“You gotta stop fidgeting, Drew. I’m about seven small seconds away from pulling over, throwing you out and letting you walk home.”
I faced Slater in the driver’s seat. “I’d actually like to watch you try that one, asshat.”
His hands curled around the wheel, his head flickering from the road to me several times before he just shook it andsighed. “Don’t start with your bravado bullshit. Not in the mood.”
“Something I said?”
“Something you did.”
“Don’t ask me to apologize for that, because I won’t,” I hit back quietly.
The van rattled along the road, and from the way Slater dropped his forearms to the wheel and spent way too long looking at me like I had three heads, we were lucky that we weren’t hurtling into some ditch already.
“That’s right,” he muttered. “Drew Tucker doesn’t apologize for shit, does he? I forgot.” His head bounced as he began to nod, turning his attention back to the road while his body hung limp like he was either tired or defeated. Possibly even both. “See, while you were inside, we had to learn how to make things work for us again. We had to be a family where no one was above anyone else. Sure, Jedd sat at the head of the table, we had our roles, but we were all fucking equals. Everyone was respected and nobody was selfish.”
“The fuck you going on about?” I scowled.
“You, Tucker. I’m talking about you.”
“Slater…”
His back straightened quickly, his hand rising as he reached over and pointed a finger right in my direction, never taking his eyes away from the road again. “Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you sit there and play innocent with me. You made your choices while you were on the inside and we made ours. We never judged you and we never gave up. Don’t you even think about not doing the same for us.”
My elbow fell from the ledge into my lap. I had no idea where he was going, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing Slaterthis way, and that single fact alone caused my mouth to stay shut and my thoughts to stay locked up while I just stared at him.
“You can’t just walk back outside and do whatever the fuck you want, Drew. You can’t. Things have changed. We’ve all changed. Since what happened with Pete, we think before we act now. We use our heads. This isn’t the high school MC it used to be before you went away. There’s no underground shit going on. There’s no going ten rounds to win a load of cash over a fixed fight. All that ended the minute you made a deal with the cops. None of the others will tell you because they respect you too much, but me…? After spending last night trying to hide a fucking dead body from the entire MC, bar Harry and Jedd, while you stuck your dick in a chick for twelve hours… I think I’ve earned the right to say what the fuck I need to say, don’t you?”
Snapping his head around to mine, his eyes narrowed and the muscles in his jaw began to work over time.
I’d never seen him this way, not since the days of our youth when he used to be the first man to jump in front of me in a fight, and the last man to walk away from a standoff. He wasn’t just angry, he was hurt, too, and all that disappointment was aimed right at me. It didn’t take him long to turn away and swallow down whatever bitter taste he had in his mouth. We both knew that he’d said enough in those few words, and we both knew that he was right. I’d killed a man and left him to deal with it. I’d been selfish.
Again.
As the headlights of the oncoming traffic sent flashes of yellow and orange across his face, I realized for the first time in decades that my brother wasn’t just tired, he was holding onby a thread, the same way I was.
“Slater…”
“Don’t,” he said quietly. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry if you’re not.”
Choosing my next words carefully, I pushed both my hands in between my thighs and turned to stare out of my window. “I’m not sorry that I stayed with her, but I’m sorry that I’ve managed to fuck everything up again. I never meant to get us here.”
“You never mean for it to happen, Drew. It just does with you.”
“I’m gonna work on that.”
“Bit late now, don’t you think? Considering how we’ve just been to bury a dead Emperor over on Navarro Rifle’s turf to try and implicate them for his murder.”
I could still smell the dirt on all my clothes and I knew I’d be burning them right alongside the ones I’d worn when I killed the guy. “It was more self-defense.”
“The sad thing about what you just said is that on some level, I think you actually believe that to be true.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. Exactly my point. I don’t want you to say anything else. I want you to start doing instead of talking. Bury the old Drew Tucker and figure out a way to be the man we all know is in there. We don’t just stick around to help you bury bodies and massage your fucking ego, bro. We’re here because we fucking love you. But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit back and watch you ruin yourself anymore than you’ve managed to do since you walked out from behind those iron bars.”
I turned to study the side of his face and I was pretty surethat I could see a small quiver of his chin as he cleared his throat and ran a hand down over his beard.
“I am sorry.”
