Page 36 of My Unfinished Heart

“I don't know. D and D. P.I. even”

“What's a D and D?

He laughs. “All right. I believe you.”

“I take it by your superior tone this isn't your first time,” I say.

“It’s my third.”

“What were the first two for?”

“I got a DUI in college. Had my license suspended a year, a hundred hours of probation—drug tests, everything. Cost a fortune. The second time, I got in a fight. Put a guy in the hospital for a couple days. He started it, so I got off relatively easy and served six weeks, but I'm still on probation for that.”

I may not be familiar with all the criminal terminology, but “probation violation” is a term I know. “How much trouble are you in?”

He turns away from me, but not before I see the look in his eyes. I was wrong earlier. He isn’t angry. He’s jaded. He’s exhausted. He’s sad. The easy-going teenager I left behind six years ago is gone. I don’t doubt for a second that I had something to do with the creation of this new guy.

I am a total dick for not telling him I was moving to Seattle. Going for more than half a decade without reaching out to him a single time is unforgivable. If the situation were reversed, I would have felt abandoned. And irrelevant.

But he never would have done that to me. He has always been a better friend than I am.

“Thanks for coming down here,” he says after a long time without anything being said.

“No problem.” I piss him off, sure, but he knows as well as I do, there’s only one way out of this bowl.

SEVEN

The Plank

West is released the next morning on a one-hundred thousand dollar bond, which I pay. That also means I get to take him home and endure his sullen silence, because I bought it, I guess.

It’s military level torture in my car this morning. It might have more to do with the fact that my new car is a Porsche, but I keep my billion dollar mouth shut and drive him home without asking questions.

It’s been about twenty-four hours since I ran into him at HEB. I slept in my car for maybe three of them, so I’m not exactly ready to see Connor at my kitchen table when I come in through the side door—and I certainly am not at all prepared to see Tristan sitting next to him.

The sight of them in my house causes me to lose my footing on the top step, creating a suave stumbling entrance that makes me look like I’m either drunk or hung over. I’m neither, however, given my state of dress and the smells I’ve been exposed to over the last twelve hours, it would be fair to assume.

“Oh, look…he’s home.” Connor leans back in my kitchen chair and sweeps his gaze over me, a look of pure disappointment on his face. Since the last time I saw him, he’s gotten even more emo. His hair is still black, still shaggy and half covering his eyes. His skin is pale, which makes his starkly pink lips and piercings stand out, and today, he has a smear of red liner beneath his eyes, making him look both beautiful, and ill.

I’m not sure how much has changed, or why Tristan thought this would be a good idea, but he knows my brother better than I do, so I have to trust for the moment that Connor wants to be here. Still. His assessing gaze and the disdain in it get to me.

Sometimes I have to remind myself he isn’t actually a reincarnation of my mother. This is one of those times.

“Rough night?” he asks.

There’s a needle to thread here, and I haven’t slept enough to be able to do it well. “Yeah. It was,” I drop my keys onto the counter and take a longer look at Tristan. He’s looking at Connor, an irritated frown on his face. My brother must not be sticking to the script.

Visually, they are such opposites. Connor a storm and Tristan a ray of sunlight.

This is my first time in a room with both of them awake and conscious at the same time, and I can admit to being intimidated. Their bond is thick. If I wanted to, I could probably reach out and grab hold of it.

“You’ve met Tristan, right?”

I can’t remember if it’s okay to say we met or not, but since he already seems to know, I look at Tristan and nod. I have to look away fast because his eyes are grabbing at me, and I don’t want him to see how uncomfortable I am. “Nice to see you again,” I say, with one last glance his way.

He responds quietly, one corner of his mouth tipped up in a grin. “You, too.”

“Great house,” Connor says coldly. “We won’t take up too much of your time, I just need to know where my stuff is.”