Page 37 of My Unfinished Heart

I’m surprised they didn’t go through the whole place while they were waiting for me to show up. “Everything’s in your room.”

“My what?” With that, the fragile peace is shattered.

Connor stands up from the table and storms past me, through the kitchen, and down the hall. His limp awkward and pronounced. My eyes fall on Tristan again in his pale blue linen shirt. His golden hair is down, skimming his shoulders. His gorgeous eyes blink back at me.

The desire I had to go home with Jayne Beck last night felt normal. Typical of me. Sex is my favorite distraction, and I haven’t had it in a while. But this thing that happens to me in Tristan’s presence is new. I don’t know how to navigate it. It’s not an urge to fuck—although, there is that—but it’s more like a longing for connection.

“Thanks for the text,” I say.

“You’re welcome.”

“And the iHug, too.”

His grin grows, that beauty that glows so bright inside him cracking loose for a miraculous moment. He opens his mouth to reply, but my brother’s angry shout from the back of the house makes us both jump. “Tristan!”

“Excuse me,” he whispers as he gets up and hurries past me. The spring coconut smell of him is as familiar as it is nostalgic. His fleeting proximity has my lungs in a vice grip. I lean back on the kitchen counter, cross my arms over my chest, hang my head, and wait. His fresh scent lingers in the air around me.

I can hear them talking, but I can’t understand what’s being said. This goes on for so long, I nod off. Standing up. In my kitchen.

I jerk awake when Connor bumps a fist into my shoulder and fixes me with a glare so hard it could make diamonds tremble. “I don’t want to stay here. Not with you.”

“I know.”

“If you know, then why did you set up that room? Why wouldn’t you keep my stuff in storage so I could just come pick it up”

“I guess…” I sigh. Nothing I say will make any difference. Nothing I do will, either. I did my best with his things. I tried to be so respectful, leaving most of them untouched except for the bedding and a few things he had on his wall at the other house. But he’s still so angry. His hatred pushes at me with so much force it might as well be his hands.

“You guessed—? What? That I would see the room and think you give a shit about me? I don’t. It’s not working, Archer.”

My throat gets tight, and I nod, trying once again to find my words, but I swear I’m seven and scared silent again. I’m wrong and sick and too stupid to get this right. I can only manage a nod. I agree with him. It’s not working. Nothing I’ve done since I’ve come back has worked.

He turns away, and his body shakes. Shivers. In an instant Tristan is beside him, his hand on Connor’s back. He speaks softly into my brother’s ear, and jealousy at the touch—the intimacy between them—lances through me.

“I can’t—I can’t.” My brother shakes his head. Tears cover his face, but he’s out of the room again before the sight of him like that rips me to shreds.

My jaw is so tight, I have to focus to open it. I rub my face again, my hands unable to press hard enough. It’s the numbness creeping in again, but when Tristan takes a step toward me, my spine stiffens. I would back away, but I have nowhere to go.

“He needs to move in here,” he says, his voice quiet, like he doesn’t want Connor to hear.

“I—uh—” can’t form any fucking words. He’s standing too close. I’m not cut out for this.

“You have to make this okay for him,” he says.

“How?”

“Ask him to move in. Tell him you want him here.”

“You heard what he said. I think he’d rather sleep under a bridge.”

“Then you have to try harder,” Tristan says to me, and the look on his face is impossible to refuse. For me to refuse anyway. It has me ready to beg. His hands are in fists at his sides, and I want them on me. I want that reassurance he gave my brother. I want his fucking hug.

But it’s not mine to have. It’s Connor’s, and Connor is mine now, too. Funny how this thing I used to wish for so badly—a brother—this brother—I finally get, and he’s as broken and poisonous as they said I was.

I nod and push myself away from the counter and, accidentally, toward Tristan. I indulge a questionable impulse to look into his eyes for a second. His breath catches at the same moment mine does.

Christ…

He glances away and takes a step back.