Necessary.
Excruciating.
And I do it anyway.
Despite my good intentions, I don’t sleep. And I’m out of my house again at the crack of dawn, queuing up for croissants.
I buy way too many, planning to dump a load on Tam, like I’ve done most weekends long before I called Everwyld home. But I’m not thinking straight—I’m not thinking at all, and maybe that’s what has me leaving a paper bag on Galen’s doorstep and skulking off without knocking.
Croissants to say thanks for more orgasms than I have fingers. Merde, I’m lame.
And cold by the time I rock up at Tam’s on foot. Transparent too, apparently, and for the first time in a while, Bhodi isn’t there to protect me.
“What the fuck is up with you?”
“That’s not very nice.” I keep my tone mild, moving around Tam’s kitchen like it’s my own, grateful for the times when it was. “You speak to Bhodi like that this morning?”
“He’s still asleep. Like your daughter. It’s six o’clock, you fucking lunatic.”
“You’re awake.”
“Only because Rudy wanted to fight that badger that comes through the garden.”
“You should let him. Might teach him some manners.”
At my feet, Tam’s rowdy dog jumps on his hind legs, trying to climb me, but he’s the size of a rabid shrew, so…
Fuck it. I scoop him up and let him lick my face. Maybe he’ll be my shield against the piercing perception my brother is currently skewering me with.
“Sab.”
“What?”
“Pourquoi tu ne me parles pas?”
Why won’t you talk to me?
“About what?”
“About whatever has you looking like you haven’t slept in a month. You’re not…”
“Using? No, brother. I’m not dumping my kid on you so I can spend the night on the snow.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
I believe him. Tam’s grumpy sometimes, but he’s honest to the bone. If he really thought I was banging coke, he’d have been on my doorstep before I cut the first line.
He’s my brother.
My best friend.
But that knot in my gut…even after a night with Galen, it’s still fucking there.
I take Rudy to the fridge and rummage around, pilfering Tam’s ham and cheese stash while he simmers behind me, trying to push through the Dubois temper that skipped my DNA and figure out how to speak again without chucking something at me.
When he says nothing, I figure he needs even more space and retreat to the Christmas tree me and Esme helped him decorate last week.
She made baubles at nursery. Bog rolls covered in glitter and cotton wool. They’re ugly as shit, but Tam has five of the nine she made.
