Everything for You (Bergman Brothers #5)(26)

Mitch throws me a withering glare. “I’m seventy-eight. Whatever damage I did, living a good life, drinking, smoking, eating delicious high-cholesterol foods, is done. Let me eat my Lean Cuisines in peace.”

“They’re pure sodium. They’re a heart attack wrapped in plastic.”

“You’re worse than my wife was!” he says, crossing himself, then blowing a kiss up at the stars. “Miss you, baby.”

“You’re here because you couldn’t say no to my chicken piccata.”

Mitch scoffs. “Sure. Okay.”

My chest tightens. It’s worse today, the crushing weight bearing down on me, expanding inside me, to the point that I feel like I can barely breathe. “I’m fucking losing it,” I blurt out.

Mitch glances my way, one silver-white eyebrow arched. He shifts his chair until it faces me directly. I decide to inspect the inside of my seltzer glass.

“Go on,” he says.

Clearing my throat, I give the stars an inspection next. Just as I left them last time. “The guy I was… The other night, the guy I was frustrated I had to team up with…”

Mitch is quiet, waiting for me.

“Coach made us co-captains, and she said we have to get along.”

“And?” he says after a beat.

“I can’t,” I mutter. “I can’t be friends with him.”

“Why not?”

Because one moment, that disturbingly honest voice inside me says, of letting down my guard, and I nearly crashed my mouth to his, to shut him up, to wipe the wounded, stricken look off his face and replace it with pleasure.

“Because he’s intolerable.”

Mitch rolls his eyes. “Let me guess. He’s happy. And good-looking. And kind.”

I glare at him. “If he was, that would be irrelevant. Seeing as we work together. And we’re fucking teammates. And he’s ten years younger than me.”

“And you like him. And it scared the shit out of you. So you bit his head off.”

“He’s fucking irritating! He whistles like a goddamn Disney character. He smiles all the time. He’s unnervingly upbeat. Biting his head off is all I can do.”

“Not true. You can apologize.”

I tug at my hair. “Fuck’s sake, Mitchell. It’s not that simple.”

“Yeah, it is,” Mitch says while hacking one of his wet, former-smoker coughs. “You’re just so used to making things complicated, Gav.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you’re lonely, but you won’t let anyone close. You’re miserable, but you won’t open your arms to happiness. You’re scared—”

“I’m not scared.”

“—and you won’t let anyone comfort you or help you figure out how it’s going to be okay.”

Because it’s not going to be.

I swallow roughly. “Bit harsh, Mitchell.”

He shrugs. “I’m too old to prevaricate. Now listen here. I don’t know much about you beyond what you let me see. I know your folks never come around. I know you left an entire life in England—friendships, a home, maybe a relationship—that you’d built for over a decade. I know you’re hurting in more ways than one, and you hate for people to see it. So you snarl and growl and put up your big cold walls to keep them from getting too close, from seeing the cracks in your armor.”

My throat thickens.

“But I got news for you, Gav.” Mitch sets his folded hands on his belly, his wedding ring that he’s never taken off glinting in the moonlight. “And I hate to sound like a Hallmark card, but the cracks are where the light shines through. You can deny it until you’re blue in the face, but everyone wants to be loved somehow, some way, for their little bit of warped, jagged light, for those cracks that have shaped who they are—not just their joy but their pain. Everyone wants to be seen.” He pauses, smoothing down his mustache. “Some folks are just very good at denying themselves that. And you are an expert.”

I blink at him as silence stretches between us. A car door slams, a dog barks. Inside, my cat, Wilde, meows about something, then thumps to the floor from his window bed.

“So,” Mitch says, holding my eyes. “Whenever you’re done living in denial, I’m here to listen. Or better yet—” He juts his chin in the direction over my shoulder. “Talk to that tall, cool drink of water who lives next door.”

I jolt like I’ve been electrified, head whipping so fast, a muscle pops in my neck and burns. “Fuck me,” I hiss, clapping a hand over it.

There he stands, Oliver Bergman, wheat-at-sunset hair falling in his face, just long enough that he tucks it behind his ears, frowning at the lock on his back door. The floodlight turns the tips of his eyelashes to tiny glittering stars, bathes his head in a halo of light.

How appropriate. There he is, angelic, whole, dazzling in the light. While I sit in darkness, broken, scarred.

“Well, probably time I hit the road,” Mitch says loudly. So loudly, Oliver glances our way.

“I’m going to murder you,” I growl.

“I’d like to see you try.” He flexes a Navy-tattooed bicep as he stands and pats it, then says to Oliver, “Evening!”

Oliver glances between us, wearing a confused frown before his expression smooths and that familiar, sparkling smile warms his face. “Evening!” He waves back.