, but where her place with Deacon had generic carpeting, the floors in the main living area here were a gorgeous hardwood. Something with character. A building like a friend.

  The bedrooms were small but cozy, and light spilled into the kitchen, reflecting off the white tiles and brightening the space.

  After a short tour, Bex leaned her back against the kitchen counter. “What do you think?”

  I’m not ready.

  All the bravery from before dissolved and the world spun in a slow, agonizing circle. Emma pressed trembling fingers to her lips and squeezed her eyes closed. “I think Deacon would love it.” Bex’s arms looped around her back, soothing and warm. Emma’s shoulders shook as she spoke. “Is this what it’s supposed to feel like, Bex? Like you can’t breathe?”

  Bex whispered, “Sometimes it does. But every day it gets a little easier.”

  Emma’s breath rattled in her chest as she sighed. “Thank you.” She pulled away and straightened her shoulders once more, making her voice go firm. “I’m going to take it, Bex.”

  “This place?”

  Emma nodded. She didn’t have Deacon. But this apartment, at least, felt like something she could hold
onto with two hands. A future where she’d take care of herself, face everything she was scared of.

  “It’ll be great,” she whispered. “A few accessories and the place will feel like me.”

  Bex searched her eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I am.” She bit her lip. “It’s about time I stopped needing everyone else to take care of me. I need to be my own safety net.”

  If she said it enough times, maybe she’d start to believe it.

  Bex’s smile was a lifeline. “Then let’s go tell Sergio.”

  They walked back toward the front door, where Sergio was wrapping up a phone call. He glanced up as they returned and dropped his phone into his pocket.

  “I’d love to give you more time to look around today,” he said, “but we’re closing the office early. For the holiday, you know.”

  “Right.” The holiday. The Fourth of Fucking July.

  Happy Independence Day to me.

  Sergio handed Emma an application from his stack. “I’ll give you some more time to decide, and you can get back to me. Though I have to warn you, it’s a first-come, first-serve situation.”

  Emma shook her head. “I don’t need to think it over. I’d like to move in.”

  Sergio’s face brightened. “Really?”

  “Yeah. If you can wait just a minute, I’ll get this application filled out right away.” She combed through her purse for a pen but came up empty-handed. “Um, actually.” Her face heated, and she twisted her lips. “Do you happen to have something to write with?”

  Emma’s life rule number two: come prepared for all situations.

  Sergio pressed his lips into a smile and handed her a pen.

  Chapter 28

  Deacon leaned against the kitchen counter, swigging a glass of orange juice while he stared into the living room with wary eyes. The Renegade Hotel logo peeked out of the folded paper his mom had left on the coffee table, enticing him even as it mocked him.

  God, had it only been three days since his parents had dropped the bombshell about Simon? It felt like years ago, like his whole life had blasted apart and he was scraping it back together.