Risk (Gentry Boys #2)(80)

I decided to lay it all out. “Addiction.” I watched Chase blink and then shrink into the chair. I had to force myself to continue. “You’ve got a problem. We all see it. I’d bet the last dollar in my pocket that you see it too.”

“Would you now?” My brother was using the same quiet, deadly voice I’d heard the last time I tried to confront him.

“Chase,” I tried again. “You think I don’t know how you feel? How many times have you picked me up after I f*cked myself up so bad I couldn’t raise my head?”

Chase closed his eyes and hung his head. I grunted as I got my crutches and limped over to him. I wouldn’t let him be alone.

“Look,” I said, “I know what it’s like to be desperate to take the edge off. But the shitty blood in our veins doesn’t give us that luxury. The Gentry trap is always waiting.”

My brother exhaled raggedly. “I went to see her.”

“Who?” Cord asked.

Chase raised his head and looked at us with anguished blue eyes. “Mom.”

“Shit,” Cord swore. “That’s what you were doing in Emblem?”

“I didn’t plan it,” Chase said darkly. “I had Saylor’s car so I ditched class on an impulse and drove down there. You guys, sometimes I just sit around thinking about how it can’t possibly be as f*cking bad as I remember. I think maybe I made some of it up or it’s been exaggerated over time.”

“You didn’t,” I said shortly. “It was every bit as bad and maybe even a hell of a lot worse.”

Chase looked miserable. “I know.”

Cord took a deep breath. “Was he around?”

“Yeah,” Chase admitted with a bitter laugh. “He answered the door. He smiled. The f*cker smiled at me. He asked me to come in and have a beer.”

“Did you?”

“No. I told him to take the bullet train straight to hell and that I was there to see my mother.”

Cord glanced at me. I could see him getting edgier by the second. He hated any mention of Emblem or of our parents.

I kept my voice gentle. “Did you see her, Chase?”

He was frowning at the floor. “I saw her. She was sitting at that same old filthy table in the kitchen. Her arm was hanging at her side and it was covered in so many tracks it looked like she had smallpox. She was skinny as shit and she’s lost a lot of her hair. I tried to get her to look at me and finally she did. Fuck!” Chase held his head in his hands and started to sob softly. “There was nothing there you guys. Nothing at all. She was living and she was breathing. She even muttered my name once but then she just got up and wandered to her room because she’d already forgotten I was there. Then Benton laughed and told me to sit the hell down have a beer. I ran out before I could do something to land my ass behind prison wire. But you better believe I thought about it. He’s old, fat. He wouldn’t have had a chance.”

Cord crept over and put a comforting hand on Chase’s head. It was so hard to look at them. I saw them as the children they had been years ago when the three of us were all trapped together.

My boys.

“She’s long gone,” I told them sadly. “Whoever she had been; an artist, a mother, it’s all been sucked away. And even though Benton’s an evil shit, he didn’t do it all. Mostly she did it to herself. She crawled into the hole and never tried to get out.”

I leaned over and touched Chase’s back. I felt his shaky breathing as he tried to pull himself back together.

“Don’t crawl into the hole, Chasyn,” I whispered. “But even if you do we’re coming in after you.”

“Every goddamn time,” Cord said, hugging our brother. “Always.”

Chase reluctantly agreed to enroll in the program. Then he admitted where he’d been stashing his pills. Cord went to go clean them out of his room.

“Aren’t you tired?” Chase asked I lumbered back to the couch.

“I could sleep,” I admitted.

But he shook his head ruefully. “Not just today. I mean in general. Jesus, is shit ever gonna calm down?”

I set my crutches on the floor. “Fuck calm. Calm is boring.”

Chase shrugged. “You’re right.” He gave me a mischievous grin. “So will there be a double wedding ceremony?”

I tossed a cushion at him. “Shut up.”

Chase dodged the cushion. “No. I remember what you said just before the fight. And I mean to torture you with it.” He paused. “Really though, she is a top tier chick. So did you tell her?”

I thought about the conversation in the hospital. It bothered me that Truly thought a few skeletons in the closet would make me throw up my hands and walk away. I wasn’t walking away. And if she tried to walk away then I would run after her. I would catch her and hold her tight until she believed that she was the best goddamn thing that ever happened to me.

“I told her I wanted to deserve her.”

Chase was impressed. “Well that’s a big fat f*cking first.”

“No kidding.”

“Maybe we can have a double date. You, me, Truly and that Stephanie girl.”

“Stephanie?” I scowled. “What do you want to do that for?”

“She’s hot as shit and damn I love how she tries to hide it.”