Damn. I was so freaking wrong.
“Perry, man. I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve?—”
“For what? You don’t have anything to be sorry about. Except for what you just called me.”
I can’t stifle the grin, even as I explain, “I wasted so much time thinking this news would destroy you like it did me. We could’ve reconnected years ago if I weren’t such a dumbass.”
He bunches his mouth to the side, hemming and hawing. “Perhaps.But honestly, the timing worked out for the best. If you had told me years ago, it might have broken me. When I thought Sammy was dead, I was in a dark,darkplace. If you’d have found me then, I hate to think of how it would’ve gone. Good chance I wouldn’t be standing here now.”
His point is valid. It still grates to know we could have had each other all this time.
With one more reassuring sentence, my brother unravels the remaining threads of regret that’ve covered me for so long.
“Turns out, you did protect me, big brother.”
He’s right.
I’ll never admit it to him because he’s already the president of his fan club.
But he’s unequivocally right.
Sometimes life has a magical way of working shit out at precisely the right time.
Take that, Morgan Freeman.
Beautiful mental silence.
Once the moment passes, Sawyer tosses an arm over my shoulder. We head to the door where we’ll try to act like nothing out of the ordinary occurred.
Then I fucking hear it.
That condescending voice.
“Well, friends. It seems our hero has finally made peace with his demons and freed his soul from the chains of his youth. Ahead of him lies only blue skies and happiness. What a beautiful ending to his tale.”
It takes all my might not to deck my twin. For he hath no idea what he’s done.
Instead, I shake out of his flimsy hold and turn on him. “Never. Ever. Use that voice again.”
Affronted, Sawyer palms his chest. “I beg your finest pardon, my good sir. But what is the actual fuck?”
“That British one? Fine. Never the other.”
“Aw, man. It wasn’t good. I thought I nailed it.”
“You did. That’s precisely the problem.”
He narrows his eyes, assessing me openly. “Later, we’ll have a beer, and you can show me on this doll where Morgan Freeman hurt you.”
“You didn’t even seethe best part yet,” I tell Lila, leading her toward the back porch with my hand on the small of her back.
“What?”
As if I summoned their call, one of our feathered housemates shrieks loudly from the yard.
The second squawk convinces meloudwas a gross understatement.
Holy fucking hell, that was deafening.
