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He crosses his arms.
Garrison tenses more.
When did I become the one that has to alleviate fucking tension? When Connor Cobalt chooses his pregnant wife over dinner with the real devil.
“Daisy and Lily are with her,” I tell them both. That’s the best I can do for positivity right now. “Don’t make me try to act like a candy gram to cheer you two up. I can only take so much pain.”
We’d be with the girls, but they banished us to the den. Lily pulled out the “hot-tempered triad” card, and we both relented. It’s not our news to share. It’s Willow and Garrison’s. He’d be with her, but he thinks Jonathan will flip out if they drop the news while he’s in the room.
That’s how much bad blood there is between them right now.
Connor said that Garrison is in the “most unenviable position” of being Jonathan Hale’s only son-in-law. He treats his daughter-in-laws like daughters, but that same respect for his son-in-law just doesn’t translate for some reason.
My dad has never treated women and men the same. So we’re not surprised.
Garrison knocks over a vase with his foot. He paces towards the dark wooden cabinets.
Before he goes slapping all the books and knickknacks, I say, “The maid will just pick that up.”
Garrison stops. Thinks. Then he paces towards the leather couch. He stops again and yanks at a string to his black jacket. His wardrobe has been an easy attack for my dad, and it’s been played to death already.
Do you go into work like that?
Do you even own a suit?
Ryke hates the insults the most. Mostly because he wears track pants and T-shirts to dinners and lunch, and our dad never gets onto him for it.
It’s just what Connor said. Being Jonathan Hale’s son-in-law is different and the most unenviable position.
No one has said a goddamn thing yet, and the air is still thick. I never claimed to be Connor Cobalt. Now I point the ship-in-the-bottle at the leather furniture. “I lost my virginity on that couch.”
I can touch the memory a million times without drowning.
Garrison wakes up from his rambling thoughts, his face scrunched at me like what the hell. “You lost your virginity on a couch? What happened—your demented father guarded your bedroom door on prom night?”
“Uh, no. I was fourteen.” I set the bottle back on the desk and meet Ryke’s gaze. We’re both thinking about it. Our children losing their virginity at fourteen.
Ryke shakes his head at me. “Not fucking happening. That’s way too fucking young.”
Garrison says, “You know you’re old when.”
I must be ancient then. “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen—hell, twenty-seven, I’d like my children to be celibate until…hmm, forever.” I wear another half-smile. I can’t think about Moffy losing his virginity in only six years. And I’ll bust a vein in my neck if I even contemplate Luna in bed with anyone other than a stuffed animal.
“I’m fucking okay with that,” my brother agrees.
Garrison plops down on the leather chair. He rubs his face with his hands, and I realize my virginity story is off his mind now.
Ryke and I exchange concern, and then my brother throws a hacky sack at Garrison—I honestly…I don’t ask where that hacky sack came from.
Garrison looks up as the hacky sack pelts his arm. “What?”
“You and Willow are fucking adults.” Ryke doesn’t add that they’re married, which wouldn’t really matter to Jonathan. He doesn’t even add that they’re both well-off. Garrison with his job at Cobalt Inc. and Willow by opening a Superheroes & Scones in London. The store is still in the early phases, but she’s in charge of that branch, flying back to London every now and then. This wouldn’t matter to my dad either. It’s not about money.
It’s just personal.
“Like he cares,” Garrison snaps.
Ryke jabs a finger towards the door. “He has no fucking reason to be upset that she’s pregnant.”
And there it is.
Willow is pregnant.
She’s not the seventeen-year-old lost girl waiting for me at Superheroes & Scones. She’s twenty-five and knows what she wants out of life. When Willow told me, she just said, “Garrison and I don’t ever want to go backwards, back to before.” She meant to the time before they met each other. “We want a family together…” She pushed up her glasses. “Someone that’s ours.”
It made sense.
It makes sense.
