“—but he’s my brother. He has no one but me. And I… I have no one but him. I don’t like the choices he makes. In fact, I am fuckingangry,and I told him so. Because his kids deserve better. Hell,Ideserve better. But you don’t get to pick your family. You have to make the best of it and stick with the ones you’ve got. And I… fuck.” He scrubs both hands through his hair. “Lissa saysblock him. You think the same?—”
I have to grind my teeth a little because,yeah, I do, but the comparison to Lissa isn’t exactly my favorite.
“It’s not that easy,” Robbie goes on. “Could you turn your back on Holden, if he needed you?”
It’s not the same. Holden and I give each other shit—hell, Holden givesallus siblings shit; I’m just the one who gives it back to him the most. But there is nothing Holden wouldn’t do for me, and me for him. It’s reciprocal.
Pointing that out feels unkind, though. Like,look at what I have and you don’t.Besides, Robbie sees the difference. He’s too smart not to. He just doesn’t want to acknowledge it.
“You deserve the fuckingbest, Rob,” I growl, grabbing the back of his neck again. This time, he lets me. “That’s why this pisses me off. You know that, right? If you want to give him money, give him money. Hell, if you thought it would be fun to burn it in a pile on your lawn, I’d handyou a match… and bring an extinguisher, just in case. All I want is for you to be happy.”
Robbie’s nostrils flare, and his eyes get shiny. “I know.”
“But this asshole doesnotmake you happy. Not even in the way that helping other people makes you happy. Because you know that you’re not actually helping him.”
Robbie looks away, and I squeeze his neck tighter.
“Which is why, I’m warning you right now, one of these days, I am going to yeet your brother into the surface of the sun. You’re going to hear scientists speculating on TV about what’s causing the weird, Mike-shaped eclipse. And you’ll say to yourself, ‘Damn, I guess poor Ames finally lost his temper.’ Please pretend to be surprised.”
Robbie lifts his eyes to mine, and we stare at each other for a long moment. Then his eyes go wide.
“Ames…lost his temper?”
I snort. “You don’t have to start pretendingnow,dipshit.”
“Ames? Poor Ames Axford? My shy, sweet best friend?”
“Hey! I’m adelight.”
Robbie’s mouth twitches. “A delight.”
“And handsome.”
“Of course.” He smiles full-on. His whole face softens, and his eyesheat.
Fortunately, an ominous crackling from the stove distracts me before I can go too far down the road to ruin.
Remember Auden, Ames? Remember how you’re over all this?
“Grab some plates?” I manage to sound light and easy, which is a victory. “These really are about to burn now.”
But when Robbie reaches past me for the plates on thefar side of the stove, his chest presses against my back, and I have to hold back a moan.
“Y-you can set them on the counter.” My voice comes out strangled because… Robbie’s not moving away. His arm is extended alongside mine, his body warm and solid against me, and I swear to god I feel his breath against my hair like he’s…sniffing my hair?
The next second, he sets the plates on the counter and ducks in front of the fridge to get us drinks, and I realize I imagined it.
Oh, Ames. What the fuck are you doing?
We settle into our usual spots on the sofa—Robbie sprawled across one side, me curled up on the other—and I try very hard to pretend that I am not slip-sliding back into Delulu-Land.
He turns on the new episode of theExtreme Wilderness Adventure, but I’m barely paying attention to the frolicking lumberjacks. I have my own scruffy mountain of a man on the other side of the sofa, and I keep catching him glancing at me when he thinks I’m not looking, like he’s noticed how weird I’m being.
“So… things are going well with Auden?” he asks suddenly. “Tonight was, what, your third date?”
“Yeah.” I keep my eyes on my plate. “Goinggreat. Yup. Super well.”
“I’m glad.” He clears his throat. “You know, you never told me what happened with you and Erick.”
