Page 532 of Manhattan Bossholes

I strode into the great room prepared to find a bench so I could wait for my perpetually late brother, but he was already there looking healthier and happier than I’d seen in ages.

“Hey,” I said, pulling him into a quick hug. I didn’t care about my stone-cold reputation or any potential stalk-arazzi around, after everything we’d been through, when I saw my brother, I was going to hug him. Hard.

“Hey yourself, right on time.” He slapped me on the back a few times.

“Yeah, you need to tell me what we’re doing here.” I gestured to the swarms of school kids shrieking around us. “This feels really odd.”

“Walk with me,” he said cryptically, gesturing me to follow him.

We wound up in a quieter exhibit hall, filled with gems and minerals.

“You looking to pick up a new hobby or something?” I asked, pointing to the display with rocks cracked open to reveal sparkly interiors. “What’s up?”

He ignored my weak attempt at an icebreaker. “Lots, actually. First, I wanted to talk to you about Amanda.”

My stomach bottomed out. Fuck. After everything he was still hung up on her? The day she’d visited him in the hospital she’d stormed out of his room after about ten minutes, and he’d been stony and silent when I went in to check on him. He hadn’t said anything about what went on between the two of them, and it didn’t feel like it was my place to ask.

“Okay…” I said slowly. “I’m listening.”

I pretended to be interested in the various sparkly things around us, but there was no way I could focus on anything but Christopher. I tried to be subtle as I studied him. Was I missing signs of distress again? Was he manic and hiding it?

“I said some really shitty things to her when she came to visit me,” he began. “I just wanted to hurt her the way she’d hurt me, you know?”

I nodded, secretly pleased that he’d stood up for himself and put her in her place for a change.

“I was going to leave it at that. Just close that chapter of my life, move on and be done with her. It wasn’t true closure, but I felt like I’d made my point, you know? Then she reached out to me a week later and asked to meet for coffee.”

I could feel the frown taking over my face, so I struggled to remain neutral. “Yeah but…what about the restraining order Tim threatened?”

He waved his hand and made a disgusted noise. “That was all bullshit. Tim was being an insecure dick. She was never on board with that.”

Given that he’d sounded like a puffed-up, insecure bully on the phone, I wasn’t shocked.

“At first I was stressed out about meeting her,” Christopher said, cracking his knuckles as we walked through the exhibit. “Was she going to scream at me and cause a scene? I was prepared for anything. But guess what she did?”

I snorted angrily. “The sky is the limit with that woman.”

“Right? Well, the very first thing she did when we sat down was apologize to me. I nearly passed out, because I didn’t think the word ‘sorry’ was part of her vocabulary.”

“Amanda apologized to you? For what?”

Christopher ducked his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “A lot of stuff. Some of it was pretty deep. The headline of all of it? This baby was unplanned. She flat-out told me that it wasn’t a case of not wanting a baby with me and wanting one with Tim. When she said that I felt like a weight had been lifted off my heart. I kept beating myself up, you know? Why him? What did Tim have that I didn’t? But in the end, it wasn’t about that.”

“Well shit, so she still doesn’t want a baby and she’s having one?” I asked. “That poor kid.”

Christopher shrugged. “I didn’t want to get into that. It’s not my business now. And to acknowledge that fact—that what she does has nothing to do with me—and be okay with it? It’s incredible. I feel like I have…well, I have peace. That anger I used to feel is gone. I’m not obsessed with punishing her for hurting me. Honestly, I walked away from that meeting and felt like a new man. My life is about moving forward, and she’s not a part of it. I’m not stuck in the past now.”

A wave of envy rolled through me. What I wouldn’t give to feel that way. Of course, I didn’t envy everything my brother had been through to get to this point, but I sure as hell wished I could be positive about my own future—that I could see new things on the horizon that had me hopeful or optimistic. All I had were questions, sadness, and so much left unsaid.

“You should try having an actual conversation when you’re going through tough shit, you know? Talking things out does wonders.” Christopher gave me a pointed look that I ignored.

“Well, good for you.” I slapped his back. “I’m proud of you.”

He snorted. “As your older brother I should be saying that to you. Speaking of, how’s your leave going? Are you getting things sorted?”

I shook my head. “We’re not here to talk about me. And there’s nothing new to report. Now are you going to fill me in why we’re here?” I gestured around us.

“No, I’m going to show you.”