Page 80 of Go Back to December

“Before Luiza has a chance to talk to you, Alicia waltzes in and steals your focus. Then, Dooley proposes a team game, puts you on the same team as Alicia instead of us together.”

“Luiza’s pissed because we played against each other?”

“She’s pissed because you ignored her, and she thought you were flirting with your ex while your girlfriend was standing right there.”

His eyes snap to mine; he senses the line I’ve crossed.

I’m not just talking about Luiza anymore.

“That didn’t happen,” he insists. “Alicia wasn’t the focus of my attention. You were.”

I flush. “I know.”

“Guess I tested those boundaries of yours again.”

“Yeah,” I say softly.

“Yeah,” he echoes, his mouth curling.

“I doubt Luiza saw us.” Hopefully no one else did either. “That’s not why she ran off upstairs. Alicia showing up hit a nerve.”

Baz tosses his bowl onto the coffee table and scrubs a hand down his face. “She’s so goddamn reactive. She takes everything personally. It’s why—”

“Why, what?”

With a sigh, he admits, “It’s been easier for me to stay away.”

“It hasn’t been easy for her.”

He doesn’t debate with me.

And since I’m in the business of exploding bombs tonight, I ask, “What happened between you and your family? You promised me explanations.”

After tonight, he owes me.

With one of his long sighs, he says, “Five years ago, I made a colossal mistake. It hurt my family in a way I can never repair. And then I made it worse.”

His fingers beat on his thigh. “Right after, I left the country for an internship at The Hague. I bailed on everyone and everything. And we’ve never talked about what happened.”

“Five years is a long time to be apart,” I say carefully. “Your family wants to move past it to have a relationship with you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“They’ve been begging you to go to this thing at the lake—”

“I can’t do the lake.”

“At least attempt to talk to Luiza in the morning. She misses her brother. That’s why she went to Q.”

Baz barks a laugh at the ceiling.

“She does,” I argue. “If I can forgive Craig for leaving me to deal with my father’s death on my own, Luiza will forgive you for running away from home.”

“What if Craig had done something worse?” he murmurs. “Would you forgive him?”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Baz was asking if I could forgive him for what he did.

“I’d do my best to understand. And if he explained, and promised he’d do everything not to let it happen again, I would forgive him.”