And he’s going to give me his fucking phone number after today, that’s for sure. I’m going to ask Anya for Irina’s as well. Or hell, maybe I’ll fly out there and collect all of her family’s phone numbers myself. It’s been long enough of letting her settle in, I think.
Part of me wonders if she would be having a bad day if I was there with her. It might be cocky or irrational to think that my presence alone could keep her happy, but I would do anything to make it true.
Apollo tilts his head at me, curious. “Are you hoping to turn him in your favor? Perhaps to become a son-in-law someday?”
“We’re just friends. It isn’t like that.” The denial is quick and tastes bitter as I get it out. He doesn’t need to know how it is between Anya and I.
No one should be reading into our relationship, especially not while I’m still unsure how she even feels about it. I won’t have anyone tease me for my devotion to her, even if she only ever wants to be my friend.
He shrugs. “Whatever you say.”
“Thank you for helping,” I mumble awkwardly, maybe even begrudgingly. I can’t put into words how much relief he’s just given me, but he’s still Apollo and he was still an ass when I first spoke to him.
“You’re not so bad, when you want to be.” It’s the most grateful I can sound without saying something that will make me cry. He really helped me today, rocky start or not.
“Perhaps married life is softening me,” he suggests, almost smirking. “Rayna calls me a prick enough for the both of you. I have no need to irritate you on purpose.”
Ain’t that the truth.
The two of them have never seemed more in love, and I still hear her cursing him out sometimes. I think they like it too much, the freaks.
“Dad says we argue because we’re fundamentally different,” I tell him, wondering if he agrees. “But I don’t think I’m similar to any of our brothers, and we all get along fine.”
“They didn’t help raise you.” He pauses. “I took our mother’s?—”
“Alina,” I correct stubbornly. “Don’t call her my mom.”
I haven’t called her that since I was five, and I won’t ever again. Istillhaven’t spoken to Anya about Alina, and I don’t know that I ever will. I don’t know if my hatred for the woman who gave birth to me will trigger her in some way, knowing that her own mother was a million times worse.
Alina may not have had me tortured, but she made me grow up feeling unloved and unwanted by her while she doted on Leon and my other siblings. I don’t care how deeply messed up she probably was. I don’t care how good she was to Leon or how she tried to take care of us when the mood would strike for her.
I came into this world at the worst point of her life, and there was no effort on her end to make me feel like her son. Dad and Apollo are my earliest memories, not the ghost of the woman who could only muster up love for how having a big family made her look.
When she found out she had a terminal brain tumor, she didn’t try to make the most of the end of her days. She didn’t realize life was fleeting and try to love her children for as long as she could. No, she tried to save herself with secret doctor’s appointments and specialists.
And when they couldn’t help her, she killed herself before the tumor could do it for her. Dad doesn’t think I know more than the basics of what happened, but I know everything. I read herautopsy report. I know she could have lived a year more, maybe even longer.
But living for her sons, living for me, was more than she could be asked for. She chose to leave us, and she chose to die. I have no mother, and she made that decision.
“Alina, then,” he concedes. He’s never fought me on my rejection of the woman who abandoned us. “I took Alina’s place in your life. Unfortunately, that meant you ended up with my teenage version of nurturing.”
No shit,unfortunately.
Apollo’s version of nurturing was side hugs after training and telling me to go to bed as if I needed to be told. He wasn’t a mother, but even I’ll admit he did a million times better than Alina did.
“You took nothing seriously, and I needed you to grow up so that I didn’t have to worry about you so much. I made you strong. I would feel bad about it, but Dad let you be yourself where I didn’t.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“I have always been concerned that your…boisterouspersonality would get you killed some day. I wanted you to be able to protect yourself. But Dad always knew that you could be lively and lethal. I didn’t understand it, so I wasn’t perfect. I still don’t understand it, but I hope you can see that I’ve improved. I thought our arguments have become more banter than anything else over the years, but correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Maybe you’re not wrong,” I mumble reluctantly.
“You should know that you can come to me with stuff like this,” Apollo says, keeping his tone measured and clear. “It would make me a shitty Capo, and a shittier brother, if I made you feel like I wouldn’t help you when you needed me.”
I try not to react, but the shock I feel is undeniable. We don’t talk like this. Ever. The only emotionally vulnerableconversations had in this house are done so with Jade or occasionally Dad. But Apollo?Never.
“Our personalities clash, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.”
