* * *
Wyatt
Not everything is resolved, but it took years to make this tangled mess.We walk back toward the house side by side.
“You need to catch up on work.I’m sick of covering for your ass,” I say.
He nods and runs a hand through his already messy hair.“You got an extra laptop?”
“Yeah, set up in the dining room.”I’d search the windows for Sara, but all I can see is the reflection of the sun on the glass.
“I won’t get punched in there?”
“No guarantees, but we can call it a neutral zone.”
“Fuck.”He rubs his jaw.“Dante still hits really fucking hard.”
“He really fucking loves Sara and you put her in danger.”I sigh.“You have to understand where we stand.If someone had taken Natasha from you, what would you have done?”
His gaze goes hazy as he stares at the house, but he nods.“I’m trying to get it.”
I slap my hand on his shoulder.“You’ll get there.But I’d stay away from those three until you really get it.”
“Finn, Dante, and…”
“Sara.”I smirk.“She’s pissed at you and has every right to be.You hurt her the worst.She was followed.Her home broken into.Kidnapped.And you kept us away from her.”
“She had other boyfriends,” he mumbles.
I shake my head.“Not really.None of them meant anything to her.The first boyfriend she really cared about was Drew Young.”
Tom tips his head and his green eyes meet mine.“There had to be others.”
“No, there weren’t.”I blow out a breath.“If you’d just let things take their natural course, we would have been awful for each other.But now…”
“Fuck, I don’t want to know.Maybe we keep thenowstuff to a minimum until I can wrap my head around all this.”
“Wrap fast, Tom.We can’t hide out here forever.”I stop walking and he stops with me.“Your mom’s going to have a lot to take in at once.You, married with a baby on the way.Sara, with us.You need to be on Sara’s side by the time she has to tell your mother.”
Tom drags in a breath.
“And you’re going to be the one to tell her what your recklessness almost cost Sara.”
“Fuck.”Tom starts toward the house again and I join him.After a few more steps, Tom glances at me.“We’re not square yet, are we?”
I think about Sara and what all she’s had to endure.What Dante, Finn, and I had to endure.The open, festering wound of Tom’s father’s death and my dad’s responsibility has been cleaned out, but it’s far from healed.
“No, we’re not.”
Tom stares at his feet.
“It’s going to take time, Tom.There’s too much damage to just wash off the blood and move on.”I rub the back of my neck over the strained muscles there.“You and I will get there.We may not get back to where we once were, but you’re my brother.The others?”
“Yeah?”Tom holds open the door to the house but doesn’t step inside.
“It’s a fresh wound for them.They haven’t lived with the truth hanging over their necks waiting to drop.They’ll need to work through it and that’s going to take time.If you’d released it years ago, it would have been the guilt of a child.But you held onto it for years and made me pay for it.”
“I don’t have anything to say to that.”Tom looks up at the sky and then meets my eyes.“I thought I was doing what was best for everyone.I’m sorry that I didn’t realize I was just hurting all of you.I’m sorry I hurt you that way, and in turn, hurt everyone I love.I’ll find a way to make it up to all of you.”
