“My pleasure. Least I could do,” he replies and takes a sip. I make one for myself and when it’s done I glance up at the clock. “He’s covering the whole shift, Deck. No strings attached. So this is officially your day off.”
“Okay,” I reply reluctantly because, like it or not, I’ll have to accept it. And figure out a way to pay him back later. “So…”
“So?”
Logan sips his coffee and waits for me to continue speaking. But honestly, I don’t know what to say. I sip my coffee and lean my butt against the counter where the coffee machine rests. Logan smiles. “Jesus, Deck, am I that hard to talk to?”
“No. It’s not you, it’s me!” I blurt out and he laughs. Logan has a great laugh and our family went a long time not hearing it when he was struggling with the aftermath of the car crash he was in. He blamed himself for his friend driving drunk, and I didn’t do anything to alleviate that feeling. I probably made it worse. “I’m scared I’ll say the wrong thing. I always say the wrong thing, so I decided to just not talk that much and stay out of everyone’s way.”
Logan stops laughing. He puts his coffee mug down on the island. “Is that why you aren’t back in your business suits, barking out marketing strategies and refusing to do boat work?”
“Yeah.” I don’t know if I should be talking about this until I’ve had more therapy sessions and we’ve figured out how to fix me, but here we are.
“Declan, we don’t want you to try to be someone you’re not,” Logan replies. His voice is firm and his eyes are soft. It reminds me of the few times I’ve seen him talk River through a teaching moment. So great. Now I’m being treated like a child. “We need you on the marketing side, not the boat side. Robbie is ready and willing to be Dad’s official second. And I can cover the few shifts he can’t. I liked going out on the boat.”
“Yeah, but you have Chloe now and the dogs. And with your new custody agreement you’re getting River more than ever. Plus, you have another full-time job,” I remind him, pausing to sip my coffee. The rich, nutty flavor is delicious but I still want to yawn. “I don’t have anything, so I wanted to try and give you as much time off with them as possible.”
Logan stares at me and it’s clear he’s awed. “You did this for me?”
“Partly, yes,” I admit and take a bigger gulp of coffee because I don’t know how he’s going to react. My family has always hated when I do stuff behind their backs when I think it’s for their own good. “Also for Finn and Nova, because if you pulled back on helping Dad out on the boat, he would ask Finn. And they’re in their honeymoon stage and I don’t want to interrupt that either. I know they see each other at work all the time but they need time away from that place. Nova thrives on affection and I deprived her of that for a lot of years.”
“You didn’t,” Logan argues and scratches his beard. “You two were best friends. That’s affection.”
“Okay if you want me to say it, I deprived her of passion and everyone deserves passion.” I swallow down another gulp of coffee and move my eyes from my brother’s quizzical face to the window above the sink. It looks like it might storm. The sky has thick gray clouds everywhere. I decide I should move the topic of conversation to the weather but before I can Logan hits me with a question of his own that I didn’t see coming.
“So do you have passion?”
My eyes fly to his face. He’s not smiling or holding back a laugh. He’s asking me a dead serious question. And I want to crawl out of my own skin. I open my mouth to speak but it just hangs open wordlessly. I want to blurt out ‘it’s none of your business’ but that would be old Declan and I’m sick of that guy. So I snap my mouth shut without uttering anything.
“One of the tricks with AA, when you’re helping a guy through a rough patch, or a complete sobriety break like Abbott had, is that you check their place for hidden booze,” Logan says and I’m about to sigh in relief at the sudden, but welcome, change in subject. “I told that to Aspen, so she cleaned the first floor and made sure there wasn’t anything. I checked over his bedroom when he crashed after the meeting.”
“You didn’t find anything did you? He hasn’t been hiding booze and sneaking drinks, has he?” I sound frantic with panic because I am. What if Abbott’s been secretly drinking — numbing himself — this entire time? Not only am I a fool for not noticing but that also means drunk Abbott is the one who invited me to move in, who acted like he wanted to come out. Who acted like he loved me.
“Declan,” Logan says my name and I snap my eyes and attention back to him as I straighten from my relaxed position. I put my mug down on the island next to my brother’s. He looks perfectly calm and his voice is even and easy when he speaks. “I didn’t find one ounce of booze.”
My shoulders sag and I whoosh out a heavy breath of air I didn’t know I was holding. Logan shifts on the white bar chair. “But I did notice that your clothes are in his closet.”
Oh. Fuck.
“Yeah, you know Aspen has a ton of clothes, so like, there was no room in the guest closet,” I lie and know immediately he’s not buying it at all.
“And I saw your antidepressants in his ensuite.”
“Why were you nosing around the bathroom?” I snap.
“I used to hide vodka under the sink in mouthwash bottles when we were living at Mom and Dad’s,” Logan explains flatly. “Add a little green food coloring and no one even blinks.”
“Jesus.” I run a hand through my hair and it falls into my eyes so I shove it back, annoyed.
Logan watches me as I grab my mug off the counter and take an aggressive sip. I point to his mug. “Are you going to drink that? It’s going to get cold and it’s not great cold. We don’t have a microwave to heat it up in either. Aspen doesn’t believe in them or some such shit. They’re bad for the baby. She heats bottles on the stove like a pioneer woman.”
“Declan…”
“Drink your coffee Logan or I’ll throw it out. And you can go home.” Old Declan is taking over and I’m too weak with panic to stop him. Later I’ll kick myself, I think, as I watch his face fall.
“You’re like a cornered feral cat,” Logan announces as he reaches for his coffee mug so I can’t take it. He has a sip and then looks me dead in the eye. “You haven’t acted like that since you were in the closet.”
“Shut up.”
