Neat (Becker Brothers, #2)(73)

And blended.

And created contrast and depth and everything that was so challenging with sketching — that challenge usually the medicine that healed all my ailments.

But when the pencil fell limp in my fingers and I stared down at the face that stared back at me — the one that had haunted my dreams all night, too — I didn’t feel any relief.

I only felt the deep, all-encompassing, impossible-to-ignore urge to make everything wrong right again.

I’d brought Logan to life on that paper — the crinkle of his eyes when he smiled, that dimple on his cheeks, one hand seeming to hold the face of the person looking at the drawing while the other rested under the pillow he laid his head on. My sheets pooled around his waist, allowing me to bring the lean lines of his toned stomach to life. His hair was a mess, just the way I liked it, and he was looking at me like I was the only thing that mattered in this entire world.

Like the way I looked at him.

I sighed, dropping the pencil to the pad and scrubbing my hands over my face. I didn’t even care that I was surely marking my face with pencil dust. I wanted to rub away the exhaustion, the headache, the stress.

When I lowered my hands again, I found myself staring at the photograph of him eating pizza and taking notes that first day we’d worked on the shop. My heart crawled into my throat, and I tried and failed to swallow past it as I looked at him.

I could only remember one life-altering moment in my life.

That night my father chose his reputation over me, the night he made it clear that my safety and wellness came second to the connections he needed to run business — I made a choice. I chose to never lean on my family again, to never abide by the rules they set for me, to forge my own path and forsake what anyone in this town ever had to say about it. I chose what was right over what was wrong, what was hard over what was easy, and what was just over what was unjust.

Now, I found myself sitting in that same, hollow, yet somehow exciting kind of moment.

I was on the precipice of making a decision that would alter everything. I would no longer be able to wake up in the life I’d known, in the comfort I’d made a home in, in the certainty I’d found peace in. Because once I made the choice that I was teetering on making, everything would change, and though it was the harder path to walk — it was the right one.

I stood, setting my sketch to the side and walking over to stand in front of the photo of Logan. My heart clambered in my chest, and I placed a hand over the spot where it ached, soothing it as best I could.

He was worth it.

He was worth everything.

And no matter what it cost me, I would do right by him.

That was a promise.





Logan


I told you so.

It was the unspoken theme of that Christmas Day.

I felt those words floating in the air, could practically hear them coming from my mother, from my brothers, from myself — though no one spoke them out loud.

For all intents and purposes, it was a Christmas like any other. We all gathered at Mom’s last night after the party at the distillery, and Mom made cookies that we decorated just like we did every Christmas Eve since we were kids. Her favorite Frank Sinatra Christmas album played on the speakers, we all wore matching flannel pajama bottoms, and though we were quieter than usual, and I was a fucking wreck inside, we all kept it together on the outside.

No one spoke about the promotion.

No one asked me about Mallory.

No one gave away that we were all hurting, that we were all upset, and that once again — our family had been disrespected by the Scooters.

Instead, my brothers and I put on our happy faces for Mom, and she put on her happy face for us, and we made cookies and watched old Christmas cartoons and then we made a big pallet in the middle of the living room floor. The three brothers slept there while Mom slept on the couch, and though it felt wrong to not have Noah there, it was still home.

It was still Christmas.

I wished it was a rainy, cold day in the middle of November that I felt this kind of pain. I wished I could be alone, in my bed, in my own home. It felt like a betrayal to my soul to open gifts that morning, to eat a lavish Christmas dinner, to pretend I gave a shit about anything other than running to the person who had caused me more pain than I’d felt since my father passed away, and somehow finding a way to make it right with her.

And perhaps more than anything else, I wished I could open up to my family about what I was feeling. I wished I could lean on my brothers, on my mom, on the ones who had always been there for me. But I already knew what they would say.

They’d say I told you so.

And I couldn’t stand to hear it — not now, maybe not ever.

I’d been so sure that they were wrong about Mallory, that the acts of her father didn’t speak for her. I was so sure she was different — not just from the other Scooters, but from every other person in this town, period. I’d seen this deeper side to her, this diamond she kept hidden from everyone else — at least, that’s what I’d convinced myself.

And even now, even in the middle of the pain caused by her hand, by her father’s hand — I still believed it.

I’d lashed out at her the night before, and shame heated my neck again at the memory of it. I was hurt, and unable to control my anger, and I’d taken everything out on her when I knew she hadn’t meant to hurt me.