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Imitating my brat of a brother, I stuck out my chin. “Fine.”
Rocco blinked and cocked his head. “Fine?”
“Yep.” I popped the P. “Go for it. Wait up as long or as often as you like, but make no mistake…” I took a step back, not because I thought Rocco would hurt me, but because he really did look like he was on the verge of losing it. “I’ll let you know when I'm going out, but remember, I don't answer to you. Then, when I get home from wherever I was doing whatever the hell I wanted to do, I'm not speaking to you about it or justifying my actions. Not a word. I'll come inside and go straight to my room. Period. You'll get what you want—to see with your own eyes that I'm not dead or injured. That's the full extent of what you deserve to know.”
“But –”
Oh, hell no. No more capitulating.
“No, Rocco.” I inhaled a deep breath and it felt like every muscle in my body went slack from lack of energy. “I love you and I appreciate everything you've ever done for me, but you're not bullying me into getting your way. Not this time.”
Focusing on anything but Rocco, my tumu
ltuous emotions began to settle back into place… for the moment. My psyche might have been taken care of, but my body continued to react. Tiny beads of sweat trickled down my spine and my heart pounded as if I ran a marathon. I felt the ache of every single one of the imaginary twenty-six point two miles down to my bones.
For an almost college graduate, I had the distinct impression that I was terribly naïve. Nat tried to warn me, said I wasn't cut out for one night stands. And she was right. When I bumped into Grant at the bar and he asked if I wanted to leave, my mouth worked faster than my brain and I said yes. Reckless Kylie had been in the driver’s seat, eager for an escape, even if temporary, desperate for a moment of freedom from the constant anxiety and guilt. When I got to his place, I freaked out and locked myself in his bathroom. All I got out of my failed one night stand did, was to feel worse. And confused.
Despite how bad an idea going home with Grant was, I think I needed to do it. To attempt to step out of Rocco’s suffocating protective bubble. When Nat and I bumped into him at a college bar in Dupont Circle, Grant seemed like the perfect option for my first foray into no strings sex. He’s good-looking, and looked completely unlike his usual buttoned-up self. Instead, Grant wore a leather jacket and had a couple days of stubble on his jaw. His eyes shone with just enough danger to pique my interest, much different than he acted in class.
Fine, in retrospect it wasn't my best idea, but Grant really did put off some seriously sexy vibes. Why I freaked out, I don't know. Nat admitted she was glad I didn't go through with it. She said he gave her the creeps.
None of which mattered. Not Grant, not my inability to have meaningless sex, and not Rocco. It was a lose-lose situation. Part of me was angry, afraid, and ashamed at what I did, and worse, an even bigger part of me wished I had gone through with it.
Rocco scowled, still standing over me, waiting for me to give in. I hung my head, and exhaled.
Once again, I would hand over another piece of myself in order to make Rocco happy. Sometimes, I felt like a carcass, picked clean to the bones. Every scrap gone, my remnants hollow and empty. I took a deep breath through my nose and pushed onward. I made sure to keep my voice light to soothe Rocco's worries, if for no other reason than to get him off my case.
“You gave up a lot for me. I know that, and you've been there for me when no one else was.” Rocco opened his mouth but I was determined to get it out. If I was going to submit to Rocco's wishes to worm my way out of the situation, I was at the very least, going to cling to a teeny, tiny bit of pride. “But I need this, Rocco. I need to do my own thing. Please? How about a compromise?” I bumped him gently with my hip and smiled. “How about when I go out, I promise to call if I'm going to be late getting home so you won't worry?”
Rocco scrubbed his hands over his face. His palms scritched across the quarter-inch of growth on his cheeks. His arms dropped to his sides and, dammit, he looked crushed. My big, strong, rock-steady brother was breaking. I swallowed.
I did that.
I put that vulnerable look on Rocco's face, and even though I hated seeing it, I did have needs of my own to take into account. Needs Rocco didn't need to know about. Needs that required fulfilling. Needs my brother wouldn’t understand. I was stuck between a rock and a firing squad, either way, I lost.
“I’m sorry.” I whispered.
“Me too.”
Rocco reached out and wrapped his arms around me. Surrounded the familiar, comforting warmth, and the scent of the body wash he'd used for as long as I could remember, I allowed myself to feel loved. I emptied my mind, used the moment to let go of my problems, all of them—Grant, the look on his face when I told him to bring me home, fighting with Rocco. For that moment, I loosened the binds that connected me to the piles of stress and worry that stuck to me since the day our parents drove to a party and never came home, a tragic result of impossible circumstances. The harsh Minnesota winters combined with a broken streetlight and a perfectly placed patch of black ice.
I laid my cheek on Rocco's wide chest, closed my eyes, and sank into the embrace. As usual, the silence in my head didn't last nearly long enough, and the heavy weight of guilt and doubt crept back in.
How could I be so heartless to my brother? After all he did and sacrifice for me? He took me in. Raised me. Fed me. Hell, he was still taking care of me, paying for my undergrad degree and the roof over my head. I felt like an ungrateful, whiny, brat.
Rocco squeezed tighter. “I think your compromise sounds good. Thank you,” he murmured into my hair.
Overwhelmed by both Rocco’s unwavering love and the truck full of guilt that dumped its load on my shoulders, I stepped back and Rocco dropped his arms. I picked at the hem of my shirt and gave him a watery smile.
“I-I’m pretty tired. I'll see you in the morning?”
“Yeah.” Rocco patted my arm and I snuck one last peek at his face. At least he looked more like himself. Gone was the deep wrinkle and furrowed brow, along with the hostility he used to mask his stark fear of something awful happening to the only remaining member of his family. “Oh, one more thing,” he said. I froze, worried Rocco might know something, maybe about Grant or even the weird semi-crush I had on Sebastian St. Clair. “No more motorcycles, Ky. My heart almost gave out when I saw you on the back one.” He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I nearly shit my pants.”
That, I could do.
I exhaled and quickly nodded. “No problem.”
I was lucky to have him and I knew it. Rocco was so brave and reliable it was easy to forget that I wasn't the only one who lost my parents. Rocco suffered too, and from that unspeakable day forward, he was absolutely petrified he might lose his sister as well.
