“You’ve done something,” Erik said. “You’re worried.”
I took it back. Erik wasn’t my favourite. I hated my little brother. If anyone could read me, then it was this bastard. He’d never understood personal boundaries, which was why Erik had gone straight for contact when he met Scott.
“It’s nothing I can’t resolve,” I assured him.
A plan formulated in my mind; pieces slotting together quickly, and the familiar warmth spread through my chest and into my fingertips.
“If you need my help —” Erik began, ever the peacemaker.
“It’ll be fine,” I said, although I wasn’t sure about that.
Scott was good at keeping a lid on her rage, but I felt the strength of her anger. I needed to get back into her good graces, or at least inch towards them, if this was going to work.
I was ready to cause complete and utter chaos.
“What were you thinking?” I demanded when Matthew finally gathered his wits.
There was a bruise blossoming across his left cheek, staining his skin red as broken vessels allowed the blood to pool. In a day or two, the loss of oxygen would turn it blue-black and make it look worse.
“He gets under my skin,” he replied as he stood in the kitchen, watching me extract takeout from the containers and stopping my train of thought running through the blood clotting cascade.
I understood that. It was in Grayson’s blood to cause trouble, and I’d be an idiot not to assume that had been his goal when he riled up Matt.
“You shouldn’t have reacted to it,” I replied.It was my attempt to try and get him to see the bigger picture.
“I know.”
Piling heaps of noodles high on the plates, I picked them up before motioning for him to follow me. I walked out the back door and into the garden, taking a seat on the chair and putting the plates on the table.
Out in the afternoon's light, the colouring on his skin looked more vivid. It’d been an uneven and unfair match. Grayson should never have jumped at the chance, and I would struggle to keep my mouth shut the next time I saw him.
“Gareth’s going to remove you if you don’t pack it in,” I reminded him harshly.
“I don’t want to talk about work.”
“Okay.” I stopped twirling the noodles around my fork and looked up at him slowly, trying to fade the red from my vision. “What would you like to talk about?”
“I’ve never been to your house,” he said, turning back to look at it over his shoulder. “It’s pretty large, considering it’s only you that lives here.”
A lump materialised in my throat, knocking the anger out of me, and I suddenly felt exhausted, looking out across the garden. The house had been filled once, before I became the single occupant.
“It’s my childhood home,” I told him, fighting the wobble that threatened my voice. “My parents left it to me and my brother, Cass, but then Cass left for the States, and now it’s only me.”
And then Ethan shared this home, staying here as he worked, and I came home to him during the holidays away from my studies. Visions of children and grandchildren used to swim in my mind’s eye. The house would grow from quiet to busy and full of love again, and the vast space where I drowned in depression wouldn’t consume me.
But it’d all slipped through my fingers until I was alone. I was accustomed to my own company, but there were days where it was difficult to think about what might have been.
“What happened to your parents?” Matthew asked.
It was a punch to the gut every time I had to admit it. Relive it. Almost a decade had passed, and the pain was still as raw as the day it happened.
“Train crash.”
The words sounded distant as slender fingers of memories clawed their way out from the back of my mind. The police officers at the door. Identifying bodies. The inquest.
Matthew placed a hand over mine on the table, jolting me back into the present.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently, thumb rubbing over the back of my hand.
