“Tell you what? There’s nothingtotell.”
“A drinking problem, Beckham! That’s a pretty big fucking deal.”
“Ihada drinking problem.”
“That doesn’t just go away overnight.”
“I quit drinking, so yeah, it does.”
“Why?” I had no idea why I was mad; I only knew that I was. It felt like he’d been hiding it, even though I hadn’t been around to know about it in the first place. All those years, so many things happened, and I knew none of it. The reminder of all that lost time stung, making me more upset than I should’ve been. “It got that bad you had to full-on quit?”
He ran a hand over his jaw. “I had a wake-up call, so yes, I chose to quit.”
My eyes widened. “Awake-up call? What does that even mean?”
“I punched my brother.” His tone was flat, like there was no emotion inside of him aside from a hint of regret.
“Youwhat? Which one?”
“Reed.”
That was the last name I’d expected. Reed and Beckham always got along growing up, despite making everything a competition. What the fuck had changed in the last ten years?
Not only had he turned to alcohol, but it had gotten so bad that he’d punched his own brother?
What the hell was happening?
I tore my hands through my hair, spinning around to face the wall. I silently counted to ten.
Beckham knew my dad was an alcoholic. Knew how bad he’d gotten. He knew all of that, and yet that was how he’d chosen to end up.
“Parker. Take a breath.”
I spun on him. He’d come closer, only a foot separating us now. “Tell me why you did it.”
He looked ashamed of himself, and that had me nearly breaking. “I was mad.”
“Because of the alcohol,” I filled in.
“No.”
“There’s no other reason, Beckham!”
“Yes, there is.”
“Then tell me.”
Pain washed over his features like a waterfall, and he was trying not to drown in the current. “Park.”
“Tell me, Beckham.” I swallowed back the knot in my throat. “No secrets, remember?”
“Fuck, Parker. Because of you!” He ran a hand over his hair, fingers digging into his scalp. “Because Reed brought you up to get a rise out of me, and it worked.”
My lashes fluttered, processing what he’d said. “Why would you punch your own brother over me when I hadn’t been here in years? You didn’t even know if I’d be coming back.”
He laughed, though it held no humor. “Don’t you getit, Parker?” He stepped closer. “I never stopped thinking about you. Every fucking day, I wake up, and I think of you and—” He cut himself off, but I tried not to look too far into why. Who else did he think of when he woke?
“It’s always because of you.”
