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It took me a second to realize that it wasn’t Johnny who had spoken. It was someone else with a familiar voice.
I looked to the doorway again and saw a couple. For a second I didn’t recognize them, and then I did. Liam and Caitlin. Crap. I’d totally forgotten they were due back today. Because my brain had been too busy getting its rocks off and tying itself in knots to avoid looking too deeply into what was happening with Johnny.
Caitlin was staring at her brother, eyes wide. Hesitantly she said, “Johnny?”
He was looking at her, too, his face leached of color. He just said hoarsely, “Hi, Kitty Cat.”
And then she was launching herself at him, arms and legs wrapping around him and sobbing as if her heart would break. Johnny’s arms were wrapped tight around her, too, and I could see his big frame shaking as emotion coursed through him. I could feel it as if we were attached by some invisible cord. Just sex? Yeah right, mocked an inner voice.
Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I was aware of Liam looking shocked, too, eyes glued to where Johnny was lowering Caitlin to the ground now, thumbs wiping her tears and saying, “Sorry, Caitie. I’m so sorry” over and over again.
He led Caitlin over to the couch in the corner of the room. My face flamed as a memory of that night intruded. That was not a visual I needed right now.
Had that been the fuck that had stopped being just about getting our rocks off?
I ran out of the office and past Liam, who barely looked at me. Thankfully the bar was still empty, because I was trembling. Acting on autopilot, I took down a bottle of brandy and two glasses and brought them back to Liam, who was outside the closed door now, looking anxious.
I handed them to him and avoided his eye. “They might need this.”
He took them silently. I went back out to the bar feeling agitated and jittery. Liam appeared a while later looking stern with arms folded across his chest. “Ash, what the hell?”
I blurted out, “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
And then Johnny and Caitlin appeared hand in hand. And even though I knew they were siblings, I had a seismic reaction to that contact. They both looked a little shell-shocked.
Johnny turned to her and lifted her hand to kiss it and I heard him saying, “...back tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to take it all in...”
Then he let her go and Liam automatically went over to pull her into his side protectively. He and Johnny looked at each other for a long moment, tension crackling between them. Johnny looked at Caitlin. The expression on her face must have assured him of something because he just nodded once, briefly.
And then he looked at me, and my insides dissolved. He walked over to the bar and said tautly, “You meant what you said?”
There was so much emotion flowing around us all that it threatened to suffocate me. And he was asking me to step into that with him. The memory of Steve and that awful vulnerability and exposure was too vivid and raw. The memories of this place and my folks’ bitter arguments crowded my head, too.
I couldn’t do it.
So I just nodded and said past the betraying lump in my throat, “Yes, I meant it. It’s over, Johnny.”
He looked at me so hard I could feel my skin being seared. And then he’d turned and was walking out but then stopped abruptly and came back. He leaned over the bar. “You know what, Ash? It’s a pity you fell for the wrong guy, but we’re not all like that, and maybe it’s time to go up and face the freaking apartment.”
He couldn’t have said anything that hit closer to home or hurt me more. Shakily I said, “Screw you, Johnny.”
“Yeah,” he said backing away. “See you around sometime.”
And then he was gone, walking out the door. And that was when Liam exploded. “Jesus Christ, Ash, did he hurt you?”
I turned to look at Liam, who was livid now, as if he’d come out of the fog of shock. I supposed, in a detached way, what older brother wouldn’t be feeling protective to find his little sister with someone’s prodigal errant brother he’d only heard scandalous things about?
He bit out, “So help me, Ash, if he hurt you I’ll go after him right now.”
Caitlin emitted something suspiciously like a sob and Liam looked at her, stricken in an instant, clearly torn now between the two women he loved most in the world. Before this could descend into total chaos and divided loyalties, I put out a hand, horrified to feel the lump in my throat grow and tears pricking my eyes. An awful wrenching sense of loss gripped me, worse than anything I’d ever felt before, even when Mom had taken me to LA.
Johnny was right, I was a coward.
“No, Liam, he didn’t hurt me. At all.”
They both looked at me.
A sob worked its way up to my throat, constricting it. “I think—” I stopped then forced out “—that I’ve hurt him.”
