AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My little brother went straight from rehab to joining a religious cult,” I tell her, my voice low. It sounds true. Probably because it is. I haven’t seen my brother in years because he’s written me—us—off and that’s fine with me. I don’t tell just anyone my family history, but if I want to convince Skye to unburden her woes to me, I’ll need to give her at least a little bit in return.
She purses her lips in sympathy. “Mine went through that. Addiction, I mean. Not the religious cult stuff.” Her cheeks flame just the tiniest bit, and the blush is too damn delectable on her pale skin. “He’s been sober for four years, though. He quit drinking and gambling all at once, when…” She winces. “I’m sorry. This is heavy. We should talk about fun things on dates, right?”
“You can talk about anything you want, beautiful. I mean that.”
She presses a thumb to her temple, letting her shoulders sag. “It’s been a while since I’ve done this, sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I reach across the table again, catch her hand in mine and draw it away from her forehead to wind my fingers through hers. “Like I said, talk about anything you want. I don’t believe in all that ‘small talk’ first date shit. Real talk is where you get to know people. Why bother with fake bullshit?”
“I know you’re humoring me, but I’m going to let it slide just this once,” she says with a sideways smile. “What about you? You haven’t told me much about yourself either, other than you used to fight and you might become a mechanic once you leave acquisitions.”
“Oh, I’m average,” I reply, my tone sharp.
She snorts. “Okay, I deserved that one. But really. What’s your deal, Xander?” Her eyes lock onto mine, and I want to fall into her and never stop. Fuck, what’s she doing to me? “I want to know everything.”
6
Skye
Shit. I knew he was attractive—drop dead gorgeous, even. And I knew he would tempt me into misbehaving in all the right (or wrong?) kinds of ways. But I had no idea he’d be so … open, like this. In fact, I’ve never been on a date quite like this one.
We barely made it through the appetizers before he started in on the deep stuff. Before I know it, we’re sharing our entrees—something I never do since I usually just want what I order—and commiserating about our respective families. As I roll the insanely flavorful sesame orange chicken he’d ordered over my tongue, he talks about his own little brother, Jacob, who started out with just the occasional line of coke to get him through a long workday in New York banking. It hadn’t taken Jacob long to start dabbling in speedballs and then heroin because it was cheaper. From there everything was all a downhill spiral.
Since Jacob got clean, he hasn’t spoken to Xander—Stone, as he keeps calling himself—aside from a couple of weird letters written from a “religious retreat” somewhere in the Midwest. From what I understand, Jacob is the only family Stone has left.
“I wish I could tell you that gets easier.” He’s been hands-on all night, but now it’s my turn to reach out and wrap my fingers around his, squeezing just enough to let him know I understand what he’s going through. I felt the same way when Ian was at his lowest point. Like there was no one to turn to, no one who could understand me. I clear my throat before I continue, “But to be honest, you’re always going to want to save him a little too much. And you’re never going to be able to, because he has to save himself.”
Stone curls his fingers through mine. His eyes haven’t left my face all night, which I have to say is a new and frightening experience for me. When he stares at me like he does, I feel naked. Like he’s gazing at me, laid bare before him, and he loves everything he sees.
That’s another new sensation for me. Or maybe not new, exactly—guys have found me attractive before—but they’ve never looked at me quite the way he does. I’ve never felt a rush from it like this before. And it’s never been quite so mutual.
“Is that what you did?” Stone asks, his voice a gentle growl that sends shivers down my spine. “Tried to save Ian?”
I grimace, but nod at the same time. “What else could I do? He’s my brother. I didn’t want to watch him suffer. But it didn’t matter what I did; if I hid all the booze in his apartment, he’d go out to bars and blow his entire paycheck getting trashed there. If I tried to play it cool, get him to talk to me about what was going on so I could keep tabs on him, he’d start dodging my calls, avoiding me when I stopped by to visit.”
“He was at the casinos constantly, and then he started getting into debt. If I paid it off, he’d just get in deeper. If I let him try to pay it off, he’d never save enough money to do it—he was too busy drinking it all away.”
Stone squeezes my hand, and I brush my fingers against his rough, calloused ones. He’s got the kind of hands that have a story all their own, about the places they’ve been. The things they can make you feel. “How did you learn to let that go?” he murmurs. “To let him sink or swim on his own?”
I close my eyes, remembering the last time I really bailed my brother out of his shit. I was only eighteen at the time and I’d spent the whole day taking care of Mom, rushing her to the hospital because the chemo had dropped her blood pressure again and she fainted on the staircase—luckily right at the bottom. I had to leave her in the hospital to go and find him, beaten and bloodied and curled in an alley outside his favorite casino. One of the bouncers—who was coming after him about using a fake ID to get in again—caught him trying to bribe the dealer into stacking the Blackjack deck.
Ian had told me how sorry he was, slurring and sobbing as he puked against the stone wall. I’d wanted nothing more than to sink down beside him, take the flask from his hand, and down the rest of it myself. Right then, it finally hit me how bad he was, how nothing I ever said would fix him. How he’d drag me down right along with him if I didn’t let go.
So I left him a note with the number of an addicts hotline, a place that knew how to help professionally. Then I turned around, got back into Mom’s car, and drove back to the hospital alone.
I open my eyes again, pressing my lips into a thin line. My eyes sting. “I guess I just realized that, when you see someone drowning, all you can do is throw them a lifeline. If you try to jump in and save them yourself
, you’ll only go down with them.”
It’s been years since that moment in the alley. And everything turned out fine, of course. Ian called the hotline I left him that day. He turned his shit around—it took a long time, and he relapsed a bit at first, especially after Mom passed, but it’s been four years since his last bender.
I miss Mom, but she’d be thrilled to see us now. Stable. Happy. Both of us working hard.
Me on a date.
“Sorry.” Shaking my head, I swallow past the lump in my throat. “That was just an intense time in my life.”
“Don’t apologize, Skye. Not to me. Not ever.”
