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“I never want to see you again. Don’t look for me. Don’t look for Dakota. You don’t exist to us.”

He flinched back, and a knife’s edge sliced through my heart. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t this guy.

I turned and fled through the open door, cheeks hot. What the fuck had I been thinking, giving in to urges like that when all I wanted was answers?

Well, I’d gotten them.

Joey hadn’t known it was me that night at the nightclub. I’d just been a guy he’d wanted. And he didn’t use that nickname as a mockery of Dakota’s pain, but as a reminder of it.

It should have made me feel better.

It didn’t.

Knowing that Joey hadn’t preyed on me, that he’d genuinely liked me as much as I’d liked him, made the ache in my chest all the sharper.

The house was quiet when I got home. For half a minute, I thought I might make it to my room.

Then Dakota wheeled out of the darkened hall. “Where have you been?”

I opened my mouth to answer. Couldn’t find the words.

I extended the pint of Rocky Road I’d picked up at a gas station on the way home. “Got you some ice cream.”

“And it took three hours?”

I winced. I didn’t know I’d driven around aimlessly for so long, trying and failing to shake the memory of Joey on his knees, murmuring please punish me. Trying to bury the guilt and shame—my anger doused the moment I came down his throat—leaving only self-recrimination behind.

This guy hurt Dakota in ways that could never be undone, and my answer was to fuck his mouth? I was disgusted by my actions. I couldn’t even imagine what she’d think if she knew.

“Whatever,” she said. “Give me the ice cream. You owe me that much for scaring the crap out of me.”

I handed it to her, and she wheeled toward the kitchen. I considered trying to slink away.

“Get in here,” she called. “Tell me you where you’ve been. You didn’t go murder Joey Whittaker, did you?”

I huffed a laugh. She was closer to the mark than she realized.

“I’m sorry I lost my shit,” I said. “I should have been here to support you. I just got so angry, and I couldn’t contain it, you know? It was going to spill all over you. So I—I just had to go.”

She pried the lid off the ice cream and got two spoons out of the silverware drawer. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget how much my accident affected everyone else.”

“God no, Dakota. Jesus. Don’t apologize because I’m angry you got hurt. You’re the one who has to live with it.”

“You have to live with it too,” she said gently. “You gave up your whole life to move back here. To help me through recovery. I won’t ever forget that, Kit.”

I blinked hard. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t just for you.”

She held a spoon out to me. “No?”

“Nah.” I dug the spoon into the pint of ice cream, scooping out a bite for myself. “I got a second chance to be a better brother. It could have ended that day. It was so damn close, and I couldn’t go back to being a self-absorbed asshole who cared about parties and getting laid.”

“Good thing,” she said with a giggle. “There’s not much of that in Riverton.”

I thought of Joey on his knees, taking my cock down his throat as penance, and swallowed hard. Shit.

Don’t think about that. Not now. Not here.

“I, uh, also get a lot of brownie points for being the devoted brother,” I said.