For some reason, I decide that while my friend is literally cradling me with my ass in his face, it’s the perfect time to settle our differences. “But I want to, Croix. I really need to apologize for—”
“Look, I know there are things that need to be said,” he interjects. “But your arse is currently in my face, you’re not exactly a featherweight, and I’m about to come face-to-face with my ex-girlfriend, who, for the record, has been playing nursemaid to you for weeks.”
I frown, the internal sting of his words competing with my knee. “How do you know she’s been helping me?”
He lets out a harsh breath. “Tatum. It slipped out.”
“Since when are you and Tatum close enough to gossip about my marriage?”
“It wasn’t like that. It came up when she was going over the logistics for today. Look, the point is, I know she’s there. I know she’s been helping you.”
“I haven’t made a move, Croix,” I say, the honesty bleeding through. “She wants nothing to do with me like that anymore. I’ve respected her boundaries.”
“So you’re telling me you don’t want her back?”
“I didn't say that. I said she’s done with me. I’ve been trying.”
Croix grunts. “Have you tried flowers?”
“No, but Aspen is more complex than that. The average stuff won’t do.”
“Have you tried just giving her your heart?”
I let out a grunt of my own. “I said I’m trying! She’s a brick fucking wall.”
Croix shifts my weight, moving me higher with a grunt. “Well, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought. Try harder! No woman would let you break her heart like that and then agree to be in your life if she wasn’t holding onto at least a shred of hope. She wants you to fight.”
I pull back slightly to look at the side of his head. “And since when did you become an expert on women?”
“Not women,” he says quietly. “Her.”
He really does care about her.
“I know you let her go because of me,” he continues. “Because of the pressure and the politics of this whole shit show.”
“It was a bit more complicated than that,” I say, though I don’t fully deny it.
“Still. I admire the loyalty, Luca. Truly. But enough is enough.” He pauses, and though he speaks it in his native Gaeilge tongue, I understand the phrase perfectly. “What is past, let it be past.” Something his mother used to say often.
“I will always have love for you, brother. I never meant to—”
He shakes his head and cuts me off. “Enough already. I’ve been seeing someone else, anyway. Someone who actually fits me. It’s made things a lot clearer regarding Aspen. We weren't meant to be.”
I raise a brow as the auditorium doors loom ahead. “Someone new, eh?”
“Oh no,” he says, reinforcing his rule not to bring girlfriends around his friends. “If it gets serious-serious, you’ll be the first to know.”
“First?” I ask, the word feeling like an olive branch.
“First,” he confirms.
It’s just one word, but it’s the only confirmation I need. The air between us finally starts to clear, the static of the last few months vanishing. I didn’t just get a piggyback ride to the door; I got my brother back.
He carries me through the auditorium doors, where I spot Aspen talking to a man. Under any other circumstances, like if my leg wasn’t screaming and I wasn’t currently hitched to another man's back like he was carrying me across a threshold, I’d have a few choice words for the way he's looking entirely too comfortable with my wife.
Aspen’s eyes go wide the moment she catches sight of Croix staggering under my dead weight and me. “What happened?” she cries, rushing over as Croix dumps me unceremoniously onto a nearby bench.
“He took a few hits,” Croix says, breathing hard. He looks at me, and for the first time today, he looks like he’s trying very hard not to burst into laughter. “I’ll leave you in the hands ofthe professional,” he says and I don’t miss the way he glances at Aspen. It’s warm but still shifty.
