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That’s when things got blurry for a few years. I just knew it wasn’t good. And I remembered the closet Mrs. Pappas would lock us in for “acting up.”
As if she knew that the worst punishment for Jan and me was to be separated. To be forced to be all alone in that dark, dark room. Milo too, because eventually he joined our little gang of two, even if he was too old for our games at first. I didn’t realize how hard it had been for him till later, being excluded those first years. But Janus and I had grown up with a sort of twin-speak, especially when we were younger kids, where we had an uncanny knack for knowing what the other was thinking or feeling.
Later it bothered me. Like I wasn’t even able to have my own thoughts to myself… But when we were young… Closer than two peas in a pod.
You’d never think it, to see us now.
I winced as I levered my body weight forward on the crutches and felt pain lance up my leg. I placed the crutches and hefted myself forward again. One step and then another and another, ignoring the pain. Until I was not only into the living room but all the way to the window. Finally seeing a different fucking scene than the view from my bedroom.
From here I could see down onto the plaza, not just the back of another building.
I breathed out a little harder than I would have preferred, even as I enjoyed the warm of the sun on my face through the window. Two months ago I’d been training with elite athletes and professionals at the top of their game to star in a blockbuster, and now I wheezed at walking ten feet—
“Look,” Milo said from beside me, pointing down at the plaza below. “She’s back.”
My heart leapt and not because of the stupid walk to the window. There she was. Hope’s lithe figure striding across the bright plaza towards our building. Goddamn, this woman had done something to me. It was something else to find a person suddenly in your life who fulfilled every fantasy you never even knew you had. Something I never expected.
Obviously. I hadn’t known how to handle her when I was suddenly presented with her in the flesh.
At some point in my past, something deep was hijacked in me. And then I just sort of detached… from everything around me. My brothers, my art, anything except going through the motions of existing. It felt like enough. It felt like success. Until Hope started chipping away at it. And then goddamn, when the news of her being pregnant hit—
I braced myself against the wall and ran my hand through my hair. I hoped I was fucking presentable.
So many tables had spun on their axes lately.
When we’d first met, Hope had been the one off-kilter, in pigtails and overalls when I’d been in my suit. I’d been trying to hide how damn attracted to her I was, anyway. And now look at us. Me simply glad to be on my feet when she came in and not laid out on my damn ass.
The door pushed open and Hope’s brow was low. She looked up suddenly, like she was startled to find us in the living room. Which was fair, considering most the time I was holed up in the bedroom.
Her face quickly transformed from surprise to anger, though. Okay, that caught me off guard. I thought she’d be happy to see me up and around.
“What the fuck have you all been up to?” she asked, eyes furious as they skewered first me, then Milo.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Milo said, in a tone I thought was fairly diplomatic for how pissed she looked. “What exactly are we supposed to have done now?”
Hope’s eyes came back to me. “Did Janus take the fall for you when you were teenagers? When you crashed?”
I felt my eyes widen in alarm, which obviously gave me away. But what the fuck? Who had told her about that? Janus? That fucking bastard. I’d kill him.
“It’s not what you think,” I said, holding a hand up.
Her mouth dropped open. “It’s not? Did you or did you not crash a car into a lady’s house?”
I clenched my teeth. “I did.”
“And did you spend even a day in jail for it?”
Milo’s head swung back and forth between us like we were a tennis match. “No, but—” he started and Hope’s face swung his way. She looked betrayed. “You knew too?”
“Hope, what the fuck’s really going on here?” I asked. “Who even told you about that?”
“How could you do that to Janus?” she asked, eyes huge like she didn’t know me.
“He offered,” I cut her off.
“Even if that’s the truth—you accepted?” She looked at me like I was a monster. Considering some of the things Janus’d had to face down while he was locked up, maybe I was.