Living in Philly, stable careers—they saw a clearer future together and all the things they wanted next. So they tried for a baby.
Garrison rubs his eyes aggressively with the heel of his palm. Like he’s trying to wake up from the nightmare of Jonathan Hale. “If he wants to talk to me, I think it should be alone.” He pushes his brown hair off his forehead. “Honestly, I don’t need you two flocking me. I’m not a fucking kid.”
At twenty-five, Ryke free-solo climbed the Yosemite Triple Crown, started dating Daisy, and had it out with Greg Calloway. At twenty-five, I already had Moffy, just squashed a neighborhood feud that involved Garrison, and threw a Halloween party in my backyard.
I get it.
He’s an adult, but there’s a part of me that will always see him like the little brother I never had.
“But I know my dad,” I rebut. “It’s better if we’re there.”
Ryke nods in agreement.
Garrison lets out a heavy breath. “I don’t like him. I won’t ever like him, but I’d rather him see me as a man than some scared little boy bringing his two sons as some kind of shitty backup.”
Ryke rolls his eyes.
Mine just keep narrowing, seriousness weighing on my chest and shoulders and head. We both want to protect Garrison, more than he even understands. Our relationship with our dad is toxic. I see that. I get it. And I can take all the verbal attacks. I can take everything. But I can’t take pulling Garrison into another toxic relationship—not when he ripped himself from the one with his brothers.
Garrison’s blue-green eyes fix on mine. “I can handle it.”
Silence heavies the den.
“You can probably handle it,” I say, the first to break the quiet. “It doesn’t mean you should have to.”
His glare grows hotter. “I need to do this.” I hear the endnote: for Willow.
“You don’t.” My edged voice cuts my throat raw. I stand off the desk. “You’re never going to be a man in his eyes. It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with him.”
I feel Ryke focused on me. Like a burning lamp. Intense. Observant. Even hesitant. I spend most of my time defending our dad. Ryke is the one that shakes me. Tells me what happened. Tries to open
my eyes.
I have truths that I haven’t really said out loud. Not in a while. Maybe not at all.
Garrison drops his gaze. “Yeah, Willow has told me some stuff…but she said that he’s always nice to her.”
Because sobriety changed him. Because she’s a girl. Because Ryke and I would stop talking to him if he so much as insulted her.
“She doesn’t know everything,” I tell him, “but he’s a lot better now than he was.” My mind reels and speeds through all the years. All the progress he’s made.
He’s not as terrible as he once was. Despite nagging on Garrison, he’s always supported Ryke’s rock climbing. He’s always supported my love of comics.
I continue, “There are still some things that make him tick. I think you remind him of me when I was in prep school.” Apathetic. Even though he has a job. Sarcastic. Dead to the world. Garrison exudes this lazy vibe. Like he’d rather be anywhere but with you.
Knowing Garrison Abbey, I’d never in a million years label him as lazy. He’s smart as hell and spends more time coding than I do reading comics. And I read a fucking ton of comic books.
Garrison goes quiet again and stares at his hands. I see him start to shake his head, still stuck on the idea of seeing my dad alone. I’ve seen how they are together, how my dad spins backwards into someone we all hate. I can’t let this happen.
I lick my dry lips. “What I’m trying to say…” I take a pause. Say it. Say it. My jaw sharpens, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other, standing in the center of the den.
Say it.
From the chair, Garrison looks up at me.
Say it. “My dad verbally abused me for most of my life, and I’d rather break my knees than put you in that crossfire. So if you want at him, you’re going to have to go through me.”
Ryke lets out an audible breath. He’s stunned because I said the actual word. In the past, I’ve agreed to the statement. I’ve nodded along. But I doubt I’ve ever said it like this.
My features sharpen towards Ryke. “What, big brother?” My eyes burn and start glassing at the sight of his cloudy ones.
His chest rises and falls heavily. Then he nods at me, so much in that one action. Apologies, pride for me, love—a lot of love.
