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“Yep. And I want you to meet her. Dad and Led, too. And Carl.” I jerked my head toward the sprawled out, sleeping husky. “She wants to meet all of you. I just figured it was better we hashed this out first, because I know what you’re gonna say.”
My brother straightened in his seat and finally looked at me. “Oh, do you, now? What’s that?”
“That I can’t just forget how I’ve felt about waitresses overnight and fall in love, but you’re wrong. It’s pretty easy to forget stuff like that once you have to look at yourself in the mirror. That shit was incredibly unfair, judgmental, probably a little prejudice or bias or whatever the right word is, too. Classist, maybe? That doesn’t quite seem right, but whatever. It was a dick thing to think and I was a dick for thinking it,” I admitted. “Not all that hard to get past it.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
I scoffed. “Yeah? Okay, then. What were you going to say?”
“That I’m fucking happy for you,” Sterling said honestly. “That it’s about time you found someone who makes you happy, and yeah, I worry about you and that fragile little heart of yours that you seem to give to people like it’s fucking Halloween candy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t support you. If you’re serious about this girl, then yeah. I want to meet her. Just give me a list of things I’m not allowed to talk about like usual.”
The reminder made me blush, but I understood why he brought it up. In the past, any time I’d get close enough to someone to merit them meeting Sterling, I had to give him a list of off-limits topics – my gambling issues, my past promiscuity, how rich I really was, my tendencies to self-destruct when things were going good ... the list went on. “Not this time, bro. She knows about all of it.”
“All of it?”
“All of it,” I confirmed. “Maybe not every individual story or piece of evidence, but she knows enough that I doubt she’d be surprised by anything you’d say.”
Sterling looked a little bewildered and took a few moments to play the game before answering me again. “So she knows all about you and she’s still around?”
I clicked my tongue. “Did it really take you that whole time to come up with a way to say that that didn’t make you sound like an asshole?” I asked.
“Yeah, pretty much.” Sterling laughed and ducked as I reached across the board to lightly smack him.
“Very fucking funny. Not.”
He had me checkmated in two more moves. “No, but that is,” he said belatedly. “You always leave your king exposed. Always. Haven’t we been through this?”
“We have.” I chose not to point out the irony there. “Who says I didn’t let you win on purpose?”
Sterling snorted as he carefully put the board and pieces away. “Someone telling the truth. But back to your other thing. Have you told her about Gam-Anon?”
“Yes, dear. And I’m going to a meeting here before I leave, so don’t worry.”
“Are you working the steps this time?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know the answer. When I shook my head, he sighed and reached over to squeeze my shoulder. “I was hoping the answer was yes, but I get it. You’ve been doing fantastic, Ollie. I’m really proud of you ... but there’s at least one person you need to make amends to.”
I wracked my brain trying to figure out who and came up short. “You? How many more times do I have to apologize and thank you for everything you’ve done for me?”
“Not me, fuckstick.”
“You’ve picked up on Led’s language, I see.”
“Ollie.” My brother looked like he was at the end of his rope with me, so I shut up and let him continue. “I meant Kapri. The bartender over at Fitz’s. I normally wouldn’t bother getting involved in stuff like this, but Zeppelin let it slip that Kapri is nursing a Bishop-sized wound over the way you’ve treated her over the years, and if you don’t explain to her what’s what, it’ll just get worse when people find out about Mia. She’s a big girl, she can handle it, but she still deserves an explanation and an apology.”
I wanted to argue with him, to remind him that I wasn’t obligated to date every person who hit on me and didn’t have to have a single valid reason not to, but he was right. Kapri wasn’t like most people who hit on me and I turned down. I’d technically done the same thing to her that I complained about having done to me, and that was breaking one of my cardinal rules. “You’re right, as always. There are probably a lot of people who deserve an apology from me, but I have to start somewhere. I’ll go tomorrow night. In the meantime ... go grab your wife and your neighbor. It’s time to play a game I always win.”
