“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“I know.”
And I do. Knowing doesn’t make it hurt less to sacrifice my future plans. But he’s my brother. I love him. I’ll do whatever I can to get him out of this mess.
“But Jesus, Jake. What were you thinking?”
A beat. A long, quiet beat. “I wasn’t. That was the whole point. It helped me forget.”
Closing my eyes, I breathe in deeply.
His service has come at a cost. A massive one, it turns out.
“Guess I should have become an alcoholic like everyone else,” he says dryly, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, you couldn’t just ruin your life like a normal person? With cheap booze and bad women?”
“Go big or go home, right?” he says, one side of his mouth curling up into a sad smile, because we both know there is nothing funny about this. He’s in serious trouble.
“Will that be enough?” I ask.
The roast dinner I cooked has gone untouched, gravy congealing on our plates, turning my stomach. Neither of us moves to clear the dishes, the enormity of this situation keeping us pinned to our seats.
“It’ll have to be.” He shrugs, not exactly filling me with confidence. “And it’s more than I deserve.” Jake’s eyes land on the window again as he rocks back, staring out at the car park below. “I’ll move out tonight. I… don’t think it’s a good idea that I stay here, for your sake.”
We lock eyes, the unspoken part of that sentence hanging between us. He’s in real danger.
Tears spring to my eyes. There’ll be no talking Jake out of leaving. Not if he really thinks something might happen to me.
“But where are you going to go?”
Damn him. He’s all I’ve got, and now this. I thought once he left the service, I could stop worrying about him.
He waves away my concern with false bravado. “Chase is giving me a job. I’ll get free accommodations along with it.”
The bald-faced lie feels like a slap in the face.
“Don’t fucking bullshit me, Jake. Not when you’re asking me to empty my bank account to get you out of this shitshow.”
My voice rises hysterically, and I slam my palm down, hard, on the table, rattling the cutlery and glassware. I don’t think Jake has ever heard me so angry.
He leans back in his chair, eyes wide, stunned at my sudden outburst.
“How did you find out? About the gambling,” he asks quietly.
“I called some of your friends, invited them over for dinner and a few beers for your birthday. You’ve seemed a bit downlately, and I thought you needed some fun.” I chuckle darkly. “But maybe that’s the problem; you’ve been havingtoo muchfun.”
I push my plate aside and rest my arms on the scarred wood, staring at the tiny, raised line on the inside of my elbow, earned when he knocked me out of the tree we were building a fort in. I still give him shit over it. I guess I have new ammunition now.
“What did they tell you?” Jake’s expression is blank, and his tone is flat.
He already knows.
“They told me the truth. Which is that most of them don’t want to talk to you ever again, let alone have a beer with you.”
Jake presses his lips together but doesn’t look surprised.
“Said you borrowed money and then ghosted them.”
