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Last year had been rough. I had fucking cancer, and pissed off at me or not, he had to help me keep things calm this year. D got trying to make things better for family when things got tense. He did because he’d asked me to help do that for his own family in the past. We had a long history, my friend and me.
I knew asking this of him was shitty, terrible, but I was doing it anyway.
Dorian’s eyes were cold in my direction, and when he shook his head at the floor, I knew he’d help me. He would because he was ride or die.
He put his finger in my chest. “I will do that, but respectfully, Ares, deal with your shit.” He backed off. “And don’t you dare ask me for anything else until you do.”
I would ask for context, but I wasn’t sure I needed to after how he’d come in here.
Instead, I let him go, and though Thatcher and Wells clipped me too when they eventually made their way out, I knew Dorian would relay the information. He would, and our other best friends would give me the same unsaid promise. The guys and I looked out for each other, regardless of how pissed we were. When it came to our families, we looked out, no questions asked.
The kid was flanking Wells and Thatch, but I trailed after him. “Hey, kid—”
“What, Ares?” Bru turned around, and I didn’t like how pissed off looked on him. The kid was usually pretty easygoing, but I got it.
I eased my hands into my sweats. “I’m assuming Fawn’s going back to campus in the morning.” I hadn’t heard what happened after I left, and upon mentioning Fawn, Bru laughed.
“You’ll be happy to know Fawn will be spending Christmas by herself.” His eyes narrowed. “She is going back to campus. Mom and Dad asked her to come with us, but she politely declined.”
I figured as much, but I didn’t like that she’d be spending Christmas by herself. If the alternative was being around me, though, she was better off. “I don’t like that she’s spending Christmas by herself, but I think you and I can both agree, we shouldn’t be sharing space. I was shit to her.”
“And I still don’t get why even after hearing all of it.” He braced his arms. “Honestly, Ares, I didn’t even believe it when she told me. I didn’t believe my brother would lie to his family and his friends, and for reasons I’m still trying to wrap my head around.”
So Fawn had told him, but he just hadn’t believed. He thought I was better.
He thought I was good.
“You know that girl is one of the nicest people I’ve ever known,” he shot, making me blink. “She was so cool to me, which I didn’t always get moving around as much as I did.”
He was right about that. It even took the guys and me some time to warm up to him when we all first met. Granted, there’d been a lot of factors going on back then, but still.
“So she was your friend.” I was more so telling myself that, and that definitely sounded like Fawn. She supported the shit out of me on more than one occasion when I certainly hadn’t given her a reason.
I really didn’t want her to spend Christmas alone, and actually, if I was hell-bent on torturing myself, I’d be bugging the kid and asking him where he put her up. I’d be at her door like a sick fuck doing sick-fuck things. Things like pleading with her when I had no right.
Things like being on my knees for her.
Shit like that wouldn’t be helpful, but mostly, for her. I may look like the asshole right now to my friends and family, but I’d be that. Fawn didn’t need to be around me right now. Now was a bad time, terrible.
“She was and a good one, a great one,” Bru continued, and I gazed up. Bru shrugged. “It was brief, but yeah.”
I figured because of what he said earlier, how he’d moved. That part still confused me a little since I’d believed him and Sloane had lived in the Midwest their whole lives.
I asked the kid about that, and he ended up bumping his shoulders again.
“We weren’t in New York long enough for it to count,” he said, and when I nodded, he sighed. “Anyway, I’m going to bed. I love you, dude. But you’re making it really fucking hard now after what you did.”
I understood that, respected it, which was why I did let him walk away. “I really don’t like that she’s going to be alone,” I said, his back to me. “And I’m sorry things happened the way they did.”
I truly was, honest. I hated I got her wrapped up in my stupid fucking life, and I meant that.
His back to me, Bru sighed again. “Maybe give that apology to her, bro,” he said, though that was something I knew I couldn’t. More complications would come that way. Fawn had told me she loved me once.
And I couldn’t risk that love again.
CHAPTER SIX
Ares
