Page 79
Jefferson’s eyebrow lifted. “I maybe wouldn’t let him hear you describe him as old, lil bro.” Amusement heavy in his tone.
I grinned. “I said older, not old.”
“So you did,” Jefferson agreed. “And did it feel good?”
He meant the conversation, I knew. Shrugged, remembering the awkwardness after Coach had told me some of his own story, shared details of his college life, and how I’d been left unsure as to just which parts of it I was allowed to reveal to my big bros. The dynamic with Luke was different, yes, but I still wasn’t clear on how much of what he’d talked about was fair to repeat.
His advice, though, that didn’t seem like something you had to keep to yourself.
“He said we can’t control what people feel about us, or think about us,” I recounted. “Just be honest about how we feel about them.”
Jefferson nodded, slowly.
“So how do you feel, lil bro?”
It was easier not to look at him, not to even try to hold that measured gaze.
“I feel like I never properly thanked you. For the club, for how you, well... how you rescued me.”
If I could hear the shake in my voice, I knew Jefferson would hear it too.
“We don’t have to talk about this, if it makes you uncomfortable. I know the memories are bad ones.”
I frowned, my stare still fixed on the corner of the tent. Not trusting myself to even attempt to make eye contact.
“Not all of them. The memories, I mean.” I gestured, exasperated; annoyed with myself for struggling so much to express it all properly. Sometimes it was like the words were all there, in my head, only by the time my mouth had got involved everything ended up jumbled. “Like, those guys, what they were doing, that was fucked up. But the memories with you are... better.”
“That makes sense.”
I sighed. “But there’s no way to thank you properly. Not really. And any time I try to think about how I could, I just come back to how much of an idiot I was in the first place, and how scared I was. I feel so pathetic, compared to you.”
“You think I wasn’t scared?” A challenge, but still delivered softly.
“You were angry,” I pointed out.
“You can be both,” Jefferson corrected. “And holy fuck, lil bro, I was so damn scared. When Adam called me... my brain, it just immediately jumped straight to the worst that could happen.”
The thought of it - of worrying him, of making him fearful - curdled my insides.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“It’s not something for you to be sorry about!”
He paused; took a breath. My eyes had jerked back to him, at his raised voice. Now, as I watched, his jaw worked with barely-suppressed tension.
“The thing that got me, that really shook me up, it was how helpless I felt.”
His voice very nearly normal, now; very nearly as it had been before. You needed to have really listened - to have hung on his every word for what felt like so long - to tell the difference.
“All the strength, all the training I’d done,” Jefferson continued. “But what if it wasn’t enough? What if despite all that, and all my best intentions, I couldn’t save you when you needed saving?” He shook his head, eyes closed and lips tight. “You must think I’m a fraud, lil bro. I sure as hell feel like one.”
I frowned at him, replaying his words. Trying to understand what I was hearing, even as my frustration surged. The anger building in me, not so much for what’d happened, but for this fresh knowledge of how it’d affected Jefferson. The way he’d been left feeling; the emotions he’d bottled up, with no possible explanation but that he’d not wanted to burden me with them.
Or, I realized with a sickening lurch, because he’d worried that my opinion of him might change.
“You’re not a fraud,” I choked out, through a throat which felt determined to close on me. Took a step forward, narrowing the gap between us. The proximity forcing me to look up if I wanted to hold his eye, Jefferson’s wide pecs only inches away.
“Lil bro...” It came out as barely more than a whisper.
