In the end, I mentally applauded the little mouse.
Good for her.
She’d need that ability to fight back. Someone whose books were that successful couldn’t stay anonymous forever.
A piercing ring sliced through the quiet of the bedroom suite, startling me out of my thoughts. Hurrying across the room to where my ringing phone sat on the desk beside my discarded laptop and career, I grabbed the mobile. There was no caller ID. Not in the mood for a sales call, I picked up and answered with lazy boredom, “You’ve called Hot Boys Twenty-Four Seven, Fabio speaking. How can I help you with your kink?”
There was silence. And then a huff of annoyance. “Still haven’t grown up, I see.”
The familiar voice tightened my fingers around the phone. “Seb?”
“Hmm, yes,” my brother responded with impatience. “I’m surprised you recognize my voice it’s been so long. I tried calling you frommyphone, but I have a sneaking suspicion you blocked my number.”
I had blocked my elder brother’s number. “What do you want?”
“We haven’t spoken in four years and that’s all I get?”
“Seb, what do you want?” I repeated, trying to remain unaffected and relaxed.
Sebastian hesitated, and then his heavy sigh crackled the line. “Father is ill. Cancer. You need to come home.”
Rage filled me at theCword. The memories it evoked. “You mean, the way he didn’t come home while our mother was dying?”
“You need to forgive him, Theo.”
Like hell. “Is he dying?”
“You need to come home.”
I took an inner breath, refusing to reveal my anger. My repeated question came out calm and uninterested. “Is he dying?”
“We’re not sure.”
Liar. My brother had always been a terrible liar. “What kind of cancer? What stage?”
Seb cleared his throat. “It’s not something one talks about in polite conversation.”
I grinned darkly. “It’s his fucking balls, isn’t it?”
Sebastian snarled, “Do you have to always be so crude?”
Laughing, I shook my head. “That’s bloody brilliant. He spent his whole life dipping his wick in places he shouldn’t, and now he’s got ball cancer. Perhaps Karma exists, after all.”
“I cannot believe you are mocking our father’s cancer.”
“Oh, I’m not mocking cancer, Sebastian,” I drawled. “I’m applauding a universe that respects justice.”
“There’s a very big difference between justice and revenge, Theodore. To wish this on anyone, most especially your father, is outrageous.”
His indignation did nothing to me. “I didn’t wish this on him. I’m just not going to come running to his side to shower him with sympathy. And frankly, I doubt very much he needs me to hold his hand while he loses his balls.”
Silence greeted me for a few seconds and then Seb said quietly, “Your bitterness will eat you alive if you’re not careful, brother.”
His words found their target, and I wanted to hurt him back. “I’m not your brother, Sebastian. You stopped being that for me a very long time ago.” I hung up, throwing my phone on the bed as memories rose from the corners of the room, pressing in on me.
A bright, agonizing flame of pain scored across my chest, and I dragged a hand down my face, trying to push the memories back.
Distraction. I needed a distraction.
