Rebound (Boomerang #2)(71)

I lift my arm and peer at him. Jesus. He almost fills the doorway. And when did he get so ripped? With his shaved head and his tattooed sleeves, he strikes me as the kind of guy you don’t mess with. Unless he’s your little brother.

“Shut the door on your way out, will you?”

“Get up, Adam. Get your sorry drunk ass up.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m going.” I roll myself up and wait for the room to stop spinning. Then I walk past him, downstairs, into the kitchen. To the bar. “Good call,” I say, reaching into the liquor cabinet. “It was about that time.”

Grey pins me so fast, I never even see him coming.

I’m reaching up one instant, the next I’m hitting the wall and staring right at my brother’s eyes.

“I need you to f*cking listen,” he says, jamming his forearm into my neck. “Can you do that, big brother?”

I’ve seen this side of him, but it’s never been directed at me. Never, because I know the last person Grey would ever want to hurt is me. Which means he’s scared. Scared enough to go completely against his nature. That’s a wake-up call.

I nod. “I can listen.”

“Good. Sit down.” He shoves me toward the breakfast table. Then he pours a huge glass of water and sets it down in front of me.

For a few seconds, we’re quiet, and I can almost feel us both adjusting to this new order. To the Grey who challenges me as an equal. To the fact that maybe, for once, he’s the one with the right idea.

“Here’s what I think,” he says, crossing his arms. “You did this big cover-up about Chloe, right? About what happened to her. You spend almost four years hiding it, telling a lie. Telling our family and her parents that you did it. That you were driving because you think . . .” Grey lifts his shoulders. “Shit, I don’t know. Because you’re trying to exalt her memory, or honor her life by keeping her rep clean or some shit. But you know what? You didn’t just do it to protect her. You did it to punish yourself. You did it because you, Adam Blackwood, can’t f*cking stand that it wasn’t your fault, because you’re a goddamn control freak, Adam. You’re so—”

“You don’t know what you’re—”

Grey uncrosses his arms and points at me. “You said you were going to listen so let me f*cking finish, okay? Jesus. Thank you.” He drops his elbows on the table. “So you cover for Chloe, then you add another layer in the bullshit cake by covering up that lie from the public because you’ve got this fancy company, and no one can know the truth—which actually isn’t the truth, it’s your cover-up—about that night. So now you’re controlling Chloe’s past by rewriting history. And you’re controlling your company’s future by hiding your own lies. Are you seeing a pattern here, Adam? Mr. Puppetmaster? You’re f*cking doing it with me by playing the go-between with Mom. Letting me live here and putting up with all my shit.”

Grey shakes his head and falls quiet for a moment. “You can’t make all our lives perfect. You can’t fix everything. You can’t take everyone’s bullets. You’ve got to let go, Adam. You’re going to kill yourself this way if you don’t. And if that happens . . . shit. I’m as good as dead too.”

I have to fight back tears for a few seconds. I think Grey does too. I can’t lose someone else I love.

We’re quiet for a long, long time. Just sitting. Just breathing. And when my thoughts turn to that night on Christmas Eve, I let it come. I let the images streak before my eyes in high definition, without pushing them back.

And I see Chloe, and how we fought because I just wanted a few more weeks of having her all to me.

“What does that even mean, Adam? Are you regretting this? Me?”

We were in the basement game room at home. Upstairs, the festivities continued without us, Christmas carols and eggnog and the sound of my dad’s laugh, followed by Grey’s.

“Chloe. That’s not what I said at all.”

I couldn’t find a way to explain. My parents’ marriage was so public. My mother and father had always moved in social circles. Their time together was restaurant openings and galas. Write-ups in the society pages. I was fine with that, someday. If Chloe and I both wanted it. But not yet. I wanted what we had for a while longer. The feeling of the two of us discovering the world together like we were tourists in a foreign country. Untouchable. Invisible.

I didn’t want to share her yet. I just wanted a few more months.

But no matter how much I tried to explain, she seemed to hear, “I don’t want anyone to know about you.”

“You’re embarrassed about me because I’m not rich, like you are. I don’t have a big house like this. I don’t have a goddamn pool table in a game room. I don’t have a perfect family like yours. Why can’t you just admit it, Adam? You made a mistake. You shouldn’t have married me.”

“Chloe, please listen to me. Come here.” But she wouldn’t come near me. We’d been drinking, and she was crying. She couldn’t keep still.

“You’re afraid of my moods, Adam,” she continued. “I’m not always calm and rational like you. Well, this is me! You’re stuck with this now!”

I’d seen her mood swings before. I wasn’t afraid of them. I loved everything about her. “The only thing I’m afraid of is losing you.”