Page 518 of Manhattan Bossholes

“What happened?” he demanded, sitting up in bed. “How did it go?”

I sat in the chair next to the bed. “We need to talk.”

“Why?” He shrank back and my heart fractured to see my strong brother so broken. “What did she say?”

“I didn’t talk to her, Tim picked up. He said that you need to stop calling.” I neglected to add the part about a restraining order.

“That asshole,” Christopher said.

“Yeah, he is, but…I agree with him. It’s time to move on.” I said it softly, sure that he was going to crumble. “She doesn’t love you anymore.”

He smacked the bed in frustration. “I know that. You think I don’t know that?”

“Well, I mean…” I gestured to the machines that were connected to him. “Honestly, I’m not sure.”

“James, I want clarity from her. I want to have a conversation with her, that’s it.”

“Then why did you end up here?” I asked, sounding more angry than I meant to. “You’re a smart guy, Christopher. You know you’re not going to find clarity in a bottle of pills.”

He closed his eyes and turned his head away from me.

“What clarity could Amanda even give you?” I asked, hoping that he wouldn’t shut me out completely.

He turned back to me, his face contorted and his eyes shining. “She could give me an answer about what Tim has that I don’t. Why that fucking clown is fit to be a father and I wasn’t.”

Seeing my brother in that kind of pain was a dagger in my heart, especially knowing there was nothing I could do to fix it.

“Is it me?” he asked, a desperate tone in his voice. “You can tell me, James. Is there something…off about me?”

The way he asked the question gutted me.

“No, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. You’re amazing.”

“And that’s why I need to talk to her,” Christopher yelled, caught in a loop of anger and pain. “If she would just talk to me, I could figure it out. Fix it, you know? One conversation, that’s all I need. It would be so good for us.”

I was exhausted from the past twenty-four hours and sick of his obsession with his ex. I needed to put a stop to his delusions. “Christopher, Tim said that if you ever reach out to them again, they’re filing a restraining order, okay? Do you get it now? They’ve moved on, and you should too. Your behavior is getting weird.”

The second the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. Christopher withered as if I’d punched him.

“She said that?”

I backtracked quickly. “Tim did, not her. But you shouldn’t test them, okay? Let’s focus on getting you out of here, and then we can work on a new strategy to keep you in a healthy place. Maybe we need to get you more involved at work? That could help, right? Staying busy is always a good idea.”

“Natalie said the same thing,” he murmured, staring at the wall beyond me.

She was the last person I wanted to think about in this moment.

“She’d almost convinced me to start coming back to the office one day a week.” He finally looked at me. “You two are good together; I envy your relationship. Maybe someday that’ll happen for me too.”

A painful sensation radiated in my chest. I wasn’t about to tell him what had gone down with her, not now while he was so vulnerable.

“The only person I’m thinking about right now is you,” I said, reaching out to grab my brother’s hand. “Got it?”

What I didn’t tell him was that my heart couldn’t handle any thoughts of the woman I was leaving behind.

23

NATALIE