“What?” Anna’s facial expression twisted itself into a knot at that logic. “Now I’m confused.”
Leaning his head back against the seat, Jeremy closed his eyes. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“It only happened yesterday, and I don’t think you would have appreciated the call at three in the morning,” he pointed out. His sister wasn’t a woman who enjoyed being woken up unexpectedly. “Besides, I can’t come running to you every time my love life is in the toilet.”
“Why not?” she cried indignantly. “I come running to you when I need a shoulder to cry on. And don’t give me any of that men don’t cry testosterone crap either. I’m your sister. We’re supposed to be there for each other.”
She was right, of course. They always turned to each other when times got tough. Or, at least, they had once they’d past adolescence and stopped trying to annoy the hell out of each other. Turning his head, he gave her a grateful smile. “Thanks for driving me home.”
Mollified, at least for now, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “You’re welcome.”
They reached his place and Jeremy headed off to change out of his work clothes and wash his face. Both of which made him feel vaguely human. When he came back to the living area, Anna sat at the kitchen table sifting through his collection of takeaway menus. “You’re buying me dinner,” she told him as she scanned the selection from the local Indian restaurant.
“That’s nice of me.” Jeremy ignored the hot mug of tea Anna had placed on the table for him.Tea isn’t going to fix this.Harrison had been spot on there. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and wandered over to the couch, collapsing onto one end.
Anna started to join him but stopped halfway. “Are you wearing a polo shirt?” she asked, twisting her lips. “Since when do you… oh no, seriously?” Walking over, she reached for the shirt and examined the business logo stitched into the material over the left side of his chest. “Are you wearing one of Harrison’s work shirts?”
He yanked the material free and smoothed it down. “He left it here when he bolted out the door yesterday morning.” After wearing it to bed last night, he’d put it back on a few minutes earlier without even thinking about it. That was one of the advantages of having a boyfriend, or rather an ex-boyfriend, who was the same size. “It smells like him,” he moped, before dropping his head onto the back of the couch. “I’m pathetic.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, you are.” Sitting on the other end of the couch, she stared at him. “Start talking or I’ll beat it out of you.”
Jeremy didn’t bother lifting his head as he turned to look at her. “You may want to get yourself one of these,” he suggested, gesturing to his beer bottle. “You’re gonna need it.”
An hour later, Jeremy sat cross-legged on the living room floor, his head propped up on the arm he had resting on the coffee table. He poked at a piece of curried chicken with his fork and listened to Anna moan. She’d been at it for at least ten minutes. It was starting to get annoying.
“I can’t believe I told you to put aside your concerns and go for it. You were right all along. Harrison is the equivalent of a relationship nightmare!” She buried her face back in her hands. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s not your fault. What were the chances I’d end up going from bad with Aaron to worse with Harrison?” He hadn’t given her all the details of Harrison’s past, of course. Those weren’t his secrets to tell. But he’d needed someone to talk to and he trusted Anna more than anyone else in the world. So, he’d told her about Harrison’s struggles with depression, and given her enough of the broad strokes regarding his childhood that she knew it was bad—real fucking bad.
“Itcouldbe a coincidence,” she agreed, “but I’ve read about this sort of thing before. Like when people get out of one abusive relationship only to end up in another one when they meet someone new. And they keep repeating the cycle until they learn whatever lesson they’re supposed to learn from it. Then, boom,” she spread her fingers dramatically, “suddenly they’re free.”
“That’s not what happened here,” Jeremy insisted, putting down his fork. “Harrison may have been abused, but he was not abusive. And he’s nothing like Aaron.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she assured him. “I’m talking about the cycle part. You’ve always loved taking care of people. You’re a giver, like Mum, it’s in your nature. I think that’s why you were drawn to Aaron in the first place. Because he needed your big, manly self to sweep in and take care of his very great emotional needs.” Her sarcasm grew as the sentence continued until Anna started to shudder at her own descriptors. “Perhaps, just perhaps,” she spoke hesitantly now, as if she didn’t want to push this new idea too hard in case he rejected it out of hand, “you sensed the same need in Harrison, and that’s why you fell for him so fast.”
Jeremy picked at the label on his empty beer bottle as he considered Anna’s words. They rolled around in his mind, tumbling and turning, but refused to click into place. “I don’t think of Harrison that way,” he said, finally. “I think of him as headstrong and determined.” He’d experienced the other man’s determination in the way Harrison had worked his way into Jeremy’s life, despite Jeremy’s own resolve to keep their relationship casual. Nothing about Harrison struck Jeremy as needy. “I didn’t really understand Harrison until I knew the whole story and could put the pieces together for myself. But I get it now.”
“What do you get?” Anna tore up the last piece of naan bread and popped some into her mouth.
“How hard he works, to be the best version of himself.” The rules Harrison followed every day of his life. The books on resilience he kept on his shelves and the poem hanging on his wall.My head is bloody, but unbowed.The idea this man needed someone else to come in and take responsibility for him was ludicrous. “Harrison doesn’t need me to take care of him, he does a perfectly good job of that himself,” Jeremy said, as a new idea occurred to him. “But he does need me.”
“For what?” Anna asked.
“To make him laugh.” He smiled at the baffled look on his sister’s face. “Harrison said he loves me because I make happiness look contagious, and that everything about me is incredible to him.”
Anna’s eyes lit up and her mouth dropped open. “Holy crap. That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. I wish a hot guy would say that to me.”
“It was pretty amazing,” he said with a nod. “Even if he was breaking up with me at the time.”
Getting up from the couch, Anna took her empty plate into the kitchen. “You know, if he needs a crash course on your faults I can totally help him out there.”
Jeremy laughed for the first time in two days. It felt good. “I’ll bet you could,” he said as he followed her.
After they cleaned up, Anna leaned back against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed over her chest. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I have no idea.” Letting out a sigh, Jeremy shook his head. “You saw what I was like with Aaron. He was needy and manipulative, sure, but I enabled him every step of the way. By the time we were done I couldn’t breathe without him and he couldn’t stand without me.” Harrison had said he worried about hurting Jeremy, but Harrison wasn’t the only one capable of inflicting damage here. “What if I’m bad for Harrison? He’s so strong and independent. What if I somehow sabotage him?”
“Bloody hell, Jeremy.” Anna rolled her eyes at him. “You’re so dire. Can’t you just be there for him while he takes care of himself?”
Jeremy wasn’t sure he understood how that was different from what he’d done with Aaron. “How does that even work?”
“You’ll figure it out.” She scooped her purse and shopping bags up off the table. “Thanks for dinner, bro. I have to go, but let me know when you two have sorted yourselves out, will you? I’m thinking of buying some new furniture and I’ll need someone to lug it home for me.” He gave her a peevish look and she shrugged. “Why should I pay a delivery fee when I can make use of my brother and his boyfriend?”
“That’s why you like having a gay brother?” Jeremy teased. “For the additional lifting power?”
“Duh,” Anna replied. “What else are you good for?”
