Page 75 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

I think about what Luna told me once, in passing—about her sister, about the girl who traded the right things for the wrong ones and couldn’t see it because she was too busy comparing. Too busy being jealous of Luna. How Luna said it, without anger, just with sorrow for the waste of it.

“Were you jealous of me?” I ask. “When our parents married.”

The silence that follows is a different kind from the ones before it. “You were the black sheep oldest son who did things his own way and had dangerous friends,” Hugo says slowly. “I was a teenage boy with acne, good grades, and no friends. Of course, I was fucking jealous.”

I sit with that and almost laugh. How was I so blind before now?

It does not excuse anything. But it shifts something—small, like a piece of furniture moved two inches, the room unfamiliar in a way you can’t immediately name. I’ve spent years reading Hugo Dumas as a man who wanted what I had out of greed and entitlement, and there is truth in that reading. But there’s also a teenage boy with acne and no friends standing next to someone who didn’t have to try and hating him for it, and both things aretrue simultaneously, which is more complicated than I prefer my enemies to be.

“Is that why you’ve been a giant pain in my ass this whole time?”

“Yes,” Hugo says, without hesitation. “Wholeheartedly, yes.” He tells me about it then—about getting his face rearranged, about lying on a floor looking at a ceiling and arriving at a series of conclusions about his own behavior that he had been successfully avoiding for decades. “… you have never hurt anyone without cause, Ivan. I’ve always respected that about you. And I gave you more cause than most people. I never would have understood that without being on a floor in significant pain, questioning all my life choices. It was an unpleasant realization to have in that position, but better I recognize that now instead of right before I die, I suppose.”

I find, against my better judgment, that I believe him. I don’t want to. Decades of experience tell me not to. But I do.

“So, this is the start of my apology tour. I wanted to start with you,” he says. “And I was hoping—if you were feeling generous—that you might say something to Luna on my behalf.”

“You wish to make amends with her, too?”

He pauses. “I want to reach out to her. Apologize. I want to make amends to the people I’ve hurt. I know it’s a long list.” Another pause. “I’m going reverse chronologically. But after what I did, I doubt she’d welcome me in her shop.”

I think about what she said to me when I stood in her kitchen with my taped hand—about not wanting violence done in her name, about wanting to bring light into dark places, about asking me to be something other than what I’m and my not being able to do it.

I think she would find a genuine apology from Hugo interesting. She’s curious about people in the way that people who are good at people tend to be curious. She would hear him out. She might not forgive him, but she would hear him.

“And Olga? I’d say you owe her apologies, too.”

“If she’ll still have me.” He says it quietly. “I’m going to fix this. Or try. I know there’s no guarantee. I’m not owed a guarantee, wedding ring or not.”

This is news I was not prepared for. “What do you mean, if she’ll still have you. Did she?—”

“She moved out,” Hugo says. “She found out I cheated with her on Luna. She did research, and then she asked Luna directly, and Luna—” He stops. “Luna didn’t make me sound worse than I was. Which I did not deserve.”

No. She wouldn’t. Luna is infuriatingly fair about people, even the ones who have earned worse.

I think about my own list of errors, which is shorter than Hugo’s but includes items that count. The lie I told in her kitchen. The reason I gave was true and wrong at the same time. The night I walked down her stairs and didn’t look back, which I told myself was respect for what she asked and which was also the easiest exit available to me, and I have been living in the gap between those two things for days.

“You have a lot of making up for lost time to do,” I say. “You can’t rush it. Every slip-up will be accounted for.”

“I know.”

“She’s not a woman who forgets. She forgives, maybe. She doesn’t forget.”

“I know. I don’t expect anything from her. If she’s not open to it, I keep my distance. I won’t push.”

I’m quiet for a moment. “I should tell you—I’m no longer with Luna. So whether you reach out is your own decision to make.”

Hugo is quiet for a beat. “What happened? You seemed—” He stops himself. “Never mind. It’s not my business.”

“My work is not for everyone.”

He understands what I mean by that. I can hear it in the pause. “I’m sorry, Ivan,” he says. “Thank you for talking to me. I know a single phone call doesn’t fix anything. But I’m sorry, Ivan. For all of it. For all the years of being a giant asshole to you. I’d rather be your brother instead. One day. If you’ll have me.”

I don’t know if this is Hugo running a longer game than I’ve given him credit for. I don’t know if a broken nose, a floor, and a reckoning have actually changed anything about the man, or if this is the same manipulation dressed in different clothes.

What I know is that hearing those words from him—I’d rather be your brother—is enough to make me want to hear more from him. I’ve never wanted to hear more from Hugo Dumas. This is the first time it has meant something else, and while I don’t entirely trust it, I find I’m willing to follow it anyway. Something about days of silence from Luna has screwed with my risk tolerance.

“Give me time, Hugo. But we can work on this. Maybe one day, you’ll be my brother. Instead of the asshole in a suit.”