The front door banged open, and there was the low murmur of voices and footsteps echoing. Cash nudged me wordlessly.
“Yeah, yeah.” I got up and went out into the living room with Cash trailing behind me.
“Uncle Chase! Is your head better?” Gracie asked, scrunching up her nose. “Did a nap help?”
I crouched down in front of where she was perched on the edge of Cash’s armchair and gave her a smile, because she was a little kid and she didn’t need to deal with my shit. “Yeah, sweet pea. I was just tired.”
She examined me closely, then nodded like I’d passed some sort of five-year-old fitness test and ran off to her room to do whatever little kids did.
Wilder and Danny were both watching me with matching expressions of concern. “How are you really doing? Or shouldn’t I ask?” Danny said.
“I’m…” I pulled a face. This wasn’t Gracie I was talking to. And for once I didn’t want to lie and say I was fine when I clearly wasn’t. “I’m not okay,” I admitted. “I got dumped, and it sucks.”
Wilder spread his arms wide, and the next thing I knew he was wrapping me in a hug. I let him hold me, and it felt better than I wanted to admit. Guilt swirled in my chest because I’d been an asshole to these guys when they hadn’t done anything to deserve it, and they weren’t even mad.
“I’m sorry I threw a beer can at you,” I mumbled from where I was smooshed against his shoulder.
Wilder squeezed me tighter, and when he let me go, he was grinning. “It’s all good, man. You have shit aim.”
Then Danny grabbed me and hugged me too, and it hit me all over again how Cash crawling into my bed all those times hadn’t only been for him, but for me too. I leaned into the hug.
“Sorry I’ve been in such a shit mood,” I said into his shoulder.
He patted me on the back. “Is that an apology for the last two days, or the last two years?”
“Fuck off,” I muttered.
He laughed and hugged me tighter. “We’re good, little brother.”
That stung more than something nice had any right to, and I straightened up and glared at him. “Hey, the only little brother here is Cash.”
Cash flipped me the bird. “You’rethe little brother, asshole!”
“Bullshit.” We’d been arguing for years about which one of us was born first. I’d asked our mom once and she said it was me. My victory dance had lasted all of about thirty seconds when she’d followed up with, “But who the fuck knows how many times we mixed you up when you were babies?”
So yeah. Chase had been born first, but maybe I hadn’t even been Chase at the beginning. It was pretty fucked up when you thought about it, but also one of the least fucked-up things about our parents. Maybe in someone else’s family it could have been a funny story, but there wasn’t much room for those in ours.
“Our parents mixed us up a bunch of times, so we don’t even know which one of us is which,” Cash said, which might have been the longest sentence he’d ever spoken in front of everyone.
“Holy fuck,” Danny said and blinked.
“Seriously?” Wilder asked, his mouth twitching. “I’m sorry, just—” And he laughed.
Cash grinned and shrugged.
Okay, huh. So maybe it could be a funny story withthisfamily.
I patted Danny on the back one last time and released him. “Thanks, man.”
“It can be hard to apologize,” Danny said. “I appreciate it.”
“Probably got more of that to do,” I said and slumped down on the couch.
Danny sat next to me. “Yeah?”
Cash grabbed his blanket off the recliner and tossed it to me, and my fingers found the holes between the loose stitches.
“I dunno.” I shrugged. “What do you say to someone when you messed up bad?”
