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The staff had to have been dismissed because normally, this room was filled with smells. The air was constantly warm with home cooking, but not now. Our family was dealing with a crisis, and when my dad and I arrived in the kitchen, we came to find my mom with her arms folded, her back to us.
“Em?” Dad brought her in, coming around her. He called her Em, his nickname for her.
He soothed her once he got to her, his hands down her arms, and I swallowed, feeling the guilt that he had to soothe her. They took a moment, several like this, and I continued to be blown away by the type of man my father was. He also had two faces, one that was completely different in the outside world.
But when he came home, he was this, a father, a husband. He was a provider in every way he needed to be for me, my mother, or Charlie. He’d been this way for my uncle too, even though Charlie wasn’t his son.
I stood quietly, waiting. Some steps came into the kitchen, and when our family’s Labrador, Chestnut, arrived, I realized she must have gotten out. Mom and Dad tended to put her in their room when they knew people were coming by the house. She could be shy.
Chestnut was basically my mom’s dog, and the dog rubbed at my mother’s ankles for her attention. I called her over, and she came to me.
“How long did you know about all this?” my mother asked me, turning around in my father’s hands. She had her fingers to her lips. “How long did you know about what really happened to my brother?”
My throat tightened, the guilt extremely heavy at this point. Standing up from Chestnut, I pocketed my hands. “Since it happened.”
“What?” My dad shot the words, his eyes emerald fire.
I cringed. “I didn’t know the details, which was why I had her do the confession. I didn’t know what she’d say. I just had a feeling something more happened that night.”
“Why?” Dad asked.
I swallowed. “I knew Charlie was seeing her.” At this point, my parents wouldn’t even look at me. I continued on. “I caught them together my sophomore year.”
“You what?” Mom approached me, her eyes expanded. “You’ve known about it for that long and said nothing?”
“I thought I was protecting him.” I felt stupid about that now, and none of this would have happened had I said something.
I think they saw that, that all of this could have been prevented had I made different choices. Better ones. I was still messing up today.
The thought sobered me where I stood.
I definitely couldn’t say anything about my grandfather now, and at this point, my mom turned away from me. I started to move toward her, but Dad halted my attempt with a raised hand.
“Go to your room, son,” he said. “Don’t say goodbye to your friends. Don’t say a goddamn word. Just go. To. Your. Room. While we all figure out what to do next.”
I blinked, nothing more than that. I left the room.
I didn’t need to be told twice.
Chapter Four
Dorian
Wolf climbed through my window later that night.
It was late as fuck.
He arrived around three, us climbing through each other’s windows not a thing. Wolf even had the key code into my neighborhood.
I got up, meeting him, and the first thing he did after he saw me was hug me.
Shit, I must have worried my friends. Wolf’s hug was strong, and we didn’t fucking hug a lot. I mean, we weren’t opposed to it in my friend group, but we really didn’t go around having a whole lot of reasons to do so.
“Hey,” I said, the guy pulling back. I slapped his shoulder, and he did the same to mine before pushing his hair out of his face. He normally wore it up, but it wasn’t today, all those big-ass curls wavy in his face.
“We thought you skipped town, bro,” he said, his jaw clamped up and tight. He braced his arms. “We thought you did after you heard about the murder, thought you were trying to play it safe after what we all did to her.”
That made sense, a lot of sense.
