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My throat tightens slightly as everyone murmurs amen, followed by Logan repeating Salem’s name in reminder. When I open my eyes, my mother is staring at me like she’s trying not to cry again, and I don’t really know what the hell I’m supposed to do with that.

“What were you doing all this time?” one of my little brothers—Zach again—suddenly blurts at me with narrowed eyes. “Were you in jail?”

Logan chokes on his sip of water. “Dude, seriously?”

“That’s enough from you,” Joel warns.

I take a deep breath and open my mouth to answer, or at least try to, but my mother beats me to it.

“Your grandparents raised Devon,” she says, meeting my gaze before addressing her younger sons. “Remember how we talked about Logan being adopted? Well, your grandparents adopted him from us. From your father and me.”

Eli twists his face into a grimace. “But why?”

There’s a brief moment of silence as silverware scrapes on porcelain. I don’t really know what to say, so I poke at the green bean casserole on my plate, feeling nauseous.

Eventually, Joel wipes his mouth with a napkin and leans back in his seat. “We were young when he was born. Your grandma and grandpa agreed to… take care of him for us until we were ready, but life got a little sidetracked.”

It’s not the full truth, but it’s not quite a lie, either. Maybe it’s enough, without mentioning all the ugly details—how my grandparents forced their hand because they were sixteen and unmarried.

The boys seem to accept it anyway.

“Do you have a dog?” Gabe asks around a mouthful of food.

I shake my head and smile. “Sadly, no. But my roommate has a python. And a motorcycle.”

Zachary’s face lights up at that, the little hellion. “Cool,” he declares. “You’re the fun brother.”

Logan takes immediate offense, but an unexpected joy makes me grin. Across the table, Sarah watches us with a watery smile. So does Joel as he asks about my life. What I’ve been up to since last year, who I’m seeing, what I do for work. All questions that only send me further into a spiral, because I don’t know how to answer them. I don’t know if it matters.

Honestly, I don’t know how forgiveness works or how long it’s supposed to take for the ache inside my chest to disappear.

Maybe it never will.

But as my younger brothers talk over one another, trying to convince their parents to get them a snake for their birthday, I start to feel that maybe the ache just became a lighter burden to carry.

CHAPTER FORTY

Christian

It's late when I get home from my mom's house.

The apartment is completely dark, not even a lamp illuminating the space when I walk in. The door clicks shut behind me, loud in the silence, and I stand there for a second to let my eyes adjust.

“Dev?” I call quietly.

No response. My gut drops as I kick off my shoes. Logan and Salem got a hotel, and Owen's staying with his parents for the night. Last I heard, Dev was on his way back home, but that was a few hours ago. I pull out my phone to check his message again.

Logan's dropping me off at the apartment. Tonight was kind of a lot, my head isn't in a great space.

I'd responded with “Take a nap, I'll be home soon,” but that went unanswered. My heartbeat kicks up a notch.

“Devon?” I try again, louder this time.

A beat of silence passes, then from down the hall⁠—

“In here.”

Relief washes over me as I follow the sound to my room, where I find him stretched across the bed in a pair of my sweatpants. The dim glow from The Ex Wife's terrarium lights up half his face, the other covered by his arm. Roots by Imagine Dragons quietly plays in the background.